The end of the school year is quickly approaching which means that the Advanced Placement (AP) exams are coming up, and some of the tests are going to look a little different than previous years. Specifically, the AP World exam will be online this year with other exams to follow in upcoming years.

     The AP exams have been offered as an option to Penn-Trafford students since the 1990s. They are the culmination of a college-level grade course that allows students to get some college credit, depending on their score on a one-to-five scale, and to get experience with the speed and type of content that college classes may be taught at. 

     “AP in general is a good opportunity for students because they are for the most part college-level classes. Even if a student does not take the exam, they are getting exposed to that high level, high caliber content that is good for college preparation,” stated school guidance counselor Melissa Sutmire, who organizes all the AP exams here at P-T.

     In the early weeks of May, 20 different AP exams will be administered here at the high school, and for the more than 15 years Sutmire has been organizing them, every test has been taken on paper; the only exception was the testing session of 2020 due to COVID-19. This year begins the transition to online testing with one group.

     Sophomores taking the AP World exam will be completing their test online. They are the only class taking an online test this year at P-T. Some other AP courses were also given the chance but declined for different reasons, including that their students have not been prepping for online testing, and some of them are seniors who are taking their last exam so they will just keep it the way it has been.

     But John Carlisle, who teaches AP World, took the leap and opted for the online exam for his students because he said it will help them for next year’s AP U.S. History exam.

     “I thought it would be more meaningful to learn the online ropes as a sophomore and then build on that experience for next year in hopes that by next year, you are not only comfortable with online testing, you are ahead of other schools in the U.S who are doing paper tests,” stated Carlisle.

     The decision to give some classes an online option was made by the College Board, which also is in charge of the SAT and PSAT. They made the decision largely to eliminate human error and make it more secure, ensuring that there is no chance of a test being lost or of a physical answer sheet that needs to be kept track of.

     “It is actually more secure [than paper testing] because there are no physical answer sheets or test booklets. There is a better level of security for sure,” Sutmire stated.

     The College Board has the online technology system already in place from the 2020 exams which were forced to be online due to COVID-19. However, they moved the exams back to paper the next year because at the time students were not as used to online test taking as they are now. 

     This school year only some classes in high schools across the country are giving online tests, but Sutmire estimates that within the next two years, all of the AP tests will be taken online. Going into this year’s testing, only the history and English tests were given the online option due to the difficulty of putting in complicated calculations that are required for most math and science ones, but as of right now, the College Board is working on being able to put that technology into place.

     Sutmire said she believes this change is a positive one for future test takers as they will get their scores back to them quicker. While the change might take a little bit to adjust to for everyone, the general consensus is that if students are prepared to take the test online, then the change is a positive one for everyone.

Mia Williams, Business Manager