Advanced Placement exams
Advanced Placement examinations are exams led by the CollegeBoard and are taken each May by students at participating educational institutions. The tests are the culmination of year-long Advanced Placement (AP) courses. All AP exams (with few exceptions [1]) combine multiple-choice questions with a free-response section in either essay or problem-solving format. AP Studio Art also requires students to submit a portfolio for review. AP Computer Science Principles requires students to complete the Create and Explore tasks, which are part of the AP grade for the class.
AP
The exams themselves are not tests of the students' mastery of the course material in a traditional sense. Rather, the students themselves set the grading rubrics and the scale for the "AP Grades" of each exam. When the AP Reading is over for a particular exam, the free response scores are combined with the results of computer-scored multiple-choice questions based upon a previously announced weighting. The Chief Reader (a college or university faculty member selected by the Educational Testing Service and The College Board) then meets with members of ETS and sets the cutoff scores for each AP Grade. The Chief Reader's decision is based upon what percentage of students earned each AP Grade over the previous three years, how students did on multiple-choice questions that are used on the test from year to year, how he or she viewed the overall quality of the answers to the free response questions, how university students who took the exam as PART A experimental studies did, and how students performed on different parts of the exam. No one outside of this is ETS is allowed to find out a student's raw score on an AP Exam and the cutoff scores for a particular exam are only released to the public if that particular exam is released in total (this happens on a staggered schedule and occurs approximately once every five years for each exam). The AP Grades that are reported to students, high schools, colleges, and universities in July are on AP's five-point scale:
- 5: Extremely well qualified
- 4: Well-qualified
- 3: Qualified
- 2: Possibly qualified
- 1: No recommendation
University credit
In the United States
Some[2] colleges and universities in the U.S. grant credits or advanced placement based on AP test scores; those in over twenty other countries do likewise. Policies vary by institution, but schools that award credit usually[3] require a score of 3 or higher on any given exam for credit to be granted or course prerequisites to be waived (and some will award an "A" grade for a 5 score[citation needed]). Colleges may also take AP grades into account when deciding which students to accept, though this is not part of the official AP program.
In Canada
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In Canada the same score scale is used:
- 5: Extremely well qualified
- 4: Well-qualified
- 3: Qualified
- 2: Possibly qualified
- 1: No recommendation
In the United Kingdom and elsewhere
AP testing is not done in the United Kingdom, instead AS and A levels (or equivalents) are used in order to gain entry into universities, higher education, colleges and are often used in job applications.
AP testing may still be done in the U.K., or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. However, AP credits are rarely accepted outside of Canada and the United States. A foreign student may still take an AP exam if they are looking into applying to a college or university in the USA.
Grading of exams
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The AP exams are graded each summer at a week-long "grading camp." Both high school AP teachers and university professors are invited to grade the exams at a predetermined location.
Calculator Policies[4]
As of 2017, AP students are allowed to use any of the approved calculators, including some Casio, Texas Instruments, and Hewlett-Packard calculators. Also, they may bring up to 2 calculators. Not all exams allow a calculator, but those that do allow all the allowed calculators to be used. [5]
See also
- Glossary of biology
- Glossary of chemistry
- Glossary of economics
- Glossary of physics
- Glossary of probability and statistics
Notes and references
- ^ CollegeBoard
- ^ "More colleges stop giving credit for AP exams". Retrieved 2017-05-24.
- ^ "AP Credit and Placement - AP Student - Search Credit Policy". apstudent.collegeboard.org. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
- ^ "AP Central - AP Calculator Policy". apcentral.collegeboard.com. Retrieved 2017-05-13.
- ^ "AP Calculator Policy". apstudent.collegeboard.org. Retrieved 2017-05-24.