AP CSP Practice Test 2024 Study Guide [UPDATED]

AP CSP Practice Test 2024 Study Guide [UPDATED]: College Board’s Advanced Placement® Program (AP®) Computer Science Principles (CSP) exam is designed to help students prepare for exam topics, regardless of what computer language or method they were taught.

The AP Computer Science Principles exam is a two-hour multiple-choice exam with 74 questions covering seven Big Ideas accompanied by two performance tasks containing five submissions (3 for the Create task and 2 for the Explore task). The College Board recommends you submit your performance tasks on April 15, with a due date of approximately April 30.

AP CSP Practice Test 2024

The AP Exam CSP questions and examples all reflect the style of recent exam questions and cover the essential knowledge topics outlined by the College Board. For the benefit of students and instructors, we have included three practice exams, with an extra exam available online.

Three complete AP CSP practice exams are provided here. One exam is at the start with the diagnostic test. It is accompanied by a diagnostic chart that refers you to related topics in the review exam. The other two AP CSP Practice tests are also added here.

AP CSP Exam 2024

Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science Principles (also known as APCSP) is an AP Computer Science course and examination offered by the College Board to high school students as an opportunity to earn college credit for a college-level computing course.

Computer Science Principles (CSP) Exam Information
Detail Description
Exam Name
Computer Science Principles (CSP)
Administered by College Board
Total Questions 70
Questions Type Multiple-Choice
Time Duration 120 Minutes
Exam Fees $96 (U.S., U.S. territories, Canada, and DoDEA schools)
Retake Limit No limit
Official Link
AP CSP Page

The AP exam uses paper and pencil. (With the exception of the year 2020, only Create and Explore were tested. In 2021, only Create and the multiple-choice section were tested.)

  • It lasts 120 minutes and includes approximately 74 questions.
  • The exam is composed of two sections:
    • Single Select Multiple-Choice: Select 1 answer from among 4 options.
    • Multiple Select Multiple-Choice: Select 2 answers from among 4 options

Section I: End-of-Course Multiple-Choice Exam
70 Multiple-Choice Questions | 120 Minutes | 70% of Score | 4 answer options

  • 57 single-select multiple-choice
  • 5 single-select with a reading passage about a computing innovation
  • 8 multiple-select multiple-choice: select 2 answers

Section II: Create Performance Task 30% of Score

Students will develop a computer program of their choice. Students need at least 12 hours of in-class time to complete.

Scoring Information from the 2021 Exam
Computational Thinking Practices: Skills Concept Outline
  • P1: Computational Solution Design
  • P2: Algorithms and Program Development
  • P3: Abstraction in Program Development
  • P4: Code Analysis
  • P5: Computing Innovations
  • P6: Responsible Computing
  • Big Idea 1: Creative Development (collaboration, software development process)
  • Big Idea 2: Data (binary, compression, spreadsheets, etc.)
  • Big Idea 3: Algorithms and Programming (procedural programming, binary search)
  • Big Idea 4: Computer Systems and Networks
  • Big Idea 5: Impact of Computing (digital divide, bias, crowdsourcing, copyright, information security)

AP CSP Exam Study Guide

The multiple-choice questions are worth 60% of your score and are administrated at the end of the year. There is no penalty for wrong answers, so answer every question, even if you have to guess.

You have a little more than 1.6 minutes per question. You should have enough time to answer all questions on this test, and you will most likely have enough time, in the end, to go back to difficult questions.

The 74 questions are fatiguing. You should practice at least one of the sample tests given in one sitting.

Robots and programming questions can be simplified by hand-tracing the code.

People score the performance tasks, while the EOC exam is scored by machine. The test is independent of the computer language used, but there are both text-based programming questions and graphics-based programming questions.

Note: AP® is a registered trademark of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse this product.

  • AP Computer Science Principles Past Exam Questions  Download