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 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 · AP Psych Study Guide
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