AP exam scores have same national results as past years despite online learning
July 15, 2020
Students of Amador took the online AP exams this May with difficulty, and the national statistics for the scores have surprisingly been the same results as previous years.
A different form of testing requires a different score and result. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 school year should have been a different year concerning education and testing, but the College Board created the online AP exams to be quite complicated.
“During the AP exam I only had one technical issue when a website I was using for running code crashed, but I was nearly done with the exam at that point. None of my friends reported issues but we were worried due to many videos online showing issues with submitting,” said Ryan Nava (‘22).
The AP exams by the College Board were unfair, with a drastic time limit of 45 minutes and the possibilities of technical difficulties while taking the test.
“I think it’s not fair because we have the disadvantages of not learning as much than past years. I think the AP exams were accurate with testing but College Board should definitely accommodate this year’s students,” said Brooklyn Frerich (‘21).
AP classes and exams already cause much stress for students, to provide a short, free-response exam that will be the defining factor to whether they get college credit is unjust.
To top it off, the national results for the tests were similar to previous years, even though the exams were so different in 2020 compared to 2019.
“If this happened to another country I would feel it was unfair to compare previous years’ scores to this year. So many sections were cut out and focused intensely on the basics of the course.
“The AP exams left out almost all of the course so it felt like an unfair exchange for the year’s work,” said Nava.
With such a drastic difference of testing format, one would expect changes to the scoring process. If College Board had taken the time to create an online exam covering more topics of what students had learned while still in school, there would have been no problem with how the scoring was done.
