Section I is 42 questions from May 2027, split 29 and 13

The multiple-choice section of the AP Calculus AB and BC exam is changing. From the May 2027 exam it is 42 questions: Part A is 29 questions in 62 minutes with no calculator, then Part B is 13 questions in 38 minutes with a graphing calculator required. That is 100 minutes for Section I.

The shape before it was 45 questions, 30 then 15, in 60 and 45 minutes. That was College Board's official format, correct for the May 2026 exam and for years before it. If you are preparing for May 2027, it is no longer the exam you are going to sit.

A practice test can be correct and still out of date

A set built to the old shape is not defective. Its questions can be sound, its answers right, its topics well chosen. What it gets wrong is the length of the section and the clock, and you cannot see that by looking at any single question.

Break the Test assembled a full AP Calculus practice form earlier today and it came out at 45 questions, 30 without a calculator and 15 with, because that is the format we had written down. The form was an internal file and was never available through the app. Its Section I structure had three questions too many, a 30 and 15 calculator split instead of 29 and 13, and five minutes too much on the clock. The same build also used out-of-date unit weightings, described below. Rebuilding it changed which questions were selected. No questions, answers or scoring were wrong, and nothing user-facing changed, because nothing had shipped.

Our question-level checks did not validate the section's question count or its timing, so none of them caught the outdated template.

For May 2027: 42 questions, 29 then 13, 62 then 38 minutes

If you are sitting the exam in May 2027, audit a practice set before you spend 100 minutes on it.

• 42 questions in the multiple-choice section, not 45.
• 13 calculator questions, not 15.
• 62 minutes then 38 minutes, not 60 then 45.
• The calculator questions come last. College Board's wording is "the final 13 questions", meaning the end of Section I. The free-response section still follows.

A set can have 42 questions and still be built badly, so the count is the fastest check rather than the only one. It is the one that takes no expertise at all, which is why it is worth doing first.

Both halves changed, and they moved in opposite directions

From the May 2027 exam, Part A gives you 62 minutes for 29 questions, about 2 minutes 8 seconds each. Through May 2026 it was 60 minutes for 30, exactly 2 minutes. The non-calculator part allows roughly eight seconds more per question than it used to.

From the May 2027 exam, Part B gives you 38 minutes for 13 questions, about 2 minutes 55 seconds each. Through May 2026 it was 45 minutes for 15, exactly 3 minutes. The calculator part allows roughly five seconds less per question.

The two changes run in opposite directions, so a practice set on the old timings is not uniformly fast or slow against the new ones. It is looser in Part B and tighter in Part A. If you are using old material, retiming it is a smaller job than replacing it.

The calculator has four required capabilities

A graphing calculator is required for those final 13 questions, and College Board specifies what it must be able to do: plot a function in a viewing window, find zeros by solving equations numerically, compute a derivative numerically, and compute the value of a definite integral numerically.

Those are the four built-in capabilities College Board explicitly requires, not a list of four guaranteed question types. If your practice never uses them, it is not covering the calculator skills the exam assumes you have.

Section II, the free-response half, is unchanged: six questions in 90 minutes, carrying the other 50% of the score. Beginning with the May 2027 exam, scheduled testing time falls from 3 hours 15 minutes to 3 hours 10. Those figures are the section allotments, not the total time you will be in the room.

For AB, the topic weights are ranges, not counts

College Board publishes the share of the multiple-choice section each unit carries on the AB exam:

These are weightings for the section, not a promise about how many questions carry a given label. Applied to 42 questions, analytical applications of differentiation and integration and accumulation of change are the two largest blocks at 15 to 20% each, which works out at roughly 13 to 17 questions between them. Differential equations is 5 to 10%, so roughly two to four.

Older versions of this table are still in circulation, with analytical applications at 15 to 18% and integration at 17 to 20%. Six of the eight ranges we first used differ from the table in the current course and exam description, which is where the ranges above come from. If you are using unit weights to decide what to drill, take them from that document rather than from whichever table a search turns up first.

A 45-question set uses the pre-2027 Section I shape

Count the questions on your next full multiple-choice set. If it is 42, with 29 then 13 and the calculator questions at the end, its Section I count, split and order match the May 2027 exam. Check the timings too, since 62 and 38 minutes are part of the change.

If it is 45, it uses the question count from the format in force through May 2026. That tells you about its shape, not about when it was made or how good it is. If it also runs 60 and 45 minutes, its pacing does not match May 2027.

Then check College Board's own pages rather than taking anyone's summary for it, including this one.