Ranking the 17 AP Exams I've Taken

I've taken 17 APs in my time here at Appleby. Here's a tierlist on how I think they stack up, in difficulty and enjoyment. Note that I am quite a STEM-oriented person, and that this list is entirely subjective.

This ranks the exams themselves, not the courses. For example, AP Bio was a great course with a not-so-fun exam.

Difficulty

S (extremely challenging): US History, Physics C Electricity & Magnetism

A: Physics C Mechanics, Chemistry, Biology, Physics 2, World History

B: Music Theory, Calculus BC (BC-only content), Physics 1, Statistics, Research

C: Psychology, Comp-Sci A, Calculus AB (as part of BC), Seminar

F (trivial): Comp-Sci Principles, Precalculus

Enjoyment

S (had fun, personally): Physics 1, Statistics, Physics 2, Physics C Electricity & Magnetism, Research

A: Music Theory, Calculus AB/BC, Comp-Sci A, Physics C Mechanics, Chemistry

B: Comp-Sci Principles, World History, Seminar

C: Precalculus, Biology

F (regret taking): Psychology, US History

General Commentary:

I really, really don't like AP exams that are purely memory-based and require little actual analysis and reasoning. Also, the more real-life applications, the better. If you like memorization but dislike analysis and application, your list might be flipped opposite to mine.

Individual commentaries, grouped by order taken:

Psychology: Extremely memorization-based, with little analysis. Also quite an easy exam in terms of the logic required.

Music Theory: For those who don't know, I have perfect pitch. Thus, the dictation on the exam was made very simple, but the content is nevertheless still quite challenging. I love music, so this was also quite fun.

Comp-Sci Principles: Well-known as possibly the easiest AP, though in recent years it has been harder to get a 5. Content is quite boring, especially the portion about Internet protocols, but the Create task is fun.

Precalculus: To me, this was the easiest AP exam, by a long shot. (I also took this exam the first year it came out, so not sure how it is now.) Essentially just Grade 12 math content with a little on limits added - quite mundane and uninteresting.

Calculus BC: Probably one of the most popular AP exams, and for good reason - calculus has many applications. I liked the BC content more than the AB content, mostly because AB content was a lot of applying formulas.

US History: This exam was the most detail-oriented, memory-heavy exam I've ever written. Every person, every detail, every reason for every event is tested. Without further comment, you can probably guess that I didn't like this very much. The US is also such a small part of history that learning this doesn't give you a profound outlook on anything.

Comp-Sci A: The exam last year was quite simple, though the content can be challenging (especially recursion!). Making programs and learning coding languages is cool, though.

Physics 1: Consisting mainly of mechanics and fluids, essentially contains everything needed to model the movement of most things in the world. Concept-based, and there's a formula sheet so no need to memorize.

Physics C Mechanics: Take Physics 1, take out the fluids unit, and add a bunch of calculus to it. Despite the less varied content, I liked being able to find the actual values instead of qualitatively comparing them, though the exam was harder due to the calculus skills required.

Seminar: Why is this just not the AP Lang exam? Why does Seminar need an exam even? Sure, the in-class graded assignments were fun, especially the group presentation, but that was mostly due to my teacher.

Statistics: In my opinion, the most useful AP exam. Though the course was taught deeply, the exam was middle-ground in its difficulty. I know some students don't like statistics, but I do (such an interesting application of math!), so this places highly.

Biology: Ugh. Despite needing less memorization than Appleby biology exams, the absurd grading schemes (which often require you to say a particular word or get a 0 on a question) and long essay responses do it for me. Still memorization-based, so to me quite difficult.

Chemistry: I actually liked learning about the content in AP Chem a lot, and it's quite a good extension to normal Grade 11 and 12 Chemistry. A lot of plugging into formulas, though skill was needed in deciding which formulas to use.

Physics 2: Covering thermodynamics, optics, electricity, and magnetism, this AP has one of the broadest knowledge areas, making it quite applicable and fun. Lots of algebra-based derivations needed, though there's an excellent formula sheet which makes up for the difficulty. Physics C Electricity & Magnetism: Take physics 2, but take out thermodynamics, optics, and modern physics. Then, throw calculus beyond the level of Calculus BC at it until it gives you solutions that all have pi in them for some reason. The exam was all calculus-based derivations. This was also my favourite AP. Why? I'm probably a masochist (not really).

World History: I liked this much more than US History, because of the global scope (more interesting to me) and the more trend-oriented, less detailed, course. The exam was not as challenging as the APUSH exam, thankfully.

Research: This didn't have an exam. Instead, the entire course grade is based on a project of your own choosing. Because you can choose your topic, this was a very fun AP to do, and can be as challenging as you want it to be.