AP Computer Science A

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About the Course

Do you want to cure cancer? Design a video game? Or maybe build interactive art? AP Computer Science A explores how to use, build, and work with the technologies of tomorrow to help answer some of the biggest questions of today. In this course, you’ll design and implement computer programs using a subset of the Java programming language that can be used to develop algorithms, data structures, and solve problems.

Skills You'll Learn

  • Designing a program, developing the algorithms it needs, and writing code to implement them

  • Testing program code and correcting errors

  • Documenting and explaining how program code works

Equivalency and Prerequisites

College Course Equivalent

A one-semester, introductory college course in computer science

Recommended Prerequisites

High school courses in English and algebra, and familiarity with functions and the concepts found in the uses of function notation

Exam Date

Wed, May 7, 2025

12 PM Local

AP Computer Science A Exam

This is the regularly scheduled date for the AP Computer Science A Exam.

About the Units

The course content outlined below is organized into commonly taught units of study that provide one possible sequence for the course. Your teacher may choose to organize the course content differently based on local priorities and preferences.

Course Content

Unit 1: Using Objects and Methods

You’ll learn the fundamentals of Java, a programming language, and other foundational concepts for coding. You’ll explore reference data as a way to represent real-world objects in a digital world and discover methods to perform more complex operations.

Topics may include:

  • Using primitive data types including int, double, and Boolean
  • Evaluating arithmetic expressions in program code
  • Using assignment operators to produce a value
  • Knowing how variables and operators are sequenced and combined in an expression to create a result
  • Using comments to describe the functionality of code
  • Using objects and classes to describe instances, attributes, and behaviors
  • Creating objects by calling constructors with and without parameters
  • Defining an object’s behavior using methods, including static and Math class
  • Calling non-static void methods with and without parameters
  • Using String objects and methods
  • Using application program interfaces (APIs) and libraries 

On The Exam

15%–25% of exam score

Unit 2: Selection and Iteration

You’ll delve into the building blocks of algorithms and focus on using conditional statements to solve problems and control results. You’ll learn about iteration, another building block of algorithms that are for repetition.

Topics may include:

  • Finding Boolean values with expressions involving relational operators
  • Using conditional statements to execute different statements based on input values
  • Building on conditional statements to create multiple possible outcomes
  • Creating the same value using equivalent Boolean expressions
  • Creating a loop to run an expression repeatedly until certain conditions are met
  • Implementing standard arithmetic-based and String-based algorithms
  • Representing iterative processes in code using for and while loops
  • Nesting loop and iteration statements
  • Informally analyzing run-times 

On The Exam

25%–35% of exam score

Unit 3: Class Creation

You’ll explore how real-world interactions can be expressed digitally by organizing behaviors and attributes into classes.

Topics may include:

  • Designing a class, including whether attributes are public or private
  • Setting an object’s attributes using constructors
  • Defining behaviors of an object using non-void, void, and static methods
  • Breaking problems into smaller parts by creating methods to solve individual subproblems 

On The Exam

10%–18% of exam score

Unit 4: Data Collections

You’ll learn techniques and standard algorithms to work with collections of related data, known as data structures. You’ll delve deeper into data sets, exploring array, ArrayList of objects, and 2D arrays.

Topics may include:

  • Considering intellectual property and ethical concerns in programming
  • Considering ethical issues around data collections
  • Using data sets
  • Representing multiple related items as array objects
  • Traversing an array by accessing the elements using iteration statements
  • Implementing standard algorithms that utilize array traversals to perform functions
  • Utilizing class libraries, including Integer and Double
  • Representing collections of related object reference data using ArrayList objects
  • Traversing an ArrayList by accessing the elements using iteration statements
  • Implementing standard algorithms that utilize ArrayList traversals to perform functions
  • Searching and sorting using standard algorithms
  • Representing collections of data as arrays of arrays, or 2D arrays
  • Traversing a 2D array by accessing the elements using nested iteration statements
  • Executing recursive methods
  • Searching and sorting using binary search and merge sort algorithms 

On The Exam

30%–40% of exam score

Credit and Placement

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Course Resources

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AP Computer Science A Lab Requirements

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