AP Computer Science A Progress Check answers, explained.
AP Computer Science A has four College Board units. There is no Unit 7, 8, 9 or 10. Here is what each Progress Check really contains, and how to use the rationales AP Classroom already gives you.
What is actually on each Progress Check.
Open a unit for the parts AP Classroom assigns, how many questions each one carries, and which exam question its free response is a rehearsal for. Studying a different subject? Start from the AP Classroom hub.
College Board revised this course for Fall 2025. Its course-changes register lists the current edition as a Course and Exam Description released for a revised framework, and that edition runs to four units rather than the longer list you will still see on flashcard sites. If you came here looking for a Unit 7, 8, 9 or 10 Progress Check, the material you want is almost certainly still examinable under a different number, and the four units below cover it. For the whole course, including how the exam is built and a study plan, read the AP Computer Science A Review.
One caution before you open them. The percentage beside each unit is its weight on the multiple-choice section, which is how College Board scopes it, not its share of the whole exam. The free-response section is built from four fixed question types instead, and those do not divide up by unit.
U01Unit 1 · Using Objects and Methods
Variables and data types, expressions and output, casting and the range of an int, compound assignment, method signatures, the Math class, creating objects, and String manipulation.
- Part 1Topics 1.1 to 1.4Around 12 multiple-choice questionsFree response: none in this part
- Part 2Topics 1.5 to 1.9Around 15 multiple-choice questionsFree response: none in this part
- Part 3Topics 1.10 to 1.15Around 18 multiple-choice questionsFree response: One, rehearsing Methods and Control Structures (partial)
5 / 2 in Java is 2, not 2.5. Cast to double first. And == compares references while .equals() compares content, which is the distinction this unit tests hardest.U02Unit 2 · Selection and Iteration
Boolean expressions, if and nested if, compound and equivalent Boolean expressions, while and for loops, nested iteration, string algorithms, and informal run-time analysis.
- Part 1Topics 2.1 to 2.6Around 18 multiple-choice questionsFree response: One, rehearsing Methods and Control Structures (partial)
- Part 2Topics 2.7 to 2.12Around 21 multiple-choice questionsFree response: Two, rehearsing Methods and Control Structures (partial)
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) runs n times, not n+1. Short-circuit evaluation is the other reliable trap: && stops at the first false and || stops at the first true, so the second half may never run at all. De Morgan’s law is examinable too: !(a && b) is equivalent to !a || !b.U03Unit 3 · Class Creation
Abstraction and program design, the anatomy of a class, constructors, writing methods, passing and returning object references, class variables, scope and access, and the this keyword.
- Part 1Topics 3.1 to 3.4Around 12 multiple-choice questionsFree response: none in this part
- Part 2Topics 3.5 to 3.9Around 15 multiple-choice questionsFree response: Two, rehearsing Class Design
private unless the specification says otherwise.U04Unit 4 · Data Collections
Ethical and social issues around collecting data, arrays and their traversals, text files, wrapper classes, ArrayList, 2D arrays, linear and binary search, selection, insertion and merge sort, and recursion.
- Part 1Topics 4.1 to 4.5Around 18 multiple-choice questionsFree response: Two, rehearsing Data Analysis with Array (partial)
- Part 2Topics 4.6 to 4.10Around 21 multiple-choice questionsFree response: Two, rehearsing Data Analysis with
ArrayList - Part 3Topics 4.11 to 4.17Around 21 multiple-choice questionsFree response: Two, rehearsing 2D Array
0 to length−1. College Board says outright that changing the size of an ArrayList inside an enhanced for loop can throw a ConcurrentModificationException, so use an indexed loop when you remove. For 2D arrays the outer loop is the row. And note what recursion actually asks of you: every learning objective here is to determine the result of a recursive call, and writing recursive code is explicitly outside the scope of the exam, so practice tracing rather than authoring.Unit titles, weightings, class periods and Progress Check composition come from the AP Computer Science A Course and Exam Description effective Fall 2025, which sets them out on two separate pages that agree. Question counts are approximate because College Board publishes them that way.
College Board already gives you the answers. Just not as a key.
This is the part almost nobody searching for a Progress Check answer key knows, and it is why the key is the worse thing to want. Look at how College Board describes what is inside one. The multiple-choice questions do not simply come back scored: each one carries a rationale setting out why the right option is right and why the others are not. The free-response questions come back with the scoring information behind them. All of that is already sitting in your AP Classroom account, for every question you got wrong, free.
