AP Exam Update
March 2020
Good afternoon AP Students/Parents/Guardians,
Please see the information below regarding this year's AP Exam administration directly from the College Board - changes in requirements, exam length, assessed content, and dates for testing. We will continue to forward information as we receive it. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out.
Q. When will AP Exams be offered this year?
A. Dates will be published by April 3
We’re providing two online testing dates for each AP subject—one sooner, one later—so that students can choose what works best for them. Because each AP Exam will only include questions about the units of the course typically taught prior to March each year, many students will prefer to test sooner, while the material is still fresh. By April 3, we’ll publish the full exam schedule including the specific free-response question types that will comprise each AP exam.
Q. Will I be charged a fee if my child decides not to take the exam?
A. No
No. Given the circumstances, we are waiving all fees for unused/canceled exams this year, regardless of when the cancellation decision was made (even prior to the COVID outbreak).
We’ll continue to support students with free resources through exam day. And while we encourage students to wait until closer to the test date to decide, any student already registered for an exam can choose to cancel at no charge.
As a district, we will work to refund exam charges after exams are administered.
Q. What should AP students do?
A. Take advantage of free live and on-demand AP lessons
Beginning on Wednesday, March 25, students will have access to free, live AP lessons, delivered each weekday by AP teachers from across the country. These optional, mobile-friendly classes will review the AP content and skills typically taught in the first 75% of the course and are designed to be used alongside work that may be given by schools. There will also be some supplementary lessons covering the final 25% of the course.
We know that schools and students are managing remote learning in different ways, and while these options may work for many, they may not meet everyone’s needs during this extraordinary time.
Q. What should students and families know?
A. AP is committed to helping our students
We are committed to providing students with opportunities to demonstrate the knowledge and skills they’ve developed in AP classes this year. During this extraordinary time, we’re launching daily video lessons, taught online by AP teachers, as well as AP Exams that can be taken at home.
More information is available at collegeboard.org/ap-covid19-updates and we will email schools and students with important updates.
Q. When do free live and on-demand AP lessons begin?
A. March 25, 2020
Wednesday, March 25, 2020. A schedule of classes, including descriptions of each lesson is available at collegeboard.org/ap-covid19-updates. All classes are available for free and are completely optional.
Q. Where can students access the classes?
Q. What if a student can’t attend a particular class?
A. All lessons will be available on-demand
The classes will also be available on-demand at youtube.com/advancedplacement so students can access them any time. But remember these classes are optional, not required. They will begin finishing up the AP course so students have the knowledge for the subsequent coursework in college and loop back to review the entire course.
Q. Will all AP subjects have online classes?
A.Yes
All subjects will have live online classes except for 2-D Art & Design, 3-D Art & Design, Drawing, Seminar, and Research. These courses will instead receive on-demand lessons that will cover the tasks required for the course. These will be available by early April. Computer Science Principles students will receive support from endorsed providers.
Q. Can students attend these classes, even if they’re not taking the AP Exam?
A. Yes
Q. Can homeschooled, virtual school, independent-study, and self-study students attend these classes?
A. Yes
Q. What kind of exam will students receive?
A. 45-minute online free response exam
Students will receive a 45-minute online free-response exam (exact timing to be announced). There will be no multiple-choice questions. Students will complete the exam at home, online, on a specified day and time. To minimize conflicts, students will be able to choose from two different test dates, one earlier or one later.
Like a college exam, these exams will be open book/”open note.” They won’t test simple factual recall; instead they’ll be focused on skills and thematic understandings. Students will not be tested on content typically taught in the last 25% of an AP course, as laid out in the unit structure shown in the AP Course and Exam Description. Visit collegeboard.org/ap-covid19-updates for a list of which units will be included in each AP Exam this year.
Each student response will be monitored by plagiarism detection software, and students whose responses mirror content from the web or other students’ submissions will be disqualified.
Student responses will be submitted digitally and scored by remote readers. This is a similar process to the one we have used for years in scoring AP at-home work for college credit in courses like AP Seminar, AP Research, and AP Computer Science Principles.
By April 3, we’ll publish the full exam schedule including the specific free-response question types that will comprise each AP exam.
Q. How will you prevent students from cheating?
A. Responses will be monitored by plagiarism detection software
The exams will be designed to measure skills developed over the course of the academic year that cannot be learned on the fly from Google or chat rooms. Like college history and literary essays, these AP Exams are open book/open note. Students will see the topic at the start of the exam and they’ll need to write and submit their responses within the testing time.
Each subject’s exam will be taken on the same day at the same time, worldwide. Students may consult textbooks and notes. Each student response will be monitored by plagiarism detection software, and students whose responses mirror content from the web or other students’ submissions will be disqualified. We will also disqualify any student sharing exam content via social media, websites, and other means.
Q. Will students with approved testing accommodations such as extended time be able to use them on the exams?
A.Yes
Yes. Details will be shared closer to the exams.
Q. Will exams be available in all subjects?
A. Yes
Yes. By April 3, we’ll publish the full exam schedule including the specific free-response question types that will comprise each AP exam.
Q. Will the exam cost the same as before?
A.Yes
Yes. Last year, the College Board’s expenses (e.g., printing, shipping, scoring of AP Exams) and services (e.g., fee waivers, scholarships, professional development of teachers) took up ~98% of annual revenues. This year, the unanticipated cost of building and deploying new capabilities like online testing, plagiarism checks, and online scoring of student essays – all on top of our regular expenses and services, will more than fully consume the test fees we receive, even with a shorter exam.