Melanie recAPs the 2020 AP Bio Exam experience in Episode 39.
Melanie recAPs the 2020 AP Bio Exam experience in Episode 39. The exam included two FRQs with differential weighting and three different submission options (1:00). The exam had several levels of test security (2:20). The AP exams are scored on a scale of 1 to 5 and are not curved (3:00). You earn points for correctly responding to every action verb in the question (4:15). The College Board has announced an Exception Testing window! (5:00). Third times a charm?
The Question of the Day asks (5:52) “What AP score do you need to receive college credit?”
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Hi and welcome to the APsolute Recap: Biology Edition. Today’s episode will recap the 2020 AP Bio Exam Experience.
Lets Zoom out:
May 18th was the big day! 243,351 students logged in to take the AP Biology exam, with 7% not completing and less than 1% of students reporting an error. But despite any technical snafus you may have experienced, some things are for certain - the College board sure put you through the ringer. Today’s episode will recap the exam experience and answer some frequently asked questions.
Lets Zoom in:
The AP Biology exam was Monday, May 18th at 2 pm Eastern standard time. It was taken at the exact same time by students all over the world. The exam was FRQ only and only covered units 1 through 6. The first FRQ was about Interpreting and Evaluating Experimental Results and will account for 65% of your score The second FRQ is 15 minutes long, accounts for 35% of your score, and is about Conceptual Analysis. The timer feature worked as a countdown, flashing red when the 5 minute upload window began.
There were three submission options - You could upload a file (either text or photo), copy and paste your response, or - with a hail mary announcement by the college board on May 17th, email your response if submissions failed. The email option was only available to students testing May 18th-22nd and will be a choice during the last testing period as well. The email instructions were on the “We did not receive your response” page and the email address that appears was unique to each student.
The college board promised test security - and they meant it. In addition to asking identification questions before the test to prove you aren’t a robot, there were several efforts made on social media platforms before and during testing to thwart cheating. Your answers were checked with plagiarism software (among others) and were sent to your teacher for reference on May 26th. On top of all that - there were several different versions of each question with a myriad of combinations. But how can that possibly be fair? So and so likely got an easier question than you - does that mean they will get a better score? Let's dive in.
The AP exams will still be scored on a 1-5 scale and the College board still intends to release the scores beginning on July 15th. They have spoken with hundreds of colleges across the country and are confident that the majority of higher education institutions will continue to award credit as they have in the past. No, the AP exams are not curved nor is there a cap on how many students can earn 5’s. They have stated that you do not need to have answered every part of every question to earn a five. But in truth, the scoring guides for each FRQ have not been finalized - and thats intentional. Several thousand student responses will be checked during AP reading to verify the validity of the scoring guides before applying it to the larger testing population. And about the unfair advantage of an “easier” question versus a “harder” one. Just as in previous years, psychometricians will analyze student data from every version of the AP Exam to quantify any variations in difficulty. The number of points required for 3s, 4s, and 5s are determined separately for each exam version. Essentially, you will need to earn more points on an easier version and less points on a harder version to earn the same total score. So it's all tomato - tomAHto in the end.
The FRQs from test day have not been released to the public, so we won’t be discussing them on this episode. But it can be acknowledged that they were longggggg. I know. It may feel like a bait and switch but the points are still earned the same way. The originally stated “four part , a, b, c, d FRQ” was just as long in theory - although visually it looked more compact. But if you looked closely, Part a likely had 3 different task verbs in it: describe, explain AND predict. The version you may have seen on test day simply had these action verbs separated out - which is why your question may have had a through j insead.
As stated previously, your teachers are able to view your text and photo submissions from the primary testing window. If you used the email submission option, those are not yet available for preview. If your teacher identifies an unintentional submissions issue (like a missing or blurry page) - you may qualify for the newly announced exception testing window. This third round of testing will occur at the end of June - with the AP Bio Exam scheduled for Monday, June 29th at 12 ET. The Exception Testing request from is available June 1st to June 7th and requires an AP makeup request key that is on your most recent e-ticket. Other reasons to request exception testing are technical issues, illness or having two makeup exams scheduled at the same time. Who knows - maybe third time a charm.
To recap….
No matter your testing experience on AP Exams - you have much to be proud of. If you are completing a make up or exception test - remember to get your e-ticket 2 days in advance, prep your testing space and take a deep breath!
Coming up next on the Apsolute RecAP Biology Edition: Natural Selection
Today’s Question of the day is about college credit.
What AP score do you need to receive college credit?