AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based Tutoring for the May Exam
AP Physics 2 ranges over thermodynamics, electric and magnetic fields, circuits, optics, waves and modern physics, and most of it cannot be seen, so students must reason from models of molecules, fields and photons rather than from everyday experience. The exam asks them to predict directions and how one quantity depends on another, and to defend that reasoning in writing, not merely to calculate.
Short answer
AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based 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 25 September 2027.
From USD 65 per lesson
Your lessons are taught by Ali Ertan, who teaches AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based.
- 2 scored components, from AP Central
- Live online lessons of 90 minutes
- From USD 65 per lesson
How AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based 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 Physics 2: Algebra-Based · AP Central exam page
| Component | Share of score | Length | What it involves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section I: Multiple Choice | 50% | 1 hour 25 min | 42 questions in 85 minutes (from May 2027; previously 40 in 80), either standalone or in sets built on a shared stimulus or data set. A four-function, scientific or graphing calculator is allowed, as is the Desmos calculator in Bluebook, and College Board’s equation tables are provided. |
| Section II: Free Response | 50% | 1 hour 35 min | 4 questions in 95 minutes (previously 100), one of each type: mathematical routines, translation between representations, experimental design and analysis, and qualitative/quantitative translation. Questions are shown in Bluebook and answered by hand in a paper booklet, under the same calculator rules. |
- Hybrid exam: answers are entered in Bluebook for multiple choice and handwritten in a paper booklet for free response.
- 2027 exam date: 6 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 Physics 2: Algebra-Based syllabus
Topic names are left in English, as they appear on the paper and in the mark scheme.
Unit 9: Thermodynamics (15–18%)
Kinetic Theory of Temperature and Pressure · The Ideal Gas Law · Thermal Energy Transfer and Equilibrium · The First Law of Thermodynamics · Specific Heat and Thermal Conductivity · Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
Unit 10: Electric Force, Field, and Potential (15–18%)
Electric Charge and Electric Force · Electric Fields · Electric Potential Energy · Electric Potential · Capacitors · Conservation of Electric Energy
Unit 11: Electric Circuits (15–18%)
Electric Current · Resistance, Resistivity, and Ohm’s Law · Compound Direct Current (DC) Circuits · Kirchhoff’s Loop Rule · Kirchhoff’s Junction Rule · Resistor-Capacitor (RC) Circuits
Unit 12: Magnetism and Electromagnetism (12–15%)
Magnetic Fields · Magnetism and Moving Charges · Magnetism and Current-Carrying Wires · Electromagnetic Induction and Faraday’s Law
Unit 13: Geometric Optics (12–15%)
Reflection · Images Formed by Mirrors · Refraction · Images Formed by Lenses
Unit 14: Waves, Sound, and Physical Optics (12–15%)
Periodic Waves · Electromagnetic Waves · The Doppler Effect · Wave Interference and Standing Waves · Diffraction · Double-Slit Interference and Diffraction Gratings
Unit 15: Modern Physics (12–15%)
Quantum Theory and Wave-Particle Duality · The Bohr Model of Atomic Structure · Blackbody Radiation · The Photoelectric Effect · Fission, Fusion, and Nuclear Decay · Types of Radioactive Decay
Where AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based marks are usually lost
Losing track of direction in magnetism
Magnetism questions turn on direction: the field around a current-carrying wire, the force on a wire or a moving charge, and the induced current predicted by Lenz’s law. College Board’s 2025 report found students who could write the right expression but not say which way the field or force pointed, or whether the flux was increasing. A justification needs both the direction and the change, stated explicitly.
Pressure drawn as a force arrow
Thermodynamics questions can put a gas under a piston, as in 2025, and the free-body diagram is where points slip away. Readers in 2025 saw pressures, which are scalars, drawn as arrows, and generic “applied” forces with no indication of which object exerts them. Each arrow should start on the object, stand for a single force, and carry a label naming the object that exerts it.
Misreading the interference pattern
Wave and optics questions assume students know how wavelength and frequency vary across the visible spectrum and how a path difference produces bright and dark fringes. On the 2025 double-slit question, many responses did not link path difference to the pattern, or did not double the distance from the central maximum when two bright bands lay on opposite sides, and a few mixed up red and violet light.
How we teach AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based
A tutor treats Physics 2 as a set of connected models rather than a list of chapters: the particle model of gases, the field model shared by electricity and magnetism, the ray and wave models of light, and the quantum model of the atom and nucleus. For each, the student learns what the model predicts and where it stops applying. Direction rules — right-hand rules, Lenz’s law, ray diagrams — are drilled with quick sketches until they hold up under time pressure. Circuit work moves from series and parallel networks to the charging and discharging of capacitors, which the course treats qualitatively, through sketched graphs of current and potential difference against time. Released free-response questions are marked against College Board’s scoring guidelines, with close attention to the experimental design question, where the method for reducing uncertainty is often left out.
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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