How Many Questions On The Algebra 1 Regents

What You're Actually Facing on Test Day

The Algebra 1 Regents is broken into four parts with a total of 37 questions. That number matters less than understanding how the exam is structured and what each section demands from you time-wise. Most students walk in thinking they just need to answer 37 questions and they'll be fine. It doesn't work like that. Part 1 contains 24 multiple choice questions. No calculator. You have roughly one question per minute here if you're pacing yourself, which means you need to move fast. These are mostly procedural — solve for x, simplify an expression, identify the slope. They're not designed to trick you, but they are designed to eat your time if you second-guess every answer. Part 2 has 8 short-answer questions where you write in the answer. You can use a calculator here. Some of these are straightforward. Others require two or three steps before you land on your final answer, and you only have one shot to bubble it in. There's no partial credit if you write the wrong number.

Part 3 gives you 4 multiple choice questions that lead into extended constructed responses. These are the big problems. Each one has a scenario — usually wordy — and then 3 to 5 sub-questions that build on each other. You show your work. Partial credit exists here, which is the only place it does on this entire exam. I once had a student who completely messed up part c of question 17 but still earned full credit for part d because they carried their incorrect answer forward correctly. The graders follow the rubric literally. If your logic is sound even with a bad number, you get points.

How Many Questions On The Algebra 1 Regents Are Actually Asked Per Section

That brings us to the core detail most people search for. Here's the breakdown: Part 1: 24 multiple choice questions Part 2: 8 constructed response questions

Part 3: 4 multiple choice questions with extended response Part 4: 1 extended constructed response question Total: 37 questions across all parts

You get three hours. That sounds generous until you realize Part 1 alone can consume 40 to 50 minutes if you're careful. The common mistake I see every year is students spending too long on the early multiple choice problems, then racing through Part 3 where the real points live. Don't do that. One thing nobody tells you about the exam format: the multiple choice questions in Part 1 are not always easy. The NYS education department deliberately places some conceptual questions in there that require you to understand why an answer works, not just compute it. A few years back there was a question asking students to identify which equation represents a line perpendicular to a given line, and the answer choices all looked plausible unless you actually understood the negative reciprocal relationship. I've seen students bubble in C when the correct answer was D, simply because they'd never been taught the shortcut of flipping and negating the slope instead of converting everything to slope-intercept form first. Here's a practical workaround I recommend: practice with timed sets. Not full exams, just chunks. Give yourself 15 minutes for 12 multiple choice questions and see if you can finish clean. If you can't, you're going to struggle under pressure on test day. This drill usually takes about 10 minutes of setup and 15 minutes of actual practice, and it reveals your pacing problem faster than anything else.

For Part 2, the calculator is your friend but also your trap. Some questions give you expressions that are trivial with a graphing calculator but nearly impossible by hand. The TI-84 can solve systems, find zeros, and even do basic regression in seconds. But if you're entirely on the calculator and the question changes slightly in a way the calculator can't handle directly, you'll be stuck. I always tell students to know how to do at least the first two steps by hand before pulling out the calculator. It takes maybe 30 extra seconds per problem but it saves you when the question is more nuanced than expected. The extended response sections — Parts 3 and 4 — are worth the most points per question. Part 3 alone is typically around 20 to 24 points total spread across four questions. Part 4 is usually 4 to 6 points. These are where you earn or lose your score. I've seen students who bombed the multiple choice section but passed because they knocked out Parts 3 and 4 completely. The scoring formula weights those sections heavily enough to make up for a weak Part 1. One structural quirk worth knowing: the exam sometimes includes a reference sheet at the front with formulas you might need. It's there, but most of what's on it is standard stuff — slope formula, quadratic formula, volume formulas. The one thing that does appear on it and trips students up is the list of polynomial division algorithms and some radical simplification rules. If you're not familiar with how to use that sheet efficiently, you waste time looking for things that aren't there. Spend ten minutes going through the actual reference sheet before test day so you know what's on it and what isn't.

There's also the issue of question ordering. The exam generally goes from easier to harder within each part, but that's not guaranteed. I've seen questions in the second half of Part 1 that were harder than questions near the beginning. Don't skip ahead assuming the later ones are easier. Work through methodically and flag anything that takes more than two minutes for a second look. Finally, a blunt reality about passing the exam: you need a scaled score of 65 to pass. The raw score you get depends on how many questions you answer correctly, but the scaling can vary slightly from administration to administration. Generally, getting around 30 out of 37 questions correct will put you in passing territory, but some years it's been slightly higher or lower depending on how hard the specific version of the test was. Don't aim for exactly 30. Aim for 33 or higher to give yourself a buffer.