Advanced Placement serves the interests of three groups: (1) high school students capable of pursuing college-level studies, (2) secondary schools that desire to offer these students the opportunity of working at an advanced level, and (3) colleges that wish to encourage and recognize such achievement. Professional consensus on the form that these college-level studies can most usefully take is therefore basic to the program. This consensus, maintained and reviewed by the committees of examiners, is stated as the course description for each of the 11 fields of study presently included in the program: American history, biology, chemistry, English, European history, French, German, Latin, mathematics, physics, and Spanish. The examining committees of school and college teachers that prepare the course descriptions have allowed for differences in the patterns of study that may be developed by participating schools. Each description contains basic concepts in the course, the basic course approach, the level of quality, examination, and answers. (Author/KJ)