AP Computer Science Principles — The Cushman School

Overview

About the Course

AP Computer Science Principles is the most accessible of the AP CS courses, designed to reach students who may not have prior programming experience. The course is organized around five Big Ideas and prioritizes conceptual understanding over syntax — students learn to think computationally and engage critically with technology as both creators and citizens.

The AP CSP exam includes a Create Performance Task in which students independently design, implement, and document a program of their choosing — this task accounts for 30% of the final score, with the remaining 70% from a 70-question multiple-choice exam.

Understand how data is represented, stored, and transmitted digitally
Explain how the internet works and how data moves across networks
Write programs in Python that solve real problems
Analyze datasets and draw defensible conclusions from data
Reason about the ethical and societal impacts of computing systems

Curriculum

Units

Big Idea 1

Creative Development

Collaboration; program design and development; identifying and correcting errors; testing; documentation and abstraction.

Big Idea 2

Data

Binary representation; data compression; metadata; data collection, cleaning, and bias; visualization; correlation vs. causation.

Big Idea 3

Algorithms and Programming

Variables; Boolean expressions; conditionals; loops; lists; procedures with parameters; linear and binary search; algorithmic efficiency; heuristics.

Big Idea 4

Computer Systems and Networks

The Internet; TCP/IP; HTTP/DNS; packet switching; fault tolerance; bandwidth vs. latency; parallel computing; encryption.

Big Idea 5

Impact of Computing

Privacy and PII; digital divide; algorithmic bias; intellectual property; crowdsourcing; cybersecurity; environmental impact.

Based on the AP Computer Science Principles Course and Exam Description.