Important Updates
New AP Course Pacing Guide
This pacing guide (.pdf/172.38 KB), designed for classrooms that have only completed approximately 25% of typical course content by January, can help students develop their knowledge and skills by May. If your students are ahead of this pace, you’ll be able to incorporate additional days or weeks to spend more time on challenging topics, practice course skills, or begin reviewing for the exam.
AP Daily and AP Classroom
Short, searchable AP Daily videos can be assigned alongside topic questions to help you cover all course content, skills, and task models, and check student understanding. Unlock personal progress checks so students can demonstrate their knowledge and skills unit by unit and use the progress dashboard to highlight progress and additional areas for support. As the exam approaches, assign AP practice exams in the AP Classroom question bank and encourage students to take advantage of AP Daily: Live Review sessions April 19–29.
Course Overview
AP Statistics is an introductory college-level statistics course that introduces students to the major concepts and tools for collecting, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from data. Students cultivate their understanding of statistics using technology, investigations, problem solving, and writing as they explore concepts like variation and distribution; patterns and uncertainty; and data-based predictions, decisions, and conclusions.
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AP Statistics Course Overview
This resource provides a succinct description of the course and exam.
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AP Statistics Course at a Glance
Excerpted from the AP Statistics Course and Exam Description, the Course at a Glance document outlines the topics and skills covered in the AP Statistics course, along with suggestions for sequencing.
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AP Statistics Course and Exam Description
This is the core document for this course. Unit guides clearly lay out the course content and skills and recommend sequencing and pacing for them throughout the year. The CED was updated in March 2021.
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AP Statistics CED Errata Sheet
This document details the updates made to the course and exam description (CED) in March 2021.
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AP Statistics CED Scoring Guidelines
This document details how each of the sample free-response questions in the course and exam description (CED) would be scored. This information is now in the online CED, but was not included in the binders teachers received in 2019.
Course Content
Based on the Understanding by Design® (Wiggins and McTighe) model, this course framework provides a clear and detailed description of the course requirements necessary for student success. The framework specifies what students must know, be able to do, and understand, with a focus on three big ideas that encompass the principles and processes in the discipline of statistics. The framework also encourages instruction that prepares students for advanced coursework in statistics or other fields using statistical reasoning and for active, informed engagement with a world of data to be interpreted appropriately and applied wisely to make informed decisions.
The AP Statistics framework is organized into nine commonly taught units of study that provide one possible sequence for the course. As always, you have the flexibility to organize the course content as you like.
Unit |
Exam Weighting (Multiple-Choice Section) |
| Unit 1: Exploring One-Variable Data | 15%–23% |
| Unit 2: Exploring Two-Variable Data | 5%–7% |
| Unit 3: Collecting Data | 12%–15% |
| Unit 4: Probability, Random Variables, and Probability Distributions | 10%–20% |
| Unit 5: Sampling Distributions | 7%–12% |
| Unit 6: Inference for Categorical Data: Proportions | 12%–15% |
| Unit 7: Inference for Quantitative Data: Means | 10%–18% |
| Unit 8: Inference for Categorical Data: Chi-Square | 2%–5% |
| Unit 9: Inference for Quantitative Data: Slopes | 2%–5% |
Course Skills
The AP Statistics framework included in the course and exam description outlines distinct skills that students should practice throughout the year—skills that will help them learn to think and act like statisticians.
Skill |
Description |
Exam Weighting (Multiple-Choice Section) |
| 1. Selecting Statistical Methods | Select methods for collecting and/or analyzing data for statistical inference. | 15%–23% |
| 2. Data Analysis | Describe patterns, trends, associations, and relationships in data. | 15%–23% |
| 3. Using Probability and Simulation | Explore random phenomena. | 30%–40% |
| 4. Statistical Argumentation | Develop an explanation or justify a conclusion using evidence from data, definitions, or statistical inference. | 25%–35% |
AP and Higher Education
Higher education professionals play a key role developing AP courses and exams, setting credit and placement policies, and scoring student work. The AP Higher Education site features information on recruitment and admission, advising and placement, and more.
This chart shows recommended scores for granting credit, and how much credit should be awarded, for each AP course. Your students can look up credit and placement policies for colleges and universities on the AP Credit Policy Search.
Meet the Development Committee for AP Statistics.