The AP® Biology exam has two sections. The first section has 60 multiple-choice questions, and the second contains four short-answer and two long-answer free-response questions. Each section makes up approximately 50% of the overall score.
Questions in the multiple-choice section are worth 1 point each. Your answers will be computer-graded for this section. The free-response questions section, however, is graded manually by AP Readers. The questions in this section are worth between 8 and 10 points for long-answer questions and 4 points for short-answer questions.
Now, it may not always be that the total score for each section equals an exact 50% of the total exam score itself. Sometimes, the multiple-choice section or the free-response section could add up to more than 50%. That’s why your scores are translated into a weighted combination. Let’s take a look at how that works.
Once your total score from each section is calculated, they are combined to make up a composite raw score. This raw score is then translated into a weighted combination and then equated to a number on the AP score scale, which ranges from 1 to 5. In other words, a predefined range of weighted combination scores will equate to a particular scaled score on the table.
You will not be able to see your weighted combination score on the final results or even the individual score for each section. You will only be able to see your scaled score or a score between 1 to 5.