Scoring explained

The Weighted Composite Formula

AP English Literature and Composition combines two sections—Section I (Multiple Choice, 45%) and Section II (Free Response, 55%)—into a single AP score from 1 to 5. Understanding how this combination works (Courselo’s model below is an estimate, because College Board does not publish its conversion) shows you where to invest your time.

In Section I, you answer 55 four-option questions across five passage sets in 60 minutes. There is no penalty for wrong answers, so your raw score is simply the number of correct answers ($0\text{ to }55$). In Section II, you write three essays in 2 hours: Poetry Analysis (Question 1), Prose Fiction Analysis (Question 2), and Literary Argument (Question 3). Each essay is graded independently on a 6-point analytic rubric, yielding a total raw essay score of $0\text{ to }18$.

To see how these raw scores interact, we can project them onto a standard 150-point composite scale (where Section I carries $67.5$ points and Section II carries $82.5$ points):

Alternatively, Courselo calculates your performance as a weighted percentage ($x$) of the total available marks:

Estimated Score Bands and Targets

College Board does not publish raw-to-scaled conversion tables in advance. Instead, the Chief Reader and psychometricians set the cut points each year after the June Reading, equating the exam so that a score of 3, 4, or 5 represents the same standard of literary proficiency even if one year’s passages are slightly harder than another’s.

Courselo uses the following estimated cut lines to predict your AP score: