How Can I Get a 5 in AP Statistics?

4 min read•july 11, 2024

Harrison Burnside

AP Statistics 📊

265 resources

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Introducing AP Stats 🗣️

AP Stats is a relatively large AP class 👨‍🏫 with quite a few resources online, but there are some amazing ones, like Fiveable 5️⃣, that are here to help! If you can practice for the exam 📝 and use these tips, then you should be all set to do awesome 🤩 on your FRQs and ace your MCQ 🧐 sections of your exam.

3 Tips for a Five 5️⃣

Tip 💡 #1: Know the Exam Format 1️⃣

MCQ Section 🧐

The AP Statistics exam has a pretty standard Multiple-Choice + Free Response structure. When you walk into the exam, the first section you will take is the multiple-choice section of the exam 📎 On the AP Stats exam, you will have:

40 MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions 😉)
90 Minutes (a.k.a 1.5 hours) ⌚ to solve those MCQs ✅
- That math 📉 works out to about 2 minutes and 10 seconds per question ⌛

The MCQ section of the AP Stats is worth 50% (a.k.a half) of your exam score. Like most other AP MCQs, the AP Stats MCQ has 5️⃣ choices, A through E to choose from, with each question having only one correct answer.

FRQ Section ✍️

The second and final 💯 section on the exam is the free-response questions. The Stats exam has two parts to the FRQ section. Courtesy of the College Board Website 💻, the free-response question will include:

Multi-part question with a primary focus on collecting data 🔎
Multi-part question with a primary focus on exploring data ☝️ + ✌️
Multi-part question with a primary focus on probability 🎲 and sampling distributions 📊
Question with a primary focus on inference ⚖️
Question that combines 2 or 3 skills from the first four questions ➕

The last section of your FRQ is called an investigative task 🤔 This question assesses 2 or 3 skills from the first four questions and asks you to apply your statistical skills to new contexts or in non-routine ways.

The sixth 6️⃣ question, the investigative task, is a separate part of the FRQ and is worth 25% of this section's weight 😱 (that is a lllllooooootttt). Free-response questions, like the MCQs, are worth 50% of your total exam score, with the first five 5️⃣ questions being worth 37.5% and the last investigative task being worth 12.5% overall!

Free-response questions, similar to the MCQ, also allow the use of a calculator 🧮, and the same rules apply as before regarding what types of calculators you will be allowed to use. Check out the MCQ Help for AP Stats Article to learn more (coming soon).

For the Section Two 2️⃣, the FRQ portion of your exam, you will receive ⌛:

90 Minutes ⏲️
Six 6️⃣ FRQs (aka Free Response Questions 😉)
- Including, one 1️⃣ special Investigative Task 🤔
- The AP Exam recommends spending 25 minutes ⌚ on this one question 🙀

Tip 💡 #2: Join the Fiveable Community

What is it? Kind of like peer tutoring, but in a group 👩‍🎓👨‍🎓 and all online. Get alerted to live reviews and join the chat to discuss topics and write practice ✍️ questions live.

Why is it helpful? The key feature that Fiveable has that you won't find in any of the other listed resource is making real connections with other students. If you attend sessions live, you can submit questions for teacher and TAs to discuss. The replay will get time-stamped 🀄 with the answered questions, which makes it really easy to go back and review that answer 💪

Fun Feature: The cool thing about Fiveable is that even though the live reviews are at the core of this resource, there are several other key features like trivia games 🏆 that members play live! There are thousands of members across the world 🗺️ and you can see how you stack up against them 😻

Tip 💡 #3: Deconstruct the Formula Sheet 3️⃣

The formula sheet 📜 is one of the most useful pieces of your AP Exam! You will be able to use that (and a calculator 🧮) throughout the whole test ♥️

Let’s go through some steps together to really make sure that you can use your formula sheet to the fullest on test day 😍

Here are some annotated ✍️ formulas from the Descriptive Statistics (Units 1 and 2) of AP Stats:

Now, let's look at some annotated Probability (Unit 4) Distribution Formulas:

Finally, let's discuss some inference formulas, their meanings, and how to apply them to different significance tests and confidence intervals 🎉

All of these formula sheet images are courtesy of AP Stats Slides from:

📽️ Watch: AP Stats — how to get the most out of the formula sheet with Josh Argo

Closing Thoughts 💭

AP Stats 📉 isn't a super hard class, but it does require an in-depth understanding 🤔 of the content and knowing how to apply it to math equations and real-word situations! Make sure to understand these tips 💡 to be able to get that five 5️⃣ in May 🙌 and as always, Think Fiveable 😎

Browse Study Guides By Unit

👆Unit 1 – Exploring One-Variable Data

✌️Unit 2 – Exploring Two-Variable Data

🔎Unit 3 – Collecting Data

🎲Unit 4 – Probability, Random Variables, & Probability Distributions

📊Unit 5 – Sampling Distributions

⚖️Unit 6 – Proportions

😼Unit 7 – Means

✳️Unit 8 – Chi-Squares

📈Unit 9 – Slopes

✏️Frequently Asked Questions

Is AP Statistics Hard? Is AP Statistics Worth Taking?