College Board to Change Traditional Testing

Carley Walker, Staff Writer
March 20, 2020

As of March 20, the College Board has announced to change the format for the AP exams this year due to the COVID-19 outbreak and nationwide recommended quarantine.

After surveying over 18,000 students, 91% of the students said they wanted the exams to still take place this year. This led the College Board to keep the AP exams for this year, but will be doing the testing in remote locations.

In regards to college credit, colleges have come to a consensus that they will still accept student’s AP classes for college credit. This is not the first time the College Board has administered at-home tests, as each year students have taken tests at home through AP Art, Computer Science, and Capstone programs.

The College Board is currently trying to figure out the mechanics behind how this year’s test will work, but traditional proctoring of the exams will not take place.

The tests will be administered online via a computer, tablet, smartphone, or other form of technology available to students. The College Board acknowledges students from low-income households may not have access to the Internet, and are currently addressing the issue asking for students who come from less fortunate households to contact the College Board directly.

The tests will be modified this year with most of the tests taking off sections from Units 8 and 9, and for some classes to not take a final exam at all.

* This information will be posted here by Friday, April 3.

** It will not be possible to provide subscores this year.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/about-ap/news-changes/coronavirus-update

The College Board addresses that this is not their first time administering at home tests, and they have done it in the year’s past. The College Board is working in a way right now to create questions for each of the tests, and they are making sure the test is formatted in a way that will prevent cheating, plagiarism, and academic dishonesty.

Additionally, the College Board will be administering the exams on two different dates. One exam will be on an earlier date to allow the students with the information fresh in their mind to take it as soon as possible. Then, there will be a later date for the students who will want to have more time to practice.

In the upcoming month the College Board will be supplying more information regarding the mechanics of this year’s exams. This will only affect the AP Exams for the 19-20 school year. More instruction will be given out on April 3rd regarding how the test will be administered for the various types of classes that have varying formats for testing.

Go to apcentral.collegeboard.org as more information develops.