AP Psychology New FRQs: How to Solve the AAQ and EBQ

The AP Psychology test has to Free Response Questions now, AAQ (Article Analysis Question) and the EBQ (Evidence Based Question). In the AAQ, you’ll be given one example of a study, and are asked to examine it for its Psychological concepts and its validity. We’ve previously written how to answer the AP Psychology AAQ here. But what about the EBQ?

How to answer the AP Psychology EBQ

You may have come across the acronym SODA when describing how to answer the AP Psych FRQs: Space (provide yourself enough space to answer), Order (answer the question in order) define (define key terms related to the study) and Apply (apply those key terms to the FRQ). Really, Define and Apply are the only important parts… SO, duh? In an EBQ, you’ll be given three articles on Psychology, and asked to provide a claim. In other words, this is like an AAQ, but with three sources to analyze, and you are making a claim based on all the evidence together. Imagine you are a psychological researcher, and three studies cross your desk. What would be a psychological claim you could make based on this evidence? That’s the heart of the EBQ.

We’ll walk you through the free sample EBQ you can download here, but first, let’s make it simpler to understand with non-psychological terms:

Imagine you read three articles in a newspaper: one says that athletes who ate hamburgers the night before a weight lifting competition performed, on average, better than those who only ate pasta (but that those who ate rice and beans performed comparatively similar to those who ate hamburgers); another article states that students who recently became vegan are given excusal from the nurse from PE class at a higher rate than average; a third article compare rates of skeletal muscle injuries between two countries and finds higher rates of injury in the country that has a prohibition against eating cows. What would you conclude? Probably, you would state something to the effect that protein is an important function in physical health and performance, but that it doesn’t need to be meat based (the rice and beans group performed comparitively to the hamburger group). That’s essentially what you are doing in an EBQ: Finding the common evidence, and proposing a claim based on it. Now, let’s walk you through a previous College board AP Psychology EBQ on page 6 of this document (but write your answer down first before moving on!)

Solving the EBQ

Right away, we can see that these articles are about motivation and drive from Unit 4: Social Psychology, so we want to define terms such as Yerkes-Dodson Curve and Stress. Then we start writing.

1. Create an outline in this format before you start writing your essay:

A. Claim: audience improve/worsen performance?

B: evidence and explanation: more time to put on new clothes watched/shorter

time with familiar clothes (difficult vs easy task) from source 1

C: evidence and explanation: baboons took more tries if watched in source 2

2. Read the introduction, and then skip to the results for each source.

We don’t care about generalizability etc for this. It’s not an AAQ, it’s an EBQ! Demographics don’t matter for this. You likely only need the results–if you do need more info, then read key points in the methodology (starting from the bottom paragraphs and moving upward).

3. If a source confuses you based on a quick scan, skip it and try a different source.

Don’t read the 3rd source if the first 2 sources make sense and can be used. Move fast, and read sparingly, because: Time is the killer!

4. Make sure you used a citation!

If you don’t, your points don’t count!

5. Don’t assume, it makes an ASS out of U and ME.

Look at essay 2C (see them here): Look at essay 2C (links at the top): the student was clearly smart and knew Psychology concepts, but they assumed the reason for anxiety was due to submission to authority to change answers. That might be true, but the study doesn’t mention anything about “changing answers”, so don’t assume. When you are a Psychologist you can do your own study to find the reasons. ONLY use information in the sources.

4. If you don’t know a Psychology concept that connects to the studies, skip it.

You still earned 4 out of 7 points and can pass! The essay below uses the Yerkes-Dodson curve for this point. If it was left out, you’d still get 5 out of 7 points! The rubric in College Board for the online practice EBQs states that while “[T]he use of a psychological perspective, theory, concept, or research finding explicitly mentioned in the AP Psychology [CED 2025] is preferred but not required…the application of a psychological perspective must demonstrate psychological knowledge and not popular understanding,” (College Board, 2025). This means that if someone does not remember a specific term from Psychology, but can describe it, they might still earn a point. They could state, “This study shows that the presence of others influences arousal and anxiety which can affect performance in different ways on easy and difficult tasks” and still earn the point, even if they didn’t explicitly mention “Yerkes-Dodson Curve”.

6. Ensure your essay supports your claim:

Sometimes, people write a claim, and then write evidence that argues against it. Look what happened to 2C in the provided example in the link at the top. After you write your B and C sections, reread your claim and make sure you don’t need to change it. Sections B & C must to support section A—otherwise, you might end up with a score of 1 or 0!

5. Write only 5-6 sentences.

(1 for claim, 2 for section B, 2 for section C… if you are sure you know an applicable Psychology concept, add a 6th and 7th sentence to mention it, which is written in Italics below). In the case of the links from AP, you could write this to get 5 sentences below:

EBQ Answer

How to answer the EBQ on the AP Psychology Test

Write your answer using the CERER format:

Part A – Claim (1 Point)

The presence of an audience harms a subjects performance ability on difficult tasks.

Part B – Evidence & Reasoning

Part B.i. – Evidence (1 Point)

In source 1, the subjects increased the time it took to perform a difficult task of putting on a lab coat and new clothes when in the presence of an audience, going from around 29 seconds to almost 35 seconds, while performing a well learned task decreased the time slightly.

Part B.ii. – Reasoning (2 Points)

This increase in time to perform the task demonstrates worse performance in the presence of the audience. Students actually improved when in performance when there was an audience on the easy task but did worse on the difficult task, [which demonstrates the Yerkes-Dodson curve about arousal states and performance ability.] [Note: this part in italics and brackets is to get the additional point]

Part C – Evidence & Reasoning

Part C.i. – Evidence (1 Point)

In source 2, baboons pressed the screen incorreclty more times and so did worse on a task to press a screen and earn food when in the presence of other baboons in the 20% of trials with the learned task reversed (difficult task) compared to those in the difficult task when alone.

Part C.ii. – Reasoning (2 Points)

This demonstrates that the presence of an audience, especially ones viewed as more socially superior, made them performance worse on a new or difficult task due to increased distress. [This demonstrates that the GAS stress response can have a negative impact on cognitive performance due to increased arousal] [Note: this part in italics and brackets is to get the additional point]

How did your answer compare? Did you get it correct? Now that you know the secret, download this free sample EBQ and give it a try. If you need a Psychology lesson for your class:

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