Read THIS Before Buying an AP® Physics 1 Test Prep Book
The AP® Physics 1 exam is one of many Advanced Placement exams offered by the College Board. If you are taking AP Physics 1, you may be wondering if it’s the right time to purchase a test prep book for your upcoming exam in May. Perhaps you have already started looking on Amazon or elsewhere, and have discovered that there are a lot of choices for test prep materials out there.
If this is the case, then you have come to the right place! I have read three of the most popular test prep books, all geared towards the 2026 administration of the AP Physics 1 exam. I will be sharing with you my thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Do I even need a test prep book?
It depends. If your AP Physics teacher has been doing a good job conveying the material to you, and has prepared you for the format of the exam, then you should be able to do well on the AP exam without a prep book. However, it is not a bad idea for you to have a supplemental source if:
- There are content areas that you are still confused about
- Your teacher has not explained to your class how the test is structured, what the four types of FRQs (Free Response Questions) on the exam are, and what task verbs are used on the FRQs
- Your class assignments have been focused on calculations, and you have not had much chance to practice questions that call for a paragraph response
If you think that one or more of the above bullet points applies to you, then you might consider getting a copy of a test prep book for extra preparation. In that case, read on.
How I did I rate the text prep books?
I rated these books based on the following criteria:
- The review of Physics content, in terms of both comprehensiveness and relevance.
- Explanation of the AP Physics 1 exam format and strategies for approaching both the MCQ (Multiple Choice Question) and FRQ sections of the exam.
- Practice problems for each topic
- Practice AP tests, and how well they align with the actual exam.
- How enjoyable the writing style was. This is more important than some people realize! The most comprehensive test prep book will not help anyone if nobody wants to read it to the end.
Barron’s 2026 AP Physics 1 Premium
by Kenneth Rideout and Jonathan Wolf, Kaplan North America LLC (2025)
ISBN: 978-1506297729
Content review: ★★☆☆☆
Practice problems: ★★★☆☆
Exam format and strategies: ★★☆☆☆
Practice AP tests: ★★★★☆
Fun: ★★☆☆☆
Overall rating: ★★★☆☆
Barron’s tends towards a very laconic style, rarely using more words than necessary. The Physics content review is similarly brief. The author lists all of the relevant equations in neat boxes, but often doesn’t bother to explain what all the variables are. The equation for gravitational potential energy, for instance, is listed as
PEgravity = Ug = mgh
but you would already have to know what m, g, and h are to make any sense of it. The content review would be helpful if you just wanted a list of the most relevant equations, but it would be very challenging to try to learn any of this material for the first time from this source.
Despite its brevity, the book oddly manages to include material that is not at all relevant for the AP exam. For example, the text spends two pages “deriving” all the kinematic equations based on a graphical analysis, which the AP exam will never ask for. It also mentions the strong and weak nuclear forces, admittedly only in one sentence but it seems odd to mention them at all.
There are a decent number of practice problems at the end of each content chapter. They make for a reasonable content review, although they tend to be very computation focused. They are good physics problems for general studying, but are not geared specifically for the AP exam.
This book spends a mere 8 pages talking about the actual AP exam, and spends most of this discourse with a description of the overall test format and a list of the four types of FRQs. There is a short section with generic advice on handling the MCQs and FRQs.
The book offers four full practice tests, two printed in the book itself and two online. The full practice tests do a good job of aligning to the actual AP exam. The MCQ section is well balanced between computational and conceptual questions, much like the real exam, and the four FRQs replicate the four types of questions on the actual exam. The FRQs use the official task verbs from the College Board, although they do not show the task verbs in boldface like the real exam does.
The Barron’s book will be a good choice for students who:
- Have learned all the material and just need a source to help identify what is relevant for the AP exam
- Want decently aligned practice tests
- Do not want to spend a lot of time reading more text than is necessary
The Princeton Review AP Physics 1 Premium Prep, 12th edition
by the Staff of the Princeton Review, Penguin Random House (2025)
ISBN: 978-0593518267
Content review: ★★★★☆
Practice problems: ★★★☆☆
Exam format and strategies: ★★★☆☆
Practice AP tests: ★★☆☆☆
Fun: ★★★☆☆
Overall rating: ★★★★☆
The Princeton Review book has the most comprehensive Physics content section of any of the three books I reviewed. This text devotes over 200 pages to a review of class content and guides the reader through a logical sequence of topics, complete with examples for each one. It manages to include enough detail on everything you need to know for the exam in terms of content, and avoids too many distractions. Of the books I reviewed, this is definitely the most useful one if you need to learn some of the Physics topics on your own. There are also a good number of practice problems at the end of each chapter, with an even split between calculation-type and conceptual questions.
