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Contemplanda course syllabus

AP® Psychology

A Contemplanda online course.

This course follows the College Board's published AP Psychology framework.

AP® Psychology is an introduction to the systematic and scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. The College Board's framework asks students to explore and apply the theories, key concepts, and phenomena of the major areas of psychology, including biological bases of behavior, cognition, development, learning, social psychology, personality, and mental and physical health. It also asks them to draw on the studies that have shaped the field and to use psychological research methods and data interpretation to evaluate claims, consider evidence, and communicate ideas.

The College Board describes AP Psychology as the equivalent of an introductory college-level psychology course.

The College Board's AP Psychology framework has five units, organized to mirror the content organization the American Psychological Association recommends for introductory psychology, and the AP Exam assesses all five. The framework describes what colleges and universities expect students to know and be able to do to qualify for college credit or placement.

Course at a glance

Course title
AP Psychology
Publisher
Contemplanda
Framework
Follows the College Board's published AP Psychology framework
Structure
8 units over two semesters
Lessons
64 lessons
Credit
Not awarded by Contemplanda
Enrollment
Purchasing is not open yet
Course page
www.contemplanda.com/courses/ap-psychology

Credit and enrollment

Contemplanda does not award high school credit. A student who wants credit for the course should ask their own school whether it will accept it.

Under College Board rules, a course may carry the AP designation on a student's transcript only if it is authorized through the College Board's AP Course Audit.

Purchasing is not open yet. Questions about enrolling can go to info@contemplanda.com.

Students who are already enrolled sign in at direct.contemplanda.com.

How the course works

  • Each topic lesson combines one video, written explanations, practice, and graded checks, and most lessons include graphs.
  • After a wrong answer, the practice keeps drawing questions.
  • Many questions have hints that open one step at a time. When a question has one, the next hint is offered after a wrong answer. An answer given after opening a hint counts in full toward the practice streak and the mastery levels, but the top level, mastered, also requires at least one graded question answered correctly without opening a hint.
  • Answers take many forms: items sorted into categories; items matched in pairs; steps and stages put in order; parts of a diagram labeled or identified by number; points and intervals marked on a graph; histograms built from data and scatterplots drawn to show a given correlation; means, medians, and ranges found from data, and proportions read from a normal curve; paragraphs built from given sentences; sentences and paragraphs completed from given choices; and multiple-choice and numeric answers.
  • Every topic lesson has a graded check whose questions are drawn for each student from a pool.
  • Every figure has a written text description.

Recommended preparation

The College Board sets no prerequisites for AP Psychology. It expects students to be able to read a college-level textbook and to express themselves clearly in writing.

Units and lessons

Every published lesson, by semester and unit.

Topic numbers are the College Board's: topic 3.9 is unit 3, topic 9.

Semester 1

College Board unit 1: Biological Bases of Behavior

Assessed on the AP Exam

How heredity and environment interact to shape behavior and mental processes; the subsystems of the nervous system, the structure and function of neurons, neural transmission, and the effects of psychoactive drugs; the structures and functions of the brain; the sleep/wake cycle; and the process of sensation and the visual, auditory, chemical, touch, pain, vestibular, and kinesthetic sensory systems.

1
Biological Bases of Behavior
Topics 1.1 to 1.6
  1. 1SP1 Psychological perspectives, culture and cognitive bias
  2. 2SP2 Research design: experiments and other methods
  3. 3SP3 Research ethics, replication and who gets studied
  4. 4SP4 Reading data: statistics for psychology
  5. 51.1 Interaction of heredity and environment
  6. 61.2 Overview of the nervous system
  7. 71.3a The neuron and neural firing
  8. 81.3b Neurotransmitters, hormones and psychoactive drugs
  9. 91.4a The brain: structures and functions
  10. 101.4b The brain: hemispheres, plasticity and research methods
  11. 111.5 Sleep
  12. 121.6a Sensation: principles and vision
  13. 131.6b Sensation: hearing, the chemical senses and the body senses
  14. 14Unit 1 free-response workshop: reading a study
  15. 15Unit 1 testUnit test30 questions

College Board unit 2: Cognition

Assessed on the AP Exam

How internal and external factors and visual perceptual processes shape perception; thinking, problem-solving, judgment, and decision-making; the types, structures, and processes of memory, and how memories are encoded, stored, and retrieved; why memory fails or errs; and how theories describe intelligence, how intelligence and academic achievement are measured, and how systemic issues relate to the uses of intelligence assessments.

