As the year winds down to an end, reflecting over their year and preparing for the next one is an important process for Advanced Placement (AP) teachers. With AP exams ending this week as well, many teachers see it as a measure of how well they prepared their students, and an overview of what to expect next year. With 28 exams going digital this year for the first time, this year’s AP exams served as good indicators of how the format affects students.
AP Statistics went digital for the first time this year, and AP Statistics teacher, Ed Gray, thinks that the digital exam went fairly smooth, despite some minor issues with the reference sheets.
“I think the students were prepared for that, and I haven’t really heard any other concerns,” Gray said. “I think the administration did a great job preparing, and I think the teachers did a great job communicating the expectations of what they were going to see.”
The AP World History exam also went digital this year, but teachers feel that it didn’t impede student’s ability to do well, although there were other challenges. AP World History teacher John McCombe felt that the exam was a fair exam that required students to show depth in their understanding of the content.
“One of the weird things about the AP World exam this year is that what was published by AP was probably not [the prompt] that the majority of our students got,” McCombe mentioned. “But I think our students will be very successful given the questions they were asked.”
AP Literature teacher Kerry Langley felt similar, and she has heard lots of positive feedback about the exam. But going beyond the exam, she feels that the class has helped her students in many ways for life. AP Literature focuses on how students can analyze the author’s meaning and apply it to their own lives, making the class more open-ended than AP Language and Composition.
“You have to bring in real world issues to past texts and modern texts to make a connection,” Langley added. “It just makes you a more global citizen.”
Most APs include going beyond standards to work on skills that can be applied to many classes and ventures outside the classroom. AP Biology teacher Kevin Bleier believes that students who plan on taking his class or any other APs next year should plan on being prepared to grow as a student.
“Really with any AP subject, it’s a more advanced exploration,” Bleier said. “So just make sure you’re ready to engage and work hard but with that work comes a lot of growth.”
