In March, as schools began to operate virtually, College Board announced its intention to administer online exams to the many thousands of students enrolled in their courses around the world.

 

On May 20th AP Language and Composition students completed an at-home, truncated version of an exam that, under non-pandemic circumstances, they would have taken at school. Where the normal exam is a three-hour and-fifteen-minute marathon of close reading, analysis, and rhetorical invention, the at-home exam was a sprint, consisting of a single essay of rhetorical analysis. AP applied this testing style to most of the other subjects, requiring students to answer one or two free-responses questions within 45 minutes. 

College Board has maintained the legitimacy of the test the scores students earn this year, despite this drastically reduced sample size, abbreviated curriculum, and a lack of equity in student preparation.

A few days ago I asked Champe students to complete a brief, anonymous survey to help get a sense of how they felt about the experience. It was completed by 51 students: 39 juniors, 7 seniors, and 5 sophomores. Those who bothered to take this survey could be fairly described in the parlance of College Board as “stakeholders.” The majority of them took two or more exams this May. As such, they were ready to share their thoughts, positive and negative.  

What they shared reflected much of the criticism and defense that has surrounded College Board’s decision to offer the exams online. 

The first opinion-based question I asked was whether the test should have been given at all. College Board claimed that when they gave a survey of students “91% indicated they want to complete this important step, urging us not to cancel this opportunity they’ve been working towards.”

My survey did not find students as overwhelmingly in favor of the test: 

 

After each question I asked students to explain why they chose that answer. Students in favor of giving the test had this to say:

Students registered, paid, and studied for these tests expecting the chance to be able to earn credit. It would have been extremely unfair for this group of students to be unable to take the exams when previous students have always been able to.

They needed to give us AP credit somehow, and we obviously could not take them in person

Many students were afraid that the whole year’s work would go to waste if there was no option to take the exam.

Those who were not in favor of testing pointed to issues of technology, parity, and reduced curriculum:   

We paid for a holistic exam that would test multiple skills not just our writing ability. The test we received seemed like a watered down version, which doesn’t make me feel comfortable with the idea that I’m getting credit for a class I barely finished. 

[…] it took a whole years worth of learning and crammed it into just 2 questions (math) or just 1 RA essay, which simply is not a fair or accurate way to judge their knowledge in the subjects. There was also a whole issue with submissions- something they handled very horribly. 

If a student decided he/she didn’t want to take the test, College Board did offer the opportunity for the student to get a refund for the exam. I do empathize though with the students who griped about the mental energy invested in the courses, which would now be measured in a drastically different way. The unusual circumstances (at-home, unmonitored) lead me to ask students the next question on the survey…

 

Students were divided on whether College Board had successfully reduced academic dishonesty. Teen Vogue recently published a detailed account of online cheating methods. While students taking this survey didn’t have anything as scandalous to recount (and, granted, I wasn’t asking them to report cheating), they did make some interesting points about how College Board succeeded…

Making the tests open book pretty much eliminated the need/want to cheat and the timing of the amount of time we were given to answer the questions was so tight that there wasn’t a whole lot of time for in depth research anyway 

They basically said if you do anything slightly wrong you’re entire academic life is over. It was a pretty bold threat so it definitely scared people who were on the fence, as many people most likely considered it since it would be hard to be caught. They also said before any of the exams that they found a ring of students who were planning on cheating, so regardless of whether that was true or not (most likely wasn’t), it showed that they were prepared to catch cheaters.

They made sure to use anti-plagiarism software, send our answers to our teachers, and make the tests 45 min which meant there was barely even time to look at notes let alone cheat

…or, on the other hand, may have failed… 

There was no way to do it well, but somehow they did an even worse job, with [Dinosauce313] baiting, and the lack of time being used to motivated people not to cheat just backfired on them. Also, tests that have short answers that are hard to differentiate, like Ap maths litteraly have no chance of being not similar.

(“Dinosauce” refers a Reddit account purporting to be a high school student that was believed to be phishing for potential cheaters.)

Students were similarly split on the next question…

 

Some students felt College Board did an adequate job providing an equitable environment: 

They did say that students could request electronics if they didn’t have one at home, and they created youtube videos so all students could watch and learn. 

They cut out the units that we didn’t learn in school.

While some students observed areas where equity was not feasible…

Many factors including internet connection was affecting the testing environment for students

A lot of students faced technical difficulties which to some extent were beyond their reach and they worked really hard to take the exam only to have to take it again in June or not receive a score at all.

I just think like most things low income students are disproportionately affected, not to mention so many curriculums vary drastically; I was told by many Psych students nationwide they hadn’t even gotten to writing FRQs yet

As I mentioned before, some international students did not get an equal opportunity because they had to take their exams in the middle of the night. Some students were forced to take makeup exams because of technological errors on College Board’s behalf, which is very unfair.

I was curious whether the shortened exam length made the experience more or less stressful. The majority said that it was less stressful.  Similarly, in the following question, the majority indicated that they felt adequately prepared for the exams. 

 

 

This level of comfort speaks to the ambition, grind, and relative stable home environments of Champe’s many AP students. I think it also positively reflects the efforts of the instructors at Champe who worked to provide online instruction in the weeks leading to the exam. That said, the comments in the survey were not universally glowing… 

I did a lot of prep for the exams. My teachers provided a lot of resources to practice with, which were helpful. What made me feel unprepared was the online format because we were all unsure of exactly how that would look. Content-wise I felt ready.

I felt that I did everything I could do to prepare for the exam, but there was no way to prepare for possible technology issues.

Some classes did not cover the topics that were on the exam at all, so it had to be self teaching to learn it. Also, classes such as econ and gov that have two different classes split into the two semesters made it very hard to take an exam on the second semester material when we didn’t learn a single bit of it.

In the next question I asked if students made use of College Board’s online resources.

 

The final part of the survey offered students a chance to offer any comments they might have about the testing experience. Most of these final comments were from the students who were critical of the experience… 

I think they should have refunded at least half of our money because we only took half the test.

I know that they tried to find a solution to give student’s credit for their work, and the online tests were their solution. I appreciate the effort they put into creating these tests so quickly, but I do not believe they made the best decision for a majority of students. Once again, in these unprecedented times, I think they should have done something unprecedented and awarded a 5 to AP students with an A, a 4 to kids with a B, and a 3 to kids with a C

They were good about releasing information and updates, but just in general I don’t think this could necessarily be considered a “fair” testing administration.

They should’ve been prepared for the technical errors and should’ve been more accommodating of international students. Many students were forced to retake exams due to errors on College Board’s which created an unfair situation. International students were forced to take exams at 2 am or 4 am. And although College Board did this to prevent cheating and because they couldn’t make new tests, they should have been more considerate and listened to these students.

College Board’s decision to move forward will continue to be a source of debate. In July scores will be released. Class action lawsuits have been filed as a result of online testing snafus. College Board, for better or for worse, is perched at the top of standardized testing, a position which has become increasingly precarious. Like many organizations, it has found itself defending its legitimacy in the midst of the pandemic. Thousands of students committed months of their lives to AP curriculum. Students at Champe have handled the experience with empathy and diligence.

I know that they tried to find a solution to give student’s credit for their work, and the online tests were their solution. I appreciate the effort they put into creating these tests so quickly, but I do not believe they made the best decision for a majority of students. Once again, in these unprecedented times, I think they should have done something unprecedented and awarded a 5 to AP students with an A, a 4 to kids with a B, and a 3 to kids with a C.

But some students are fed up.

College board has a monopoly on education. Abolish college board 😎