2
Cognition
Topics 2.1 to 2.8
  1. 12.1 Perception
  2. 22.2 Thinking, problem-solving, judgments, and decision-making
  3. 32.3 Introduction to memory
  4. 42.4 Encoding memories
  5. 52.5 Storing memories
  6. 62.6 Retrieving memories
  7. 72.7 Forgetting and other memory challenges
  8. 82.8 Intelligence and achievement
  9. 9Unit 2 free-response workshop: claims, evidence and explanation
  10. 10Unit 2 testUnit test31 questions

College Board unit 3: Development and Learning

Assessed on the AP Exam

The enduring themes of developmental psychology and its cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs; physical development before birth, in infancy and childhood, in adolescence, and in adulthood; how sex and gender influence socialization; cognitive development, communication, and language development; social development across the lifespan; and learning through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, social learning, and cognitive factors.

3
Development and Learning
Topics 3.1 to 3.9
  1. 13.1 Themes and methods in developmental psychology
  2. 23.2 Physical development across the lifespan
  3. 33.3 Gender and sexual orientation
  4. 43.4 Cognitive development across the lifespan
  5. 53.5 Communication and language development
  6. 63.6a Social-emotional development: infancy and childhood
  7. 73.6b Social-emotional development: adolescence and adulthood
  8. 83.7 Classical conditioning
  9. 93.8 Operant conditioning
  10. 103.9 Social, cognitive, and neurological factors in learning
  11. 11Unit 3 free-response workshop: the full article analysis question and the second EBQ source
  12. 12Unit 3 testUnit test31 questions
Exam

Semester 1 final

  1. Semester 1 final52 questions

Semester 2

College Board unit 4: Social Psychology and Personality

Assessed on the AP Exam

Attribution theory, locus of control, and person perception; stereotypes, implicit attitudes, prejudice, and discrimination, and how belief perseverance and cognitive dissonance shape attitudes; how social situations and groups affect behavior; prosocial behavior; how psychodynamic, humanistic, social-cognitive, and trait theories define and assess personality; and theories of motivation and of emotion, with the social norms and experiences that influence how emotions are expressed.

4
Social Psychology and Personality
Topics 4.1 to 4.7
  1. 14.1 Attribution theory and person perception
  2. 24.2 Attitude formation and attitude change
  3. 34.3 Psychology of social situations
  4. 44.4 Psychodynamic and humanistic theories of personality
  5. 54.5 Social-cognitive and trait theories of personality
  6. 64.6 Motivation
  7. 74.7 Emotion
  8. 8Unit 4 free-response workshop: weaving psychology concepts into explanations
  9. 9Unit 4 testUnit test32 questions

College Board unit 5: Mental and Physical Health

Assessed on the AP Exam

Health psychology, stress, and reactions to stress; positive psychology and positive subjective experiences; the approaches and psychological perspectives used to define psychological disorders; the symptoms and possible causes of selected neurodevelopmental, schizophrenic spectrum, depressive, bipolar, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and related, dissociative, trauma and stressor-related, feeding and eating, and personality disorders; and research, trends, ethical principles, and techniques in the treatment of psychological disorders, including group therapy, hypnosis, and biological interventions.

5
Mental and Physical Health
Topics 5.1 to 5.5
  1. 15.1 Introduction to health psychology
  2. 25.2 Positive psychology
  3. 35.3 Explaining and classifying psychological disorders
  4. 45.4a Psychological disorders I: neurodevelopmental, schizophrenia spectrum, depressive, bipolar and anxiety
  5. 55.4b Psychological disorders II: obsessive-compulsive, dissociative, trauma, eating and personality
  6. 65.5a Treatment I: psychological therapies
  7. 75.5b Treatment II: biomedical treatments and the evidence
  8. 8Unit 5 free-response workshop: full free-response rehearsal
  9. 9Unit 5 testUnit test32 questions
Review

AP exam review

  1. Review: science practices and multiple-choice strategy
  2. Review: unit 1, biological bases of behavior
  3. Review: unit 2, cognition
  4. Review: unit 3, development and learning
  5. Review: unit 4, social psychology and personality
  6. Review: unit 5, mental and physical health
  7. Review: full free-response runs
Exam

Semester 2 final

  1. Semester 2 final77 questions

Science practices

The College Board names four science practices for AP Psychology, which it expects students to develop throughout the course and which form the basis of the tasks on the AP Exam. The multiple-choice section assesses Practices 1, 2, and 3, and the free-response section assesses all four.

