The College Board has provided more information for Advanced Placement student on taking AP exams during the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.
As previously reported, the College Board has decided to allow students to take abbreviated “secure” online exams from home. More recently, it has announced it will be providing daily preparatory videos on YouTube.
As schools have been canceled and students have been asked to keep social distancing, or “shelter in place,” the College Board cannot have teachers administer exams in classrooms. And as many students will not be returning to school this year, and they will not be able to complete the final quarter of the course as planned.
To rectify these issues, the College Board has arranged for students to take their exams from home via online devices. The AP class videos will allow students to review content and also learn some new content for their course.
Deciding to continue with exams was not not a decision the board made in isolations. “We surveyed 18,000 AP students to see if they still wanted the opportunity to test this year. Their answer: a resounding yes.”
Online Classes
In order to prepare students for their tests, it has released daily online classes on YouTube.
Students may choose to watch them as they are live-streamed or at a later time. They are not required, but are designed to prepare students for their exams.
The classes, “are optional, mobile-friendly, and can be used alongside any work your teacher may give you,” the website says.
Online class videos will focus on reviewing skills and concepts from the first 75% of course and some supplementary lessons from the last quarter of the course. Exams will be less focused on the last quarter.
Exams
The college board are developing new “secure 45-minute online free-response exams for each course.”
Students will be able to take exams on a computer, tablet or smartphone as long as it has internet access. They can also write responses by hands and submit a photo of their on-paper answers. Those who do not have access can contact the College Board directly.
The exam content will focus on what most schools were able to complete by early March. The College Board lists its exam schedules on its website.
The College Board said this is not completely unprecedented. In the past it has offered accommodations for groups of students affected by disasters, so they could still receive college credit. Now they are doing the same but on a much larger scale.
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