A letter answer tells you which option was right. The rationale tells you why the one you picked looked right and was not, which is the thing the exam will ask you again in May. If you have never opened one, the review screen after a Progress Check is where they live.
Two more things College Board says about Progress Checks should change how you treat a bad one. They are formative: their results cannot be used to assign letter grades to students, or to evaluate teachers. And the unit sequence itself is described as optional for teachers, so your class may not be where the numbering suggests. A low Progress Check score is diagnostic information about one unit. It is not a grade, and it is not a prediction.
It is also why this page carries no key. College Board’s guidance is that its AP Classroom material is not for reposting on outside sites, and the sites that ignore that are handing you the one part of a Progress Check that teaches you nothing.
The exam your Progress Checks are rehearsing.
The AP Computer Science A exam runs three hours. Section I is 42 multiple-choice questions, 55% of the score, in 90 minutes. Section II is four free-response questions, 45%, in another 90 minutes, and College Board publishes what each one is worth: Methods and Control Structures 7 points, Class Design 7, Data Analysis with ArrayList 5, and 2D Array 6. That is 25 points in total.
Now look back at the unit panels above, because this is the connection worth having. Every free-response question in every Progress Check is a partial or a full version of one of those four exam questions. College Board says why in a note of its own: the partial versions are there to prepare you for the more complex, full questions you will meet on the exam. Unit 1 Part 3 and both Unit 2 parts rehearse Methods and Control Structures. Unit 3 Part 2 is Class Design, in full. Unit 4’s three parts rehearse the array question, the ArrayList question and the 2D array question in turn. Doing them is not practice for the exam so much as the exam itself, in pieces. Our AP Computer Science A FRQ guide covers all four in full.
Three exam-day facts worth knowing early. It is a fully digital exam. You answer both sections in the Bluebook app and everything submits automatically at the end. You are given the Java Quick Reference, so you do not have to memorize method signatures. And no calculator is allowed: College Board names Computer Science A explicitly in its calculator policy. The next exam is Wednesday 12 May 2027.
One more figure should change how you read a Progress Check result. Across the multiple-choice section, the practice College Board weights most heavily is Analyze Code, at 37–53%, more than developing code and designing code put together. If you are getting questions wrong, the useful question is usually not whether you know the syntax, but whether you can trace what the code does.
Pair the walkthrough with the calculator.
After each unit, plug your AP Classroom score breakdown into the calculator. You’ll see your trajectory in real numbers, not vibes.
Open CSA calculatorFrequently asked questions
Quick answers, checked against College Board.
How many units does AP Computer Science A have now?
Four. College Board’s current Course and Exam Description, effective Fall 2025, sets the course out as Using Objects and Methods, Selection and Iteration, Class Creation, and Data Collections. Its course-changes register records that this edition was released for a revised framework. Those four units are what AP Classroom builds its Progress Checks around.
Why is there no Unit 7, 8, 9 or 10?
Because College Board revised the framework for Fall 2025, and the course it publishes now runs to four units. Most of the material behind those old numbers is still examinable under a different one. Arrays, ArrayList, 2D arrays, searching, sorting and recursion all sit inside Unit 4, Data Collections. Loops and conditionals are Unit 2. Writing your own classes is Unit 3. One area genuinely left the course: College Board’s exclusion statement puts designing and implementing inheritance relationships outside the scope of the course and exam, and polymorphism appears nowhere in the current framework.
How many questions is each AP Computer Science A Progress Check?
There is no single figure, because the four units are split into ten Progress Check parts and College Board gives an approximate count for each. Unit 1’s three parts run to roughly 12, 15 and 18 multiple-choice questions. Unit 2’s two parts are about 18 and 21. Unit 3’s two are about 12 and 15. Unit 4’s three are about 18, 21 and 21. Seven of the ten parts also carry free-response questions.
Does my Progress Check score count toward my grade?
Not as a grade. College Board states that Progress Checks are formative, and that their results cannot be used to assign letter grades to students or to evaluate teacher effectiveness. Your teacher sees them to find what the class has not understood yet. Treat a low score as information, not as a verdict.
Why don't you publish exact answer keys?
AP Classroom work is graded as your own, and College Board’s guidance is that its AP Classroom material is not for reposting on outside sites. Posting raw keys would help people cheat and would harm the students using Curve to actually study. There is also a better answer already waiting for you: every Progress Check multiple-choice question comes with a rationale explaining the right choice and the wrong ones. Our walkthroughs explain reasoning, not letter answers.