AP Macroeconomics score calculator
On the AP Macroeconomics exam, the 60 multiple-choice questions are two thirds of your score and the three free-response questions one third, with the long question worth as much as the two short ones together. Enter your practice exam marks for your composite out of 90 and the AP score it gets on the College Board’s 2012 conversion chart: an estimate, because the cut points change every year.
Example: estimated AP score
Composite 66 of 90: 45 multiple-choice + 20.75 free-response, rounded.
On the College Board’s 2012 chart, 59 to 70 is a 4.
A 5 starts at 71: 5 more points, such as 5 more multiple-choice answers.
- Multiple choice, 45 of 6045
- Question 1, 9 of 1211.25
- Question 2, 3 of 54.5
- Question 3, 4 of 65
The College Board sets the cut points again each year, so a chart from 2012 gives an estimate, not your score.
The exam format checked on AP Central . AP and Advanced Placement are trademarks of the College Board, which does not make or endorse this calculator.
The College Board’s 2012 conversion chart
The scoring worksheet in the College Board’s 2012 AP Macroeconomics practice exam turns the composite out of 90 into an AP score like this. A 3 is the score many colleges accept for credit; each college sets its own.
| AP score | Composite (of 90) | Share of the composite |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 71 to 90 | 79% to 100% |
| 4 | 59 to 70 | 66% to 78% |
| 3 | 51 to 58 | 57% to 64% |
| 2 | 41 to 50 | 46% to 56% |
| 1 | 0 to 40 | 0% to 44% |
How the composite is worked out
- Count your multiple-choice answers right: each is 1 point, out of 60. A wrong answer takes nothing away.
- Scale the long free-response question to 15 points: your points ÷ what it is out of × 15. Scale each short one to 7.5.
- Add the two sections and round to the nearest whole number: that is the composite out of 90.
- Find the composite on the chart above.
A worked example
45 multiple-choice answers right is 45 points. Free response: 9 of 12 on question 1 is 11.25, 3 of 5 on question 2 is 4.5 and 4 of 6 on question 3 is 5. The composite is 65.75, rounded to 66: a 4 on the 2012 chart, 5 points short of a 5.
Why the chart is from 2012
The College Board does not publish the cut points of each year’s exam. Its practice exams from 2012, still public on AP Central, come with a scoring worksheet and conversion chart, and AP Macroeconomics keeps the format they had: 60 multiple-choice questions for two thirds of the score, one long and two short free-response questions for the rest. Other AP exams have changed since then (Statistics now has 42 multiple-choice and 4 free-response questions, against 40 and 6 in 2012), so a 2012 chart would not fit them. This site’s calculators for those exams, such as AP Statistics, stop at a score out of 100 on each exam’s own weights and give no 1 to 5.
Other calculators
The other economics exam: the AP Microeconomics score calculator. AP English Literature and Language, with a score out of 100 on each exam’s weights: the AP Lit and AP Lang score calculators. The AP math, science, computer science, social science, world language and arts exams, scored the same way: the AP Calc AB, AP Calc BC, AP Precalc, AP Stats, AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Psych, AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2, AP Physics C: Mechanics, AP Physics C: E&M, APES, AP HuG, AP Gov, AP Comp Gov, AP CSA, AP CSP, AP Spanish, AP French, AP German, AP Chinese, AP Japanese, AP Spanish Lit, AP Art History and AP Music Theory score calculators. The AP Capstone courses: the AP Seminar and AP Research score calculators. Your AP classes in a weighted high school GPA: the high school GPA calculator. A mark out of a total as a percentage: the test grade calculator. Every AP exam with a calculator here, and how students scored on each: the AP score calculators.
Sources: College Board, AP Central: AP Macroeconomics exam; College Board, AP Macroeconomics practice exam from the 2012 administration (scoring worksheet and AP score conversion chart).