The AP Chinese exam: the 2027 format, scores and how to practise speaking

Most 5s go to students with home exposure

College Board reports AP Chinese results twice: for everyone, and for what it calls the standard group. These are students who learned Chinese mainly in US schools, don't regularly speak or hear it at home, and haven't lived a month or more where it's spoken.

About a quarter of takers are in the standard group. Here's how the two groups scored in May 2025, the latest year with both sets of results:

Nearly nine in ten of those top scores went to students outside the standard group. So if you're in it, a 3 or a 4 is a solid result, not a disappointment.

This isn't a one-year blip. We lined up every third year since the first exam, in 2007:

Source: College Board's score distributions by year and its May 2025 tables. Takers are all students that year. Across all 19 years, the gap ran from 30 to 47 points.

College Board's first figures for the May 2026 exam show fewer top scores overall, at 48%. It hasn't split them by group yet, so we use the earlier year.

None of this means the exam is unfair. It measures Chinese, and students who live with the language have more of it. Your job is to win the points that practice can win, and the task data show where those are.

The gap is widest when you reply on the spot

College Board also publishes the average mark on each written and spoken task. We turned those averages into shares of the points available. Here's how the two groups compared in 2025:

Source: College Board's 2025 scoring statistics; our arithmetic. In 2023 and 2024, the email reply showed the widest gap.

The two tasks with the widest gaps both ask you to answer someone else. The presentation, which you can plan, showed the narrowest.

The exam's chief reader, Professor Xinda Lian of Denison University, spotted a telling habit in 2025. Some students with excellent Chinese gave "technically correct yet very brief answers", the report says, and they earned only basic marks.

In the 2027 exam, the reply-on-the-spot task is the Project Q&A. That's where your daily practice should go.

The 2027 exam, section by section

We checked every part below against College Board's new course and exam description. From May 2027, AP Chinese runs in Bluebook, College Board's testing app, on a laptop or tablet with a wired headset and microphone. Paper exams and recorders are gone, and the whole exam takes about two hours.

It has two halves of equal weight. One is free response: two speaking tasks and two writing tasks. The other is multiple choice, in listening and reading. Here's what each part is worth:

Source: College Board's AP Chinese exam page and its course and exam description, effective fall 2026.

On screen, Chinese switches between simplified and traditional characters. For typing, you choose Pinyin Simplified, Pinyin Traditional or Bopomofo. College Board says none of these choices affects your score.

The multiple-choice half comes in sets of five questions, each built on one or two sources. Listening sets include a report, a conversation, instructions, a presentation and audio that goes with a chart. Reading sets mix articles, charts, emails and letters, literary texts and promotional material.

If you've seen past papers, you'll know the old speaking tasks: a six-question conversation with 20 seconds per reply, and a two-minute cultural presentation. They ended with the May 2026 exam. Everything below is about what replaces them.

The project: you know the topic in January

The biggest change is that you prepare the main speaking task in advance. Each January, College Board releases a project packet through AP Digital Portfolio: a prompt and six to eight sources, such as articles, audio and charts.

You choose a Chinese-speaking region or community to research, and College Board budgets 15 class periods for the work. Then you boil your findings down to a Personalized Project Reference, or PPR: a short outline with a limit on its words or characters.

You submit the PPR by 30 April. On exam day you get a printed copy to glance at while you present.

For 2027, the theme is music, seen through the course's Art and Creativity unit. I'd start a word list on day one. These are worth learning early:

• instrument, 乐器(yuèqì)
• performance, 演出(yǎnchū)
• lyrics, 歌词(gēcí)
• pop music, 流行音乐(liúxíng yīnyuè)
• tradition, 传统(chuántǒng)
• audience, 观众(guānzhòng)

Two rules matter. Your teacher can't pick your topic, write your outline or correct it for you. And College Board lets you use AI tools to explore topics and find sources in Chinese, but the presentation must be your own work.

In our view, this is the best news in the redesign for non-heritage students. A fifth of your score now rides on a task you can plan for months.

How the two speaking tasks work

The speaking tasks come first, in Section I, and take about 15 minutes. Both are about your project.

The presentation: three minutes, three factors

You get three minutes to prepare and three to speak, with your PPR beside you. Readers mark it out of 11 points in five areas: the task, cultural understanding, organization, language and delivery.

For full marks on the task, explain at least three factors with relevant details. For culture, show how a product or practice reflects a perspective: what people value, and why.

Delivery has a trap. A flat talk that sounds read out or recited from memory typically earns no delivery points, so I'd practise from key words, not a script. These phrases hold a talk together:

• first, 首先(shǒuxiān)
• also, 另外(lìngwài)
• this shows that, 这说明(zhè shuōmíng)
• all in all, 总的来说(zǒng de lái shuō)

The Q&A: four questions, 40 seconds each

Right after your talk, a recorded voice asks four questions about your project and research. You hear each one twice, then have 40 seconds to answer. You don't see the questions in advance.

