The 2013-2014 academic year marks the rollout of the redesigned advanced placement (AP) chemistry course and exam. There have been many questions as to why the course was redesigned and how the new examination will differ from its legacy version. In this article we give a brief overview of the legacy course and examine why a redesign occurred in the context of best practices in chemistry education. Using specific examples, we outline changes to the exam format and content, and discuss how the scoring process (the AP Reading) and the AP score setting are carried out. This contribution is part of a special issue on teaching introductory chemistry in the context of the advanced placement chemistry course redesign.