Score Higher on AP Chemistry 2024: MCQ Tips from Students

Multiple Choice Questions

This guide organizes advice from past students who got 4s and 5s on their exams. We hope it gives you some new ideas and tools for your study sessions. But remember, everyone's different—what works for one student might not work for you. If you've got a study method that's doing the trick, stick with it. Think of this as extra help, not a must-do overhaul.

📌 Overview

• Students are given questions that test their understanding of chemistry knowledge and data analysis.
• 50% of Exam Score.
• 60 minutes or 1 min 12 sec per question.

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💭 General Advice

Tips on mindset, strategy, structure, time management, and any other high level things to know

• Make sure you read up on different ways to phrase a question. Most of the time, you probably know the answer, but you have the hardest time figuring out what they’re asking (they’re very tricky with phrasing and terminology).
• Skip through the MCQ and answer the questions that can take under 10-15 seconds to answer. Rack up on the easy points, then go back and do the more difficult questions.
• Pay attention to key phrases in the questions, such as "most likely," "least likely," "not," "always," and "never." These can provide important clues about what the question is asking for.
• When in doubt, use the process of elimination to narrow down your choices. Cross out answer choices that you know are incorrect, and then make an educated guess among the remaining options.
• Test questions will never give you a question that is hypothetical (unless it is a reaction mechanism question, in which, they have started to run out of reaction mechanisms and steps for examples). They are all completely real and used in the real world. If something seems off, reread the question.
• Not everything needed to answer the question will be given to you. Therefore, you need to have extraneous facts and concepts down and taken into account for each question, such as water vapor pressure and gravity.

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🫧 Before you Bubble

What should a student do in the first few minutes, before they start answering?

• If there’s any information you feel like you’ll forget or get confused easily, write it down at the top of the test before you begin. For example, you could write down the different levels of electron configuration so you can refer back to it while you take the MCQ.
• Always double check the verbs of the question if you are torn between answers or confused on lab questions. The verbs used must have at least come up in your labs and they will almost always tie in to laboratory questions. This is NOT proven to be successful for conceptual questions as every teacher has different methods of teaching.
• Before answering any of the questions, take a brief look through the test and skim for any weak/strong points. This will allow you to see which subjects/sections are on each page and how much analysis reading you will need to be doing. This should just be a rule of thumb as it just helps in general to manage the exam more easily.

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💡Choosing an Answer

• Most AP Chemistry MCQs have two aspects of the answer that you have to get right, and they have all 4 combinations of it. Read the answer choices carefully to make sure you pick the choice that as both aspects correct, not just one.
• Most of the time (not all of the time), when the answer is a numerical value, there will be 3 answers that are close to one another, and 1 outlier. While it isn’t always one of the 3, it normally isn’t the outlier. If you’re unsure and about to guess, look for patterns in the answers. Identify the 3 similar choices, and make your best guess.
• Normally, when they make wrong answers, the wrong answers are due to a simple mistake in the calculations. If you have time at the end and want to check your answers, or if you’re just guessing and want a good chance at getting it right, figure out what mistake was made in calculating for each of the problems. Examples could be using the wrong formula, missing sig figs, incorrect conversions, etc..
• Be mindful of sig figs when performing calculations. Make sure your final answer reflects the appropriate level of precision based on the given data.

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📝 Using the Formula Sheet

• Become very familiar with the formula sheet: finding the formula can be time-consuming. Make sure you have a general awareness of where everything is located.
• Make sure you know what units the values are on the formula sheet. Sometimes, they provide the units, however, most of the time they don’t. A lot of calculation errors are made here, so be diligent!
• When using the formula sheet, practice makes perfect. Once perfection is achieved via practice, conceptual understanding of the use of the formulas is key to acing the question. Units are not as important but understanding the units may help you understand the question if you are stuck so far.