Future AP Latin Revisions

We periodically update courses and exams to reflect new developments in their disciplines and more clearly communicate required course content and skills. 

We’re revising AP Latin to be more specific about the required skills and knowledge and to reflect the diverse range of authors and topics typically covered in intermediate college-level Latin courses. These revisions will more closely align AP Latin with current third- and fourth-semester intermediate college-level courses. 

These revisions will launch in the 2025-26 school year (May 2026 exam). 

What’s Going to Change? 

Course Revisions 

• Updating selections from Vergil’s Aeneid books 1, 2, 4, and 6, and adding selections from books 7, 11, and 12. 
• Replacing Caesar with Pliny the Younger. 
• Decreasing syllabus texts by approximately 6,000 words. 
• Adding units and class time for teacher’s choice reading (approximately 3,000 words). 
• Adding project-based learning opportunities for 4 non-syllabus passages chosen by College Board each year. 
• Reducing the number of units from 8 to 6. 
• Consolidating the 5 skill categories into 3. 
• Revising the course framework to include a required vocabulary list (1,000 words). 
• Adding essential knowledge statements to the course framework about grammar, morphology, stylistics, genre, and historical and cultural context. These statements identify the knowledge and skills students will need to master within the AP course framework and on the AP Exam.

Exam Revisions 

Multiple-Choice Section 

• Increasing the section time from 60 to 65 minutes. 
• Increasing the number of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) from 50 to 52. 
• Introducing a new question type: 20 discrete sight reading questions based on brief Latin stimuli. Each will include a single stimulus from non-syllabus Vergil and Pliny selections, from authors and topics underrepresented in the traditional Latin corpus, or of Latin written for the exam. 
• Adding 4 short MCQ sets (3 questions each) based on sight and syllabus readings. The short-set sight readings will include stimuli from non-syllabus Vergil and Pliny selections.
• Removing the 2 long MCQ sets based on sight reading. 
• Reducing the number of questions in the long MCQ sets based on syllabus readings to 10. 

Free-Response Section 

• Reducing the section time from 120 to 115 minutes. 
• Removing the 15-minute reading period. 
• Reducing the number of short answer question sets from 2 to 1. 
• Reducing the number of translation questions from 2 to 1. 
• Removing the analytical essay that asks students to analyze 2 passages. 
• Adding 1 new question which consists of 2 parts: a comprehension question and a short 3-4 sentence essay response.
• Adding 2 new questions based on the project passages (one poetry, one prose), each consisting of two parts: a short summary and a 7-8 sentence analysis.

Course Project

Students will complete a course project for the May 2026 exam. They’ll engage in project-based analysis of four nonsyllabus passages of Latin text on various topics and from various authors and time periods. Students will demonstrate their understanding and analysis of these passages through two checkpoint activities during the course and on two project passage short essay free-response questions on the AP Exam. Teachers will enter students’ checkpoint scores in the AP Digital Portfolio.

Learn More in the Course and Exam Description 

Download the revised course and exam description (CED) to learn more about the revised course.

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