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AP Computer Science A is a college-level course offered by the College Board to high school students who are interested in studying Computer science at an advanced level. It was opted by 96,000 students in 2023 as it is one of the preferred AP courses.
The difficulty rating of AP Computer Science A is 4.4 out of 10 by class alumni on a Reddit survey. The course is demanding and assumes that students have a solid foundation in basic programming concepts and a knack for mathematical reasoning.
Course Contents
Based on the Understanding by Design® (Wiggins and McTighe) model, this course framework provides a description of the course requirements necessary for student success, with a focus on big ideas that encompass core principles, theories, and processes of the discipline. The framework also encourages instruction that prepares students for advanced computer science coursework and its integration into a wide array of STEM-related fields.
The AP Computer Science A framework is organized into 10 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 | Details | Exam Weighting (Multiple-Choice Section) |
|---|---|---|
| Unit 1: Primitive Types | You’ll learn the fundamentals of Java, a programming language, as well as other foundational concepts for coding. | 2.5%-5% |
| Unit 2: Using Objects | You’ll explore reference data as a way to represent real-world objects in a digital world and discover methods to perform more complex operations. | 5%-7.5% |
| Unit 3: Boolean Expressions and if Statements | You’ll delve into the building blocks of algorithms and focus on using conditional statements to solve problems and control results. | 15%-17.5% |
| Unit 4: Iteration | You’ll learn about iteration, another building block of algorithms that are for repetition. | 17.5%-22.5% |
| Unit 5: Writing Classes | You’ll explore how real-world interactions can be expressed digitally by organizing behaviors and attributes into classes, and you’ll examine the legal and ethical implications of computer programming. | 5%-7.5% |
| Unit 6: Array | You’ll learn techniques and standard algorithms to work with collections of related data, known as data structures. | 10%-15% |
| Unit 7: ArrayList | You’ll delve deeper into data sets, exploring ArrayList objects for larger amounts of data, as well as the privacy concerns related to personal data storage. | 2.5%-7.5% |
| Unit 8: 2D Array | Now that you’ve explored 1D arrays, you’ll branch out into 2D arrays and experiment with data sets represented in a table. | 7.5%-10% |
| Unit 9: Inheritance | You’ll learn how to manipulate programming without altering existing code by using subclasses to create a hierarchy. | 5%-10% |
| Unit 10: Recursion | You’ll work on solving larger problems by solving smaller, simpler versions of the same problem using recursive methods. | 5%-7.5% |
AP Computer Science A Resources
Sep 02, 2025
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