The Best AP® Psychology Review Guide for 2024 | Albert Resources (2024)

Menu

• The Albert Team
• Last Updated On: January 29, 2024

If you want to find the best AP® Psychology review guide, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ll review everything you need to know to score a 5 on the 2024 AP® Psychology online exam. We’ll review the exam structure and the topics covered, as well as share review resources for you to start using today.

Excited? Let’s get started.

What’s the Format of the 2024 AP® Psychology Exam?

The AP® Psychology exam includes 100 multiple-choice questions and 2 free-response questions.

The MCQs in Section 1 will focus on:

• Define and explain content from a range of course topics
• Apply skills of concept application, data analysis, and scientific investigation

The FRQs in Section 2 will focus on:

• Explain behavior and apply theories using concepts from different theoretical frameworks or subdomains in the field
• Analyze psychological research studies, including analyzing and interpreting quantitative data

What Units Are on the 2024 AP® Psychology Exam?

The 2024 AP® Psychology exam will cover topics across all 9 units from the course and exam description. Use the following list to make sure you are prepared for any topic that may show up on your exam!

Unit 1: Scientific Foundations of Psychology

• learn about the history of psychology
• compare different theoretical approaches and domains of psychology
• read and interpret graphical representations of data, including dependent and independent variables
• explain statistical significance and apply it to experimental results
• understand different research methods
• learn about the ethical guidelines that shape psychological experiments

Unit 2: Biological Bases of Behavior

• learn about the interaction between heredity, evolution, and environment as they relate to our behavior
• understand how biology, including brain structure, can influence behavior
• study the endocrine system; the nervous system; the anatomy of the brain; and the process of neural firing, including how our brains react to certain drugs
• learn about neuroplasticity and recovery after injury, and understand states of consciousness
• understand what happens to the brain during sleep and dreaming

Unit 3: Sensation and Perception

• understand how humans sense and perceive the world, from both a biological and cultural standpoint
• describe the anatomical structures that allow us to see, hear, touch, smell, and taste

Unit 4: Learning

• interpret graphs and data that display the results of learning experiments
• define and describe different types of learning, including social and cognitive factors that can influence learning
• define and describe classical and operant conditioning

Unit 5: Cognitive Psychology

• learn how we create, encode, store, and retrieve memories
• learn about and differentiate between short- and long-term memory systems
• understand how our brains solve problems, and learn about the different characteristics of creative thought and creative thinkers
• understand the factors that lead to bias and errors in our thinking process
• define intelligence and understand how culture influences how we define intelligence
• explain how psychologists design tests, including how tests are standardized and what makes tests reliable and/or valid
• understand how humans acquire, develop, and use language

Unit 6: Developmental Psychology

• explain conception, gestation, and prenatal development, including how these processes are influenced by factors like substance abuse, illness, and nutrition
• explain how children are socialized and influenced by parenting style
• explain how children’s cognitive abilities and moral development mature throughout childhood and adolescence
• understand the challenges, choices, and decisions that adolescents and adults face at different life stages
• describe how sex, gender, and sexual orientation can influence socialization

Unit 7: Motivation, Emotion, and Personality

• define basic motivational concepts that determine human and animal behavior and compare different motivational theories and research findings
• understand the biological basis for motivation, including homeostasis
• compare and contrast different theories of emotion
• discuss how stress affects wellbeing
• understand how researchers study and measure personality and compare and contrast theories of personality

Unit 8: Clinical Psychology

• recognize the use of the most recent version of the DSM published by the American Psychiatric Association as the primary reference for making diagnostic judgements
• describe contemporary and historical conceptions of what constitutes psychological disorders
• discuss the intersection between psychology and the legal system
• describe the central characteristics of psychotherapeutic intervention
• identify the contributions of major figures in psychological treatment
• summarize the effectiveness of specific treatments used to address specific problems from a biological perspective

Unit 9: Social Psychology

• apply attribution theory to explain motives
• articulate the impact of social and cultural categories on self-concept and relations with others
• describe the structure and function of different kinds of group behavior
• describe the variables that contribute to altruism and aggression
• describe the variables that contribute to attraction

Test Your Understanding: AP® Psychology Multiple Choice Practice Questions

The 2024 AP® Psychology exam will cover topics from across all 9 units. Use the following links to Albert’s AP® Psychology course to see if you truly understand each of the units!

