AP Chinese Language and Culture

Important: Because of school closures due to COVID-19, we’re offering at-home testing for the 2020 AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam as well as free resources to help you prepare. For more details, visit the 2020 AP Coronavirus Updates AP Chinese Language and Culture exam page. Note that any related adjustments to 2020 AP Exams, such as length or content covered, may not be reflected on all AP Students pages.

The AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam will test your ability to apply communication skills developed in the course, including interpreting different types of written and audio texts, writing to and speaking with others, and presenting your ideas in written and spoken Chinese. Throughout the exam, you will be asked to demonstrate your understanding of Chinese-speaking cultures. 

The exam is administered at a computer. On exam day, you will read text on the screen, listen through a headset, type using the keyboard, and speak into a microphone.

You will have some choices for reading and writing in Chinese. The display and input options will have no effect on your exam score:

• Display—you can view all Chinese text displayed on the screen in either traditional characters or simplified characters and can toggle between the 2 versions if necessary.
• Input—you can type Chinese text using the Microsoft Pinyin IME (MSPY), which is based on Hanyu Pinyin, and the Microsoft New Phonetic IME, which is based on Zhuyin Fuhao (Bopomofo).