Not to diminish the reality that some people are upset with the results or that the exam format was not ideal, but the alternative would have been canceling the exams. Is that what you would have wanted?
While some students are unhappy with their scores, others feel their score was accurate. And you can’t blame scores on the pandemic. In other years natural disasters and school shootings has impacted exams. It happens. And I have to add that I have not read one exam response that deserved a different score.
@skieurope I respectively disagree. All three AP Lang teachers at my school have disagreed with some of their students’ scores, including the teacher that is an AP grader. However, I do agree that there have been situations that have affected testing for students year after year. I’m just saying that I see no reason for rescores to not be allowed. There are plenty of reasons for why students should be able to ask for a rescore after receiving a 3, but the only argument put forth against this is that it would be inconvenient for CB. Would it ever be okay for a teacher to dismiss a student’s concern about their grade when they feel it is incorrect? Maybe some teachers do that, but I believe that this is wrong. It’s teaching students to comply with authority figures without questioning whether or not they can do wrong.
@riverandsasha3. I agree with you. It impacts students getting a 3 the most, which is mostly “unacceptable” for top colleges. Plus the online submission this year can be a concern - who knows if there was a tech glitch that a small part of the submission didn’t go through causing a 3?
"students and their families cannot appeal AP exam scores this year. "
“Moreover, the chances of students getting a near match of the score distributions of previous years are statically unlikely. Now that essays are only out of 6 points, there is a greater chance that students receive higher scores, as well as the same scores.”
Please provide your analysis that provides this conclusion, with assumed confidence intervals. I’m struggling to apply my graduate-level statistics work to reach these conclusions.
“The score distribution for this year does not show this. Instead, it shows that the score distributions from this year are similar to last year’s”
You’re saying that this year’s score distributions being very similar to all score distributions in the past is proof that they are wrong? That’s a very interesting conclusion.
“though that doesn’t make sense.” Year-over-year consistency over a cohort of millions of students doesn’t make sense?
“How is that students are getting the same scores as students last year when the test was a single essay scored out of 6?” I really don’t think you understand the entire process of standardized test scoring.
@RichInPitt You’re right, I have no actual stats about the scoring, and you are definitely more suited to speak on the matter because of your “graduate-level statistics work.” I obviously am coming from the perspective of a student, and I understand that my knowledge on the subject is limited.
I’m just trying to understand how the scores of a single essay could result in a distribution so similar to last year’s. In my mind, it doesn’t make sense that one essay could truly represent all of the students’ knowledge. If the scores of these singular essays are in fact indicative of what people would have gotten had they completed a normal-length exam, then shouldn’t the test always be like this? If CB truly believes that these tests were a good measure of our intelligence, then we should just have to write one exam every year. Instead, they make a 3-hour long test for students to complete, even though CB thinks that one essay is enough to prove your worth as a student.
Also, I do not know much about standardized test scoring. If you could enlighten me on the subject, that would be much more helpful. I know that multiple graders score your essay, but that’s about it.
"It’s one of their roles/responsibilities as an AP instructor. " - actually it is not. Just because the CB magically declared that the teacher needed to request the regrade does not mean the teachers accepted this responsibility nor did they accept jumping through all the hoops and working in the summer to do the job that CB should be doing. In a normal year, the teacher has nothing to do with the test other than seeing the scores and some consolidated reports. They don’t see student answers, percent wrong, scores on individual FRQs or anything like that and have to part of any rescore requests.
“I have only heard about these claims from AP teachers,” - perhaps there was some confusion. There is a process this year where teachers can request a rescore if they feel the student’s score should be higher. This is unique this year as teachers usually do not see any student answers. I have not heard anything about CB globally rescoring for no reason. That would take a lot of time and money. Of course this “requirement” from the teachers assumes that teachers are willing and able to do all this work over the summer of gradings all the exams and then comparing the scores the teacher would have given to what the CB gave them.
That’s not what she said. Although TBH she could have worded it better. She said that the student and parents cannot appeal to the CB. That is accurate. Only the teacher can appeal. Don’t get me started on why the parent feels the need to appeal in lieu of their almost adult kid
Here’s some interesting news on this topic. My daughter felt very good about her AP US History essay following the exam, only to receive a 2 upon scoring. She contacted her teacher (who has a great track record of student APUSH AP exam performance) and he quickly read her essay juxtaposed against the rubric and concluded her essay should have received a minimum of a 4. He appealed - and she was just notified from the College Board that her score has been officially changed from a 2 to a 4.
Great news for her - but very disturbing to attempt to understand how her initial essay could have been scored a 2.
Just fuels the fire of all of the stories of low scores from high performing students.
As a sophomore in high school, I also felt confident that I did well on this year’s AP World History Exam. I was very shocked to see that I got a 3 on the exam. I learnt about the process and contacted my teacher asking her to juxtapose my exam against the rubric. I did well in the class, but she told me that she hasn’t the slightest concern about this and that she is too busy to grade anything over her summer. I asked another history teacher to go over it, but since I wasn’t in her class, she doesn’t think it’s possible. Is there any way I can get an independent expert to go over my exam? What can I do??
This year all scores can be reviewed. Confirmed by CollegeBoard if you dig into the situation. And a case has long been made, consequently, before the deadline. There must be something I can do. Any independent experts out there.
