APFIVE AP Physics C: E&M Exam Info
Download PDFThe AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Exam will test your understanding of the scientific concepts covered in the course units, as well as your ability to use calculus when solving problems related to electrostatics, electromagnetism, and more.
This is a hybrid digital exam. You’ll complete multiple-choice questions and view free-response questions in the Bluebook testing app. You’ll handwrite your free-response answers in paper exam booklets.
Calculators are permitted for this exam. See AP Exams Calculator Policy for the list of calculators approved for this course.
Reference materials, such as equations sheets and reference tables, are available for this course. Go to Reference Information for Specific AP Exams to find reference materials for AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism and exam day details.
AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Exam
This is the regularly scheduled date for the AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Exam.
Exam Components
Section I: Multiple Choice
Questions are either discrete questions or question sets, in which you may be provided with a stimulus or a set of data and a series of related questions.
Section II: Free Response
This section contains 4 free-response questions, one of each of the following types:
- Mathematical routines
- Translation between representations
- Experimental design and analysis
- Qualitative/quantitative translation
Skills You'll Learn
Creating representations that depict physical phenomena
Conducting analyses to derive, calculate, estimate, or predict
Describing experimental procedures, analyzing data, and supporting claims
Units
Unit 8 – Electric Charges & Fields: Gauss's Law
You’ll begin your study of the electric force with an exploration of electric charges.
Topics may include:
- Coulomb’s Law
- Electric fields due to point charges or combinations of charges
- Electric Flux and Gauss’s Law
- Electric fields of charge distributions
On The Exam
15%–25% of multiple-choice score
Unit 9 – Electric Potential
You’ll continue your study by analyzing forms of energy that occur when electric charges interact.
Topics may include:
- Electric potential
- Electric potential due to point charges and uniform fields
- Electric potential due to configurations of charge
- Energy conservation when electric charges interact with each other or electric fields
On The Exam
10%–20% of multiple-choice score
Unit 10 – Conductors and Capacitors
You’ll explore how electric charge can move through an object and the factors that affect the way charge moves.
Topics may include:
- Electrostatics with conductors
- Capacitors
- Dielectrics
On The Exam
10%–15% of multiple-choice score
Unit 11 – Electric Circuits
You’ll build on your knowledge of electrical components to investigate the nature of electric circuits and explore current, resistance, and power.
Topics may include:
- Current and resistance
- Current, resistance, and power
- Steady-state direct-current circuits with batteries and resistors only
- Gauss’s Law
On The Exam
15%–25% of multiple-choice score
Unit 12 – Magnetic Fields & Electromagnetism
You’ll begin your exploration of magnetism by learning how magnetic fields are generated, how they behave, and how they relate to electricity.
Topics may include:
- Forces on moving charges in magnetic fields
- Forces on current carrying wires in magnetic fields
- Fields of long current carrying wires
- The Biot-Savart Law and Ampère’s Law
On The Exam
10%–20% of multiple-choice score
Unit 13 – Electromagnetic Induction
You’ll build on what you’ve learned about charges, currents, and electric and magnetic fields to explore electromagnetic forces and their properties.
Topics may include:
- Electromagnetic induction (including Faraday’s Law and Lenz’s Law)
Inductance (including LR circuits)
On The Exam
10%–20% of multiple-choice score