AP Physics Science Practices: 3 Practices, 10 Skills

One set of practices, four courses

The Science Practices table is printed on the same page of all four course and exam descriptions, printed page 10, and its contents are word for word identical. Three practices, ten skills, the same numbering, the same descriptions. AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2, AP Physics C: Mechanics and AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism are aligned to a single skill framework.

That is worth stating plainly because it is easy to assume otherwise. The four courses differ in units, in equation sheets, in exam conventions, and in the mathematics they demand. They do not differ in what a skill code means. A 2.A on a C: Mechanics topic page and a 2.A on an AP Physics 2 topic page describe the same behaviour.

What does differ is weighting. The algebra-based pair and the calculus-based pair publish different exam weightings for the same skills, and that table is further down this page.

Three plus four plus three is ten.

The ten skills, quoted

Each skill statement below is the CED's own wording, transcribed from the Science Practices table rather than paraphrased.

Practice 1, Creating Representations

Practice 2, Mathematical Routines

Practice 3, Scientific Questioning and Argumentation

The split between 1.B and 1.C repays attention: 1.B is a graph with numbers on the axes and data on the grid, 1.C is a shape. A question asking for a qualitative sketch is testing 1.C and will not reward a plotted scale. The split between 2.A and 2.B is the same idea in algebra: 2.A ends in symbols, 2.B ends in a number with a unit.

3.B and 3.C are the pair that costs marks. 3.B is applying a law to make a claim. 3.C is supporting the claim with evidence. A free-response part that asks you to make a claim and then support it is asking for both, in that order, and a student who does the first and stops has answered half.

Exam weighting by science practice

Here the four courses split into two groups. The introductory note is the same in all four: Practices 2 and 3 are assessed in the multiple-choice section, Practice 1 is not, and all three are assessed in the free-response section. Each CED then adds "Required course content (Learning Objectives and Essential Knowledge) can be assessed with any skill."

The free-response figures are published per practice, not per skill, so the three cells in each practice block carry one shared number. The multiple-choice figures are published per skill.

Three differences separate the algebra-based pair from the calculus-based pair, and all three point the same way:

• Skill 2.A, deriving a symbolic expression, is 15 to 20 percent of the multiple-choice section in AP Physics 1 and 2 and 25 to 30 percent in both Physics C exams.
• Practice 2 as a whole is 30 to 40 percent of the free-response section in the algebra-based courses and 40 to 45 percent in the calculus-based ones.
• Practice 3 moves the other way: 35 to 45 percent free response in the algebra-based courses, 30 to 35 percent in Physics C. Skill 3.B drops its floor from 20 percent to 15 percent on the multiple-choice side.

Skills 2.B, 2.C, 2.D and 3.C carry the same multiple-choice band in all four courses. So of the six skills with a multiple-choice weighting, four are identical across the program and two move.

The bands do not sum to 100 and are not meant to. Multiple-choice lower bounds total 80 percent for the algebra-based pair and 85 for Physics C; upper bounds total 110 and 120. Free-response lower bounds total 85 and 90; upper bounds 120 and 115.

Which skills each free-response question carries

Every course lists a skill set beside each of the four free-response question types, and the four courses list the same sets. These are printed as small coloured badges, which is exactly the kind of graphic that text extraction turns into nonsense, so each of the sixteen badge rows below was read from a rendered image of the page rather than from extracted text.

Twenty badge slots in total, covering nine of the ten skills. The exception is worth naming: 2.C is listed for no free-response question type in any of the four courses, even though it carries a 10 to 15 percent multiple-choice weighting everywhere. Comparing quantities across scenarios is a multiple-choice skill by this table's own account.

Four skills appear in three of the four question types: 2.A, 2.D, 3.B and 3.C. None appears in all four. The LAB question is the reason. It is the only question type listing 1.B or 3.A, and the only one listing neither 3.B nor 3.C. If your course does one laboratory design exercise all year, it is preparing for the one free-response question that draws on a set of skills the other three do not touch.

A naming wobble to note if you are quoting the CED: AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2 and C: Mechanics label these badge lists "Skills:", while C: Electricity and Magnetism labels them "Science Practices:". The badges themselves are the same. The same drift shows up in the weighting table header, which reads "Skill" in AP Physics 1 and C: Mechanics and "Science Practice" in AP Physics 2 and C: E&M.

Where the skills show up inside a unit guide

Each skill code is printed in more than one place per topic, and a curriculum map has to reconcile them rather than trusting whichever it meets first.

• Course at a Glance. Every topic in the spread carries a stacked 1 / 2 / 3 marker. That is the practice-level spiral, not a per-topic skill list.
• Unit opener, Building the Science Practices. A short badge row for the whole unit. AP Physics 1 Unit 1, for instance, prints 1.A, 1.C, 2.A and 2.B.
• Unit at a Glance. A table of every topic in the unit with a Suggested Skills column, usually four codes per topic, each with its full statement.
• The topic page itself. A SUGGESTED SKILLS sidebar repeating the codes and statements.

The last two are printed independently a few pages apart, which is the kind of duplication that drifts. Checking AP Physics 1 Unit 1 topic by topic, the two listings agree: Topic 1.1 is 1.A, 2.C, 3.B, 3.C in both places, and Topic 1.2 is 1.C, 2.B, 2.C, 3.C in both. That is a sample, not a proof for all 161 topics in the program. If you find a topic whose sidebar and whose Unit at a Glance row disagree, the honest thing is to record both and say which page each came from, rather than picking one and moving on.

The word "suggested" is the CED's, and the note attached to the weighting table is the reason it is there: required course content "can be assessed with any skill". A topic's suggested skills tell a teacher how to teach it. They do not fence off how the exam may test it.

Reading a skill code on an exam question

The skill codes are not printed on the exam. They are a design vocabulary, and the way they reach a student is through the wording of a question. That wording is governed by the task verb list, which the page on AP Physics free-response task verbs sets out in full.

The mapping is close but not one to one:

That table is this site's reading of how the two vocabularies line up, not a mapping the CED prints. Treat it as a study aid. What the CED does print, and what is not a matter of interpretation, is the skill list beside each question type in the section above.

The practical consequence is a habit rather than a fact. When a free-response part gives you two verbs, it is usually giving you two skills and two point allocations. "Indicate whether the time is greater, less than, or equal" followed by "Justify your reasoning" is a 3.B point and a 3.C point, and a rubric that pays for both will pay for neither if you write only a conclusion.

Checking that a resource describes the current framework

All four course and exam descriptions were reissued effective Fall 2024, and every figure on this page is transcribed from those editions, version 1. A good deal of material written about AP Physics predates them.

Two checks settle it quickly. The current framework has exactly three science practices and exactly ten skills. Its skill codes take the form of a practice number, a full stop, and a capital letter: 1.A through 3.C. A resource that lists a different number of practices, or that writes its codes in any other shape, is not describing these editions, and its weightings will not match the table above either.

This matters most for anyone writing about the program rather than sitting it. A syllabus, a curriculum map or a research paper that maps work onto a different practice framework is mapping onto something the current exam does not use, and a code that looks similar will not carry the same meaning.