Indiana Area Senior High School

By KAYLEE BECKER-GEORGE – AP students have spent most the year wondering exactly what their exams were going to be like, and the College Board has answered their questions. 

As the end of the year approaches and testing season is upon the school, AP students find themselves making the usual $95-per-test payments to take the AP tests. However, there were many questions that arose about the formatting of this year’s test, seeing as last year was a bit different. 

The AP test last year consisted of one free response question for most tests, and was weighted to accommodate the fact that there was no multiple choice to balance out people who generally did better with that format. Many people started to call the College Board a “scam” in response, seeing as students still had to pay around $90. 

Senior Audra Moore says, “Given the circumstances, I’m sure it was the best they could do, but as a test taker it was an awful environment and I didn’t feel good about trying to take an abbreviated test to sum up all I’d learned in the course.” 

However, this year the College Board is planning on doing a mostly in-person test, with both a multiple choice section and essay sections for the classes it applies to.

Students wonder whether or not this testing format is the best choice because of the difficulties learning during COVID-19. 

Junior Yahya Farag says, “I think [testing this year] will be the same [as previous years], but they might make it a bit easier to account for the fact that distance learning is hard from some students.”

The College Board has three different “administrations” of tests that they plan to use. Administration 1 is fully in-school, and will be on May 3-7, 10-12, 14, and 17. Administration 2 will be a combination of in-school and at home. The dates for this administration are May 18-21, and 24-28. The third administration is also in-school and at home, but runs on June 1-4 and 7-11. 

A school can pick any administration to test their students, or even combine different administrations to suit their needs. IHS has chosen administration 1.

Even more students are left wondering whether or not COVID-19 is going to have a long term affect on how the College Board administers exams. “I don’t think [COVID will have long term effects on testing] because even now the AP exams are switching back to in-school paper tests,” Junior Bernadette Batuncang says, “Sure, there are some who can take the exams online, but I think that a majority of people will have to take the exams in-school. There were some changes to the exams during COVID but I don’t think it will have any long term effects as the exams seem to be going back to the usual way it is administered.”

Students who are taking an AP test this year must turn in their payment to the Guidance Office. They accept checks made out to IASD or cash. 

Photo by High Arrow 

[Photo Caption: Students will be testing in quiet, restricted environments.]


Kaylee Becker-George

Reporter

Kaylee is a senior and a second-year reporter for the High Arrow. She enjoys playing video games and plays in the school marching band. She is excited to get back into writing articles for the school.