This aPHR cheat sheet distills HRCI's Associate Professional in Human Resources exam into a printable rundown of the facts examiners weight most across all five functional areas. It's a premium cheat sheet built by Capital Prep — the one premium prep we trust — and it's yours free. Reinforce it with the rest of your free aPHR toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
aPHR exam at a glance
- Questions: 90 total (65 scored + 25 unscored pretest)
- Time: 1 hour 45 minutes exam (about 2 hr 15 min total appointment)
- Passing score: Scaled score of 500 or higher (scale 100-700); pass / did not pass
- Cost: $100 application fee + $300 exam fee (~$400 total; verify at HRCI.org)
- Certifying body: HR Certification Institute (HRCI), delivered via Pearson VUE / OnVUE
What’s on the aPHR cheat sheet
- Compliance & Risk Management (25%) — EEO laws and thresholds, FLSA wage-and-hour, FMLA leave, NLRA, OSHA, and privacy — the largest and most-tested area.
- Employee Relations (24%) — engagement and retention, progressive discipline, conflict resolution, grievances, retaliation, and DEI.
- Talent Acquisition (19%) — job analysis and KSAs, sourcing, structured interviews, offers, onboarding, and recruiting metrics.
- Compensation & Benefits (17%) — total rewards, exempt vs. non-exempt classification, the FLSA, and statutory benefits like COBRA and ERISA.
- Learning & Development (15%) — training needs analysis, the ADDIE model, instructional design, and training delivery methods.
How to use it in your final week
- Memorize the employee-count thresholds cold — 15 (Title VII/ADA/GINA), 20 (ADEA), 50 (FMLA), 100 (WARN) — they are the single most-tested compliance facts.
- Front-load Compliance & Risk Management (25%) and Employee Relations (24%); together they are nearly half the exam, so master these two areas first.
- Run the FLSA line in your head: non-exempt gets overtime at 1.5x over 40 hours in a workweek; exempt roles must clear both the salary test and the duties test.
- Read the sheet the morning of the test for a final pass on the memory hooks, then pace with a short timed set — 90 questions in 1 hour 45 minutes is about 70 seconds each.
The cheat sheet is your review layer — your aPHR practice test drives the exam-readiness ring at the top of this page. Download it, review, then take a full practice exam (or drill with the study guide and flashcards) to see where you stand.
aPHR cheat sheet FAQ
Yes — the aPHR cheat sheet downloads as a PDF with no sign-up and no account. It sits alongside Career Employer's free aPHR practice test, study guide, and flashcards, so your whole prep stack costs nothing.
It condenses the highest-yield HRCI facts into a fast reference: the five functional areas and their weights, the employee-count thresholds (15/20/50/100), FLSA overtime and exempt rules, FMLA leave, and the retaliation and progressive-discipline points examiners lean on most.
The aPHR is scored on a scaled range of 100 to 700, and you pass with a scaled score of 500 or higher. Only the 65 scored questions count toward that number — the 25 pretest items are unscored — and the result is reported as pass or did not pass.
It's built from HRCI's current aPHR Exam Content Outline and the official employment-law sources (EEOC, DOL) behind the tested facts, and we review it against HRCI's published outline regularly. Always confirm fees and policies at HRCI.org before you apply.
No — it's a review and final-week cram layer, not a full course. Use it to lock in the thresholds, weights, and law triggers, then confirm you're above the 500 line with functional-area-weighted practice before you book your exam.
References
- 1.HR Certification Institute (HRCI). “aPHR Certification | Associate Professional in Human Resources.” HRCI.org, 2026. ↑
- 2.HR Certification Institute (HRCI). “aPHR Exam Content Outline.” HRCI.org, 2026. ↑
- 3.HR Certification Institute (HRCI). “Exam Fees.” HRCI.org, 2026. ↑
- 4.U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “Laws Enforced by the EEOC.” eeoc.gov, 2026. ↑
- 5.U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. “Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).” dol.gov, 2026. ↑
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