I took my AP Music Theory exam today. That thing was a major bitch. D:

Having never taken music courses in school, what did you need to do?

The exam is split into two parts, a multiple choice and a free response, like most AP exams. The multiple choice questions range from specific characteristics of pieces of music they play for you (such as certain notes in certain areas, key changes, and questions about rhythm) to fundamental questions about chord analysis to being able to see mistakes in four part voice writing. Listening to music and answering questions about the pieces is... very very hard.

The free response is itself split into two parts. The first part is writing, the second is site singing. The writing part is 40% dictation (basically, they play something, you write what you think the notes were) and 60% part writing. Part writing is the most essential skill to have, because it's the only thing you can really practice and make up for all the points you miss on this section. Basically, it's writing music based on a chordal analysis. There's also a part where you compose a bass line for a melody and write the chordal analysis yourself.

The site singing involves you sitting in front of someone who records you. You're given two eight measure pieces and 75 seconds for each. After those 75 seconds, the person hits record and you sing. One is in a major key and one in a minor key.

The vast majority of the people that take this exam fail it miserably.