• Unit 1: Scientific Foundations of Psychology
• Unit 2: Biological Bases of Behavior
• Unit 3: Sensation and Perception
• Unit 4: Learning
• Unit 5: Cognitive Psychology
• Unit 6: Developmental Psychology
• Unit 7: Motivation, Emotion, and Personality
• Unit 8: Clinical Psychology
• Unit 9: Social Psychology

2024 AP® Psychology Exam FRQ Practice

Conceptual Application

This question assesses how well you can explain behavior and apply different theories and perspectives to an authentic scenario. You will read a scenario (~1 paragraph) and then explain how specific theories or concepts apply to this scenario. Be sure you brush up on your understanding of specific psychological concepts to answer this question confidently.

Example: 2019 Question 2

Scoring: 2019 Question 2 Scoring Sheet

Example: Pages 172-173 in the Course and Exam Description contain an up-to-date example of the Concept Application question

Scoring: Sample question scoring guide

Research Methods

Brush up on your data skills because this question type tests how well you can analyze psychological research studies — which includes analyzing and interpreting quantitative data. You’ll get a scenario (~1 paragraph in length) explaining a study, a graph or chart summarizing the data from the study, and a number of questions assessing how well you actually understand the design and results of the study.

Example: 2019 Question 1

Scoring: 2019 Question 1 Scoring Sheet

Example: Page 173 in the Course and Exam Description contains an up-to-date example of a Research Methods question

Scoring: Sample question scoring guide

More Practice FRQs

For more examples of previous FRQs, check out the College Board archive for AP® Psychology.

Get FRQs with included sample responses with a license to Albert’s AP® Psychology.

To stay up to date and adjust your study plan accordingly, read our How to Study for Online AP® Exams guide.

Here are some more FRQ tips:

Return to the Table of Contents

7 AP® Psychology Tips and Tricks to Study and Prepare

1. While being able to define important vocabulary is important for the AP® Psychology exam, it’s much more important to truly understand concepts instead of only memorizing flash cards. We recommend using some of the resources (in the section below) to help improve your conceptual mastery.
2. You can’t “wing” these FRQs — not within a 25 minute time limit! There’s no substitute for knowing the material, so be sure that you brush up on all the key concepts, theories, and definitions in the course guide — from the types of attachment to the difference between “reliable” and “valid.” Flash cards can really help!
3. Practice, practice, practice. Seek out as many questions as you can find that assess concept application or research methods. Even multiple-choice questions can be helpful!
4. Time is of the essence. If you don’t answer within the allotted time, your answer won’t be scored. Be sure you’re setting a 25 minute timer every time you do a practice FRQ.
5. For the “research methods” FRQ, you’ll need to understand how researchers design studies; what makes the results reliable, valid, and ethical (or unethical); and how data is summarized in charts, graphs, or tables. Now is the time to brush up on your understanding of quantitative data, so be sure you look at a few questions with graphs, charts, or tables so that you’re familiar with how quantitative research is laid out.
6. Practice with friends or classmates! Have your friends make up concept application or research scenarios for you, and make up some scenarios for them. The more practice you get with these question types, the better! Plus, studying with a friend can be really helpful — as long as you remember that your friends can’t help you come test day!
7. Though you may not be in school right now, there are plenty of resources at your disposal, from virtual office hours with your teachers to AP® Live classes on YouTube to Albert practice questions. Use these resources as much as you can before test day so that you know you are prepared!

Additional AP® Psychology Review Resources

If you’re looking for more AP® Psychology review materials aside from Albert and the College Board, you may find the following resources helpful.

What we’ve linked to below are sites with pretty comprehensive course notes. These can be helpful for conceptual review and step-by-step walkthroughs of Psychology problems. We recommend reading through them, and then checking for understanding by using the accompanying Albert topic.

AP® Psychology.com: This site features a mix of review topics, helpful exam-taking techniques, videos, links to further reading, and more!

Mr. Duez’s AP® Psychology Page: This Texas-based teacher has created a student-centric site jam-packed with review information, videos, notes, handouts, and more.

AP® Practice Exams: This site has compiled a collection of class notes and study packets, including presentations by teachers to their students prior to the exam.

Summary: The Best AP® Psychology Review Guide of 2024

We’ve covered a lot in this review guide for the 2024 AP® Psychology exam. Here are some of the key takeaways:

• AP® Psychology exam will cover topics in all Units 1-9.
• Use Albert or a comparable practice tool to check your understanding of the key concepts that will appear on this year’s test.
• Refer to the FRQs we’ve selected, as they represent some of the most frequently asked FRQs in recent years.

We hope you’ve found this AP® Psychology review guide helpful! Feel free to share with your friends and classmates.