The section describing the AP exam and providing strategies for the exam is much briefer. The text covers the basic structure of the exam, where to find relevant equations on the equation sheet, and some tips for handling both the MCQs and FRQs. The book also provides definitions of the FRQ task verbs and a description of the four FRQ question types.
This book offers five full practice tests, two printed in the book and three online. The answer key provides pretty thorough explanations for each of the answers to the questions, and includes strategies for dealing with certain kinds of problems, including making up numbers to solve symbolic problems, and process of elimination. Of the three books I reviewed, this is the only one to offer explanations for the FRQ solutions separate from the scoring guide.
The main weakness of the practice tests is that while they claim to follow the format of the four AP Physics question types, the tests do not actually do so very closely. For example, the Translation Between Representations (TBR) question normally includes some kind of visual representation of a physics scenario, some derivations, and a graph, and is supposed to ask the student to discuss the consistency between these different representations or make a prediction based on them. Neither of the TBR questions in the printed practice tests include all of these elements. Moreover, the FRQs use the official task verbs very inconsistently.
The Princeton Review book will be a good choice for students who:
- Need to fill in gaps in their knowledge of the source material
- Find it helpful to have practice problems at the end of each chapter
- Have an additional source for full-length practice tests
5 Steps To A 5 AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based
by Greg Jacobs (2025)
ISBN: 978-1266712265
Content review: ★★☆☆☆
Practice problems: ★★★☆☆
Exam format and strategies: ★★★★★
Practice AP tests: ★★★★★
Fun: ★★★★★
Overall rating: ★★★★★
In general, the 5 Steps To A 5 series of test prep books are focused on one thing only: to help students prepare for the test. They do not pretend to attempt to convey general physics content, or help you do better in the class.
This attitude is reflected in the very brief physics content section for the book. It spans barely 100 pages, far shorter than the content sections of either of the other two books. Rather than trying to teach anything, the text enumerates a long list of “physics facts” meant to guide the student as to what to study and memorize. There are also problem-solving techniques mixed in with the content. There are a tiny number of practice problems at the end of each chapter, with a good mix of calculation, symbolic, and conceptual problems. There is also a separate chapter just for drills of some of the more difficult topics.
On the other hand, this text has the most comprehensive discussion of the format of the AP exam and suggested strategies for approaching it. The discussion includes the history of the exam, the philosophy behind both the class and exam, and an extensive description of all four types of FRQs. The book also offers the author’s view on why the calculator and equation sheet don’t matter, how to use graphs, and how long free response answers should be.
The book contains only two practice tests, but each test is very closely aligned with the format of the actual exam. The MCQ section contains very few computational problems and a good deal of conceptual ones, just like the real exam. The explanations of the solutions are brief but sufficient to explain the solution choices, but they don’t teach any problem-solving techniques.
The FRQ section follows the four AP Physics questions types exactly, and the questions feel like they came from the real College Board exam. The questions feature all the official task verbs printed in boldface. The scoring guidelines are also just like the ones from the College Board, with points given for partial solutions and sample responses as the real exam provides.
Finally, this book is written in a casual and familiar style that was more fun to read than the other books. It even includes some recommendations for good pizza places, at least if you live on the East Coast.
The 5 Steps To A 5 book will be a good choice for students who:
- Already have a decent handle on the content
- Want to get insights on the AP exam
- Want to practice on full-length tests that closely mimic the actual AP exam
Conclusion
Hopefully, the above guide will help you choose an AP Physics 1 test prep book that meets your particular needs. If there is another test prep book that I did not review, but that you think is worth mentioning, please let me know about it in the comments below. And if you decide that you need more focused help for AP Physics 1 (or any other physics class) than a test prep book provides, feel free to contact me for tutoring help at https://andrewjeungtutoring.com .
AP is a trademark registered by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse this blog.
I am not affiliated with any of the authors or publishers behind the books I reviewed here, and I have not received any free products from any of them. All books were bought at the regular price and donated to my local county library.