1Concept Application

Applying psychological perspectives, theories, concepts, and research findings.

1.A
Apply psychological perspectives, theories, concepts, and research findings to a scenario.
1.B
Explain how cultural norms, expectations, and circumstances, as well as cognitive biases apply to behavior and mental processes.

2Research Methods and Design

Evaluating qualitative and quantitative research methods and study designs.

2.A
Determine the type of research design(s) used in a given study.
2.B
Evaluate the appropriate use of research design elements in experimental methodology.
2.C
Evaluate the appropriate use of research design elements in non-experimental methodologies.
2.D
Evaluate whether a psychological research scenario followed appropriate ethical procedures.

3Data Interpretation

Evaluating representations of psychological concepts in quantitative and qualitative research, including tables, graphs, charts, figures, and diagrams.

3.A
Identify psychology-related concepts in descriptions or representations of data.
3.B
Calculate and interpret measures of central tendency, variation, and percentile rank in a given data set.
3.C
Interpret quantitative or qualitative inferential data from a given table, graph, chart, figure, or diagram.

4Argumentation

Developing and justifying psychological arguments using evidence.

4.A
Propose a defensible claim.
4.B
Provide reasoning that is grounded in scientifically derived evidence to support, refute, or modify an established or provided claim, policy, or norm.

Assessment

Each topic lesson includes graded checks.

Each of the five content units closes with a unit test.

Unit tests and semester exams are graded automatically, and all graded work counts toward the student's mastery record, which shows each skill as attempted, familiar, proficient, or mastered.

Contemplanda publishes no grade weighting for this course. A school that decides to grant credit for it also decides how the work counts toward a grade.

Academic integrity

Work in the course must be the student's own.

Answer keys for graded questions are never sent to the student's device.

The AP Exam

The AP Psychology Exam assesses all five units. It lasts 2 hours and 40 minutes and has two sections.

Section I: Multiple-choice questions

Questions
75
Time
90 minutes
Share of score
66.7%

Section II, Question 1: Article Analysis Question

Questions
1
Time
25 minutes
Share of score
16.65%

Section II, Question 2: Evidence-Based Question

Questions
1
Time
45 minutes
Share of score
16.65%

The Article Analysis Question presents one summarized peer-reviewed source: students identify its research methodology and variables, identify one ethical guideline described in the study and describe one way the researchers applied it, interpret the basic statistics it presents, and explain whether the study can be generalized and how it supports or refutes the psychological concept it explores. Its 25 minutes include a 10-minute reading period. The Evidence-Based Question presents three summarized peer-reviewed sources on a common topic: students propose a claim about the topic and support it with evidence from the sources and from the course, and with reasoning about that evidence. Its 45 minutes include a 15-minute reading period.

The exam is fully digital: students answer the multiple-choice and the free-response questions in the College Board's digital testing app.

Scores are reported on a scale of 1 to 5.

This is the exam format in effect from the May 2026 exam, as set out in the College Board's course and exam description for fall 2025 and its clarifications and corrections of October 2025.

The AP Exam is given in schools in May.

A student who takes the AP Exam at a school other than the one where they take the course, or who takes the exam without taking the course, gets a join code from the AP coordinator at the school where they will test and joins an exam-only section there.

Materials and technology

Where the course runs
In a web browser, through Contemplanda Direct
Textbook
None required. The course's own lessons are the text.
Course framework
apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-psychology

Published at www.contemplanda.com/courses/ap-psychology/syllabus

Units, lessons, and counts in this syllabus are generated from the published course.

Questions: info@contemplanda.com

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