AP French Has Changed: What the 2027 Exam Actually Looks Like
The Bespoke Team
7 September 2026 · 7 min read
If you are teaching or taking AP French this year, the exam you are preparing for is not the one most study material describes. College Board revised all six AP World Language and Culture courses for the 2026–27 school year, and the first sitting of the new AP French Language and Culture exam is Thursday, 6 May 2027.
This is not a light refresh. Two free-response tasks were removed outright, a months-long course project was added, and the whole exam moved into Bluebook.
The email reply and the conversation are gone
For over a decade the AP French free-response section had four tasks: an email reply, an argumentative essay, a simulated conversation, and a two-minute cultural comparison.
The new Section I has three tasks, and only one of them survived from the old exam:
- Project Presentation— 3 minutes to prepare, 3 minutes to speak. 20% of your score.
- Project Q&A— four unseen questions from a recorded interlocutor, 40 seconds each. 15%.
- Argumentative Essay— 55 minutes, three sources. 15%.
Section II is now the multiple choice: 25 listening questions and 30 reading questions, 80 minutes, 50% of the score. The whole exam runs about two and a half hours, down from roughly three.
There is now a course project — worth 35% of your score
This is the substantial change. In January of the exam year, College Board releases a project prompt and a packet of six to eight authentic source materials through AP Digital Portfolio. Students choose a francophone region or community, research the topic in French across roughly 15 class periods, and build a presentation.
For 2026–27, the project draws on Unit 3: Art and Creativity and uses music as a lens for exploring cultural products, practices, and perspectives.
Nothing produced during the project is scored by College Board. What it produces is the material for the two exam-day speaking tasks — which together are worth 20 points, contributing 35% of the overall AP score.
Students must submit a Personalized Project Reference through AP Digital Portfolio by 30 April 2027, and receive a printed copy to use during the presentation. College Board describes it as concise key words and phrases. Teachers are explicitly told not to let students read from it verbatim or memorise a presentation word for word.
The exam is fully digital
Everything happens in Bluebook, including the speaking tasks — students hear audio prompts and record responses directly in the app. A wired headset with a microphone is required. Paper answer sheets, CDs, CD players, and the DAC app are all retired.
Check the date on your revision material
A great deal of AP French content online — including prep books and score calculators currently on sale — has not been updated. If a resource drills the email reply, a five-turn conversation, or a two-minute cultural comparison, it describes the retired exam. Released multiple-choice sets and past essay prompts are still useful; the rest is not.
What to do about it this term
The project theme is already public, which is an advantage worth taking. Students who spend the autumn listening to francophone music from more than one region — and reading about the cultural context around it — will start the January project with a base rather than from zero.
Beyond that: practise speaking to a three-minute limit, get comfortable answering unrehearsed questions in French, and keep the multiple choice in view. It is half the exam, and it is the half students neglect while the project feels more pressing.