It's marked out of nine points. For full marks on culture, at least one answer should compare cultures or explain why people do what they do. I'd answer the question in the first sentence, then add the reason.

Here's a model answer, in a student's voice, to a question from our timer: where you live, do young people learn traditional instruments too? 在你住的地方，年轻人也学传统乐器吗？ zài nǐ zhù de dìfang, niánqīngrén yě xué chuántǒng yuèqì ma?

• 在我住的地方，学传统乐器的年轻人不多。 zài wǒ zhù de dìfang, xué chuántǒng yuèqì de niánqīngrén bù duō. Where I live, not many young people learn traditional instruments.
• 大家更喜欢学钢琴或者吉他。 dàjiā gèng xǐhuan xué gāngqín huòzhě jítā. Most would rather learn the piano or the guitar.
• 我研究的社区不一样，有的孩子周末去学古筝。 wǒ yánjiū de shèqū bù yíyàng, yǒude háizi zhōumò qù xué gǔzhēng. The community I researched is different: some children take guzheng lessons at the weekend.
• 我觉得原因是，家长希望孩子了解自己的文化。 wǒ juéde yuányīn shì, jiāzhǎng xīwàng háizi liǎojiě zìjǐ de wénhuà. I think it's because parents want their children to understand their own culture.
• 所以在那里，音乐不只是爱好，也是一种传统。 suǒyǐ zài nàli, yīnyuè bù zhǐ shì àihào, yě shì yì zhǒng chuántǒng. So there, music isn't just a hobby; it's a tradition too.

That's an answer, a comparison and a reason in five short sentences: about right for 40 seconds, and the kind of reflection the culture row rewards.

Practise both tasks against the clock

We built the timer below to run the 2027 speaking section in order, with the official timings. Pick a format, press Start and speak out loud, as if the recording were playing:

Each run draws a new practice prompt on the music theme and four new questions. They're ours, not College Board's, and your real prompt arrives in January. The older format is there too, as a drill for quick replies.

One caveat: the timer can't hear you. I'd record each run on your phone, then listen back for long pauses and answers that stop short.

You type both writing tasks

You type both writing tasks, and you get 30 minutes for the pair. Each is marked out of eight points.

• Story narration. Tell a complete story from four pictures, in order, with a beginning, a middle and an end.
• Email response. Reply to a friend or community member, and answer both of their requests.

In 2025, the chief reader flagged two common slips in the story: skipping part of the pictures, and few linking words. These connectives fix the second:

• one day, 有一天(yǒu yì tiān)
• at first, 刚开始(gāng kāishǐ)
• unexpectedly, 没想到(méi xiǎngdào)
• in the end, 最后(zuìhòu)

Typing has its own trap. Pinyin input offers several characters for one sound, and picking the wrong one costs you language marks. Watch pairs like these:

• I'm writing at home. 我在家写。 wǒ zài jiā xiě.
• I'll write again tomorrow. 我明天再写。 wǒ míngtiān zài xiě.

So type a little Chinese every day, not just in exam week. And remember the email is a role play: your details don't need to be true, only complete and suited to the reader. We'd answer each request in a plain sentence first, then add the details.

A 12-week plan for non-heritage students

Start on Monday 22 February. Your outline is then due at the end of week ten, and the exam falls on the Thursday of week twelve. Here's how we'd spend about half an hour a day, on top of class:

Dates for the May 2027 exam, from College Board's exam calendar. Adjust the weeks if your school's breaks fall differently.

In our plan, the daily speaking drill matters most. It's the skill where the score data show the widest gap, and a class can't give each student enough of it.

Practice tests and where to find them

Most AP Chinese practice material online was made for the old exam. We sorted what's current from what isn't:

Sources: College Board's course revisions page and past exam questions.

Past papers still help with writing. The story and email tasks survive, scored on a new eight-point rubric. Use their speaking tasks only as quick-reply drills.

Where SayMei fits, and where it doesn't

SayMei's live lessons are spoken conversations with Mei Lin, your AI teacher, levelled by HSK. They help with the skill the Q&A tests: answering out loud, at length, with someone who replies and corrects you.

They aren't an AP simulator. We have no official practice tests, can't predict your AP score and don't know your project prompt. Keep your project your own work, as College Board's rules require.

The first lesson is free, with no account or card. After that, SayMei Premium is $5.99 a month for 200 minutes of lessons. It starts with a week-long trial that needs a card.

What to do next

• Read the official project manual. It's in the free course and exam description, with every rubric.
• Run the timer this week. Do both tasks out loud, then record one answer and listen back.
• Practise short spoken answers daily. Add a reason and a comparison every time.
• Type a little Chinese every day. Check each character the keyboard offers you.
• Put the outline deadline in your calendar now. It falls two weeks before the exam.

Not sure where your Chinese is? Our free level test takes about five minutes.