The Article Analysis Question is one of two free-response questions on the redesigned AP Psychology exam — together the FRQs are worth a third of your score. You read a summary of a real peer-reviewed study, then answer a series of questions about its method, results, and implications. The AAQ rewards students who can read research like a psychologist, not students who memorized the most terms.
What the AAQ Asks You to Do
- Identify the research method — experiment, correlational study, case study, naturalistic observation. Name it AND point to the feature of the study that makes it that method.
- Identify or operationally define a variable — what was measured or manipulated, in the study's own terms.
- Interpret a statistic — explain what the reported number (a mean difference, a correlation) actually says about the participants. Restating the number is not interpreting it.
- Identify an ethical guideline — informed consent, debriefing, confidentiality — and tie it to how THIS study applied (or would need to apply) it.
- Evaluate generalizability — who was in the sample, and to whom can the findings reasonably extend? Mention the actual sample described.
- Argue from the evidence — make a defensible claim about the study's conclusion and support it with a specific detail from the summary.
The Mistakes That Cost the Most Points
- Defining instead of applying. "Informed consent means participants agree to take part" earns nothing. "The researchers obtained consent from the parents because participants were minors, as described in the summary" earns the point. Every answer must touch the study itself.
- Vague variables. "They measured memory" loses to "memory was operationalized as the number of words recalled from the 20-word list after 10 minutes."
- Statistic restating. Saying "the correlation was 0.45" is reading the table out loud. Say what it means: a moderate positive relationship — students who slept more tended to score higher.
- Overclaiming causation from correlational designs. The readers are specifically listening for this.
How the AAQ Is Scored
The AAQ is worth 7 points, awarded across parts A–F. Each part targets one of the tasks above, and the readers score them independently — so a weak answer on one part never costs you the others. The single most important rule across every part: connect your answer to the specific study in the summary. Generic textbook definitions earn nothing; the point is awarded when you apply the concept to this study's method, sample, or numbers.
One recent change worth knowing: Part D (ethics) no longer just asks you to identify a guideline. The current rubric asks you to identify one ethical guideline described in the study AND describe one way the researchers applied it. Guides written before this clarification often say "identify at least one ethical guideline" — if yours does, it's out of date and will cost you the second half of the point.
A Worked AAQ Example
Practice prompt (AimFive example, not a released College Board item): "Researchers randomly assigned 80 high-school students to either a 20-minute afternoon nap or 20 minutes of quiet reading, then measured recall on a 30-word list they had learned that morning. The nap group recalled a mean of 21 words; the reading group recalled a mean of 16. Parents gave written consent because participants were minors, and students could withdraw at any time."
- A — Research method: "This is an experiment, because participants were randomly assigned to two conditions and the researchers manipulated an independent variable (nap vs. quiet reading)." ✓ Names the method and the feature that makes it that method.
- B — Operational definition: "Memory was operationally defined as the number of words recalled from the 30-word list." ✓ Uses the study's own measure, not "they measured memory."
- C — Interpret the statistic: "The nap group's mean of 21 versus the reading group's 16 means the nappers recalled about 5 more words on average, suggesting the nap improved recall." ✓ Says what the number means, doesn't just restate it.
- D — Ethics (identify AND describe): "One ethical guideline is informed consent. The researchers applied it by obtaining written consent from parents, since the participants were minors, and by allowing students to withdraw at any time." ✓ Identifies the guideline and describes how this study applied it — the current two-part requirement.
- E — Generalizability: "These findings may not generalize beyond high-school students, since the sample was only adolescents from one school; the effect could differ in adults or younger children." ✓ Grounds the limit in the actual sample.
- F — Argue from the evidence: "The evidence supports the hypothesis that napping aids memory consolidation: the nap group outperformed the reading group on the same recall task." ✓ Defensible claim tied to a specific result.
That response would earn full marks — and notice it is about seven sentences. The AAQ rewards precision over length: every sentence does one rubric job and points back to the study.
How to Practice
AimFive grades AAQ responses point-by-point against the rubric criteria above — research method, variables, statistics, ethics, generalizability, and argumentation — and our grader publishes its calibration data against official scoring materials. Write one, see exactly which points you earned, fix the gap, repeat.
AP Psychology practice · EBQ Guide · AAQ vs EBQ · AP Psych Study Guide
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