AP Biology Tutoring for the May Exam
AP Biology is less about knowing facts than about using them on unfamiliar experiments: most free-response questions give a scenario, a data set or a model and ask the student to reason from it. Students who revise by rereading notes are often surprised by how little of the exam rewards recall.
Short answer
AP Biology is offered online, one-to-one or in a group class.
A private lesson runs 90 minutes and starts at USD 65 per lesson; the group course runs 50 lessons of 90 minutes for USD 1,755, and a class never takes more than 6 students.
Group classes next begin on 18 September 2027.
From USD 65 per lesson
Your lessons are taught by Burcu Ergin, who teaches AP Biology.
- 2 scored components, from AP Central
- Live online lessons of 90 minutes
- From USD 65 per lesson
How AP Biology is assessed
Set and scored by College Board and reported on the 1–5 AP scale. Each university sets its own rule on which scores earn credit or placement. Component names are as College Board prints them.
College Board
AP Biology · AP Central exam page
| Component | Share of score | Length | What it involves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section I: Multiple Choice | 50% | 1 hour 30 min | 60 questions in 1 hour 30 minutes, either individual or in sets of typically 4–5 on a shared stimulus. In both sections a four-function (with square root) or scientific calculator, or the Desmos scientific calculator in Bluebook, is allowed; from May 2027 handheld calculators with storage, such as graphing calculators, are not. College Board’s equations and formulas sheet is provided. |
| Section II: Free Response | 50% | 1 hour 30 min | 6 questions in 1 hour 30 minutes: 2 long questions of 9 points each (Interpreting and Evaluating Experimental Results; Interpreting and Evaluating Experimental Results with Graphing) and 4 short questions of 4 points each (Scientific Investigation; Conceptual Analysis; Analyze Model or Visual Representation of a Biological Concept or Process; Analyze Data). Answers are handwritten in a paper booklet. |
- Hybrid exam: answers are entered in Bluebook for multiple choice and handwritten in a paper booklet for free response.
- 2027 exam date: 3 May 2027.
Checked on 8 October 2026
College Board revises individual exams between years. The exam page linked above is the authority for your sitting.
The AP Biology syllabus
Topic names are left in English, as they appear on the paper and in the mark scheme.
Unit 1: Chemistry of Life (8–11%)
Structure of water and hydrogen bonding · Elements of life · Carbohydrates · Lipids · Nucleic acids · Proteins
Unit 2: Cells (10–13%)
Cellular structure and functions · Cell size · Plasma membrane and membrane transport · Cell regulatory mechanisms such as osmosis and selective permeability · Cellular compartmentalization
Unit 3: Cellular Energetics (12–16%)
The structure and function of enzymes · Cellular energy · The processes of photosynthesis and cellular respiration
Unit 4: Cell Communication and Cell Cycle (10–15%)
Cell communication · Signal transduction pathways · Feedback · Cell cycle and regulation
Unit 5: Heredity (8–11%)
Meiosis and genetic diversity · Mendelian genetics · Non-Mendelian inheritance · Environmental effects on phenotype
Unit 6: Gene Expression and Regulation (12–16%)
DNA and RNA structure · DNA replication · Transcription and RNA processing · Translation · Regulation of gene expression · Mutations · Biotechnology
Unit 7: Natural Selection (13–20%)
Natural and artificial selection · Population genetics · Evidence of evolution and common ancestry · Phylogeny · Speciation and variations in populations · Origin of life on Earth
Unit 8: Ecology (10–15%)
Responses to the environment · Energy flow through ecosystems · Population ecology and population density · Community ecology · Biodiversity · Disruptions in ecosystems
Where AP Biology marks are usually lost
Graphs drawn carelessly
One of the long free-response questions includes a graph to plot. Points go on details students skip: the right type of graph, labelled axes with units, a sensible scale, and error bars where the data provide them. Getting the biology right and the graph wrong still costs marks that are among the easiest on the exam to secure.
Vague experimental design
Questions ask the student to identify the independent and dependent variables, a control, a null hypothesis, or to predict and justify a result. Answers that describe the experiment in general terms, rather than naming the specific variable, control or condition in the scenario on the page, do not score, however sound the underlying biology.
Stating instead of justifying
Command words such as describe, explain, justify and predict each ask for something different. A prediction without a biological reason, or an explanation that restates the data, earns partial or no credit. Students also lose marks by answering the question they expected, because a familiar topic triggered a memorised paragraph that does not fit what was actually asked.
How we teach AP Biology
Lessons alternate between concept and application. A topic such as cellular respiration or gene regulation is taught until the student can explain the mechanism in their own words, and it is then tested at once on an unfamiliar scenario of the kind the free-response section uses. Released College Board questions are scored against the official scoring guidelines, so the student sees exactly which phrase earned a point and which did not. Quantitative skills — chi-square, Hardy–Weinberg, rates and percentage change — are practised with the equations and formulas sheet the exam provides, so the student knows what is on it and what, such as percentage change, is not. Where a school runs few practical sessions, the tutor walks through the investigations behind the course so that experimental design questions do not feel abstract.
There is no separate diagnostic, because there is no single test that stands in for two years of a school syllabus. The first lesson is the assessment: the tutor works through your recent marked work, past-paper questions from your own specification, and the units your school has already covered, and reads current level, gaps, exam technique and where school work stands. It is a normal paid lesson and it teaches as it assesses.
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AP tutoring from USD 65 per 90-minute lesson. Compare lesson packages, group courses and self-study products.
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