GREAT FALLS — Beginning May 11th, high school students around the world will be taking their Advanced Placement (AP) exams online. Students who are enrolled in a school that is still utilizing remote learning during the Coronavirus pandemic, which is a significant portion of the United States, will be taking the tests online at the same time as students in similar classes in different states and countries.
Students will receive an e-ticket in their email for each exam that they are scheduled to take. Those should come two days in advance of each test. According to CollegeBoard, the organization that’s in charge of the tests, there will only be material that most AP classes should have covered by early March, around the time that many schools started fully online education.
Great Falls Central Catholic High School Principal Angel Turoski says that any student at her school who didn’t have access to a computer outside of school was issued one when remote learning began. She also says that a few students opted not to take the AP exams online. She estimated that no more than two students from GFCC made that decision.
This year’s exams will also be open-note/open-book, with a couple of exceptions. Students may not consult with any other individuals during their tests, which will be much shorter than the two to three hour time period that is normally allotted for in-person tests every May.
The difficulty and scoring of exams will not change, as experienced educators and college professors will grade tests on a 1-5 scale, just like normal. What will change is the overall exam length, as well as the test format. CollegeBoard says that the exams will be the “exam format and questions are being designed specifically for an at-home administration,” although they do not specify exactly what that means, other than stating that points will not be earned from content that can be found in textbooks or online.
There will also be more advanced plagiarism measures in place to discourage students from copying answers directly from textbooks or the internet.
CollegeBoard will work with high schools around the world on several fronts. First, if a student receives a score below a 3 (the score that most colleges and universities require to count the exam towards college credit), AP teachers will have a chance to review their students’ score and exam responses. If the teacher is convinced that you should have received a better score, they will be able to engage with the AP Program's college faculty partners to review that score, and ensure that it is fair and appropriate.
Additionally, CollegeBoard will work with schools when it comes to violations of exam security. Students who are found to have shared or received any exam content or exam responses, or engaged in any plans or efforts to gain an unfair advantage, will be blocked from testing or have their AP scores canceled. If CollegeBoard determines that a student gained or provided an unfair advantage on an AP Exam, they will notify that student’s high school, and the school can choose to take necessary disciplinary action if they deem it appropriate. CollegeBoard says that they will also “provide information about the incident to colleges or other organizations to which the student has already sent any CollegeBoard scores (including SAT scores)—or to which the student would send scores in the future.”
For more information about the adjusted Advanced Placement testing process this year, click here to visit the College Board website.
