AP Music Theory
In 2021, AP Music Theory is offered online on 2 dates:
- Primary Test Date: Tuesday May 19th 2020, 4:00 PM EDT
- Makeup Offering: Thursday June 4th 2020, 8:00 PM EDT
- Score Release Date: July 2021
Student's Choice Study Book:
2021 Test Information and Resources
Jump to a resource:
- AP Music Theory: Details
- AP Music Theory: Units Covered
- AP Music Theory: Questions
- AP Music Theory: Study Guides & Resources
- Academic Integrity
Test Details
The AP Music Theory exam will consist of 2 online free response questions. The total time for the exam will be 45 minutes. The test is open note and open book. Read more about the College Board's academic integrity policy.
Time on the exam will be divided between two questions. Each question will have a 5 minute upload period for students to submit their work. After a student submits their work for the first question, they will not be able to return back to it.
Units Covered
The units covered on the 2021 AP Music Theory exam will be adjusted to encourage fairness amongst students who have missed varying levels of school due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Units covered: Units 1–6
Units not covered: Units 7–8
Test Questions
Part-writing from figured bass and part-writing from Roman numerals
Question #1
Time: 25 minutes
Weight: 65%
Question 1 consists of 2 part-writing questions. Students will be asked first to realize a short passage of figured bass in 4 voices, following traditional eighteenth-century voice-leading procedures. They will then be given a Roman numeral progression to complete in 4 voices, following eighteenth-century voice-leading procedures. This question will not include any secondary dominant or secondary leading tone chords.
Sight-singing
Question #2
Time: 15 minutes
Weight: 35%
Question 2 consists of 2 melodies that students must sing without accompaniment. Students will be given 2 melodies to prepare, and then must record their performance of both in a single audio file and test that their performance was captured successfully.
Academic Integrity
College Board is taking a strong stance against cheating on the 2021 online Music Theory test. The following anti-cheating measures will be deployed on testing day to prevent cheating amongst students:
- Submitted work will be run through plaigarism detection tools (similar to TurnItIn)
- College Board will watch online resources looking for collaboration amongst students (shared Google Documents, Discord groups, internet forums)
- Teachers will review the student's submitted work and are encouraged to inform the College Board if the work looks different than what a student normally produces.
- College Board will use additional unreleased heuristics to determine whether or not students have cheated in any way.
Students found violating the academic integrity policy will suffer severe consequences, including:
- If found cheating, test scores will be cancelled.
- If found distributing exam content or exam responses, or found coordinating effors to distribute exam content or responses, the student will will be blocked from testing and their scores will be cancelled.
- Students found in violation of any academic integrity violations will have their high school notified of the violation, and action can be taken accordingly at the high school level.
- Additionally, any organization the student has sent or will send College Board score reports to will be notified of the academic integrity policy violation.
- Students who violate the policy will further be barred from taking any additional College Board exams such as the SAT or AP tests.
- In certain situations, College Board will include local law enforcement to determine if prosecution of the student is possible.
- If you have knowledge of online cheating occuring, please notify the College Board. Reports are anonymous and can be made online.