To deal with the Covid-19 school closures, the College Board announced that the AP exams would be changed for 2020 (and so far – only 2020)
The AP Program will invest heavily over the next month in the following ways:
For the 2019–20 exam administration only, students can take a 45-minute online free-response exam at home. Educator-led development committees are currently selecting the exam questions that will be administered.
AP curricula are locally developed and we defer to local decisions on how best to help students complete coursework. To be fair to all students, some of whom have lost more instructional time than others, the exam will only include topics and skills most AP teachers and students have already covered in class by early March.
Colleges support this solution and are committed to ensuring that AP students receive the credit they have worked this year to earn. For decades, colleges have accepted a shortened AP Exam for college credit when groups of students have experienced emergencies.
Students will be able to take these streamlined exams on any device they have access to—computer, tablet, or smartphone. Taking a photo of handwritten work will also be an option.
We recognize that the digital divide could prevent some low-income and rural students from participating. Working with partners, we will invest so that these students have the tools and connectivity they need to review AP content online and take the exam. If your students need mobile tools or connectivity, you can reach out to us directly to let us know.
| AP Subject | Exam question(s) will only cover: | Exam question(s) will NOT cover: | Exam question type(s) | Exam Date #1 | Exam Date #2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Art and Design: 2D Portfolio | N/A | N/A | Selected Works: 3 works required (instead of 5) to be submitted digitally + Sustained Investigation: 10 images required (instead of 15), also submitted digitally | Portfolio due date extended for all students to May 26 at 11:59 p.m. ET | |
| Art and Design: 3D Portfolio | N/A | N/A | Selected Works: 3 works required (instead of 5) to be submitted digitally + Sustained Investigation: 10 images required (instead of 15), also submitted digitally | Portfolio due date extended for all students to May 26 at 11:59 p.m. ET | |
| Art and Design: Drawing | N/A | N/A | Selected Works: 3 works required (instead of 5) to be submitted digitally + Sustained Investigation: 10 images required (instead of 15), also submitted digitally | Portfolio due date extended for all students to May 26 at 11:59 p.m. ET | |
| Art History | Units 1-6 | Units 7-10 | * | * | * |
| Biology | Units 1-6 | Units 7-8 | * | * | * |
| Calculus AB | Units 1-7 | Unit 8 | * | * | * |
| Calculus BC** | Units 1-8 + 5 topics in Unit 10 (10.2, 10.5, 10.7, 10.8, and 10.11) | Unit 9, Unit 10 (except Topics 10.2, 10.5, 10.7, 10.8, and 10.11) | * | * | * |
| Chemistry | Units 1-7 | Units 8-9 | * | * | * |
| Chinese Language and Culture | Units 1-4 | Units 5-6 | * | * | * |
| Computer Science A | Units 1-7 | Units 8-10 | * | * | * |
| Computer Science Principles | No final AP Exam | No final AP Exam | Explore Task + Create Task only; no multiple-choice exam | Digital Portfolio due date extended for all students to May 26 at 11:59 p.m. ET | |
| Economics – Macro | Units 1-5 | Unit 6 | * | * | * |
| Economics – Micro | Units 1-5 | Unit 6 | * | * | * |
| English Language and Composition | Units 1-7 | Units 8-9 | * | * | * |
| English Literature and Composition | Units 1-7 | Units 8-9 | * | * | * |
| Environmental Science | Units 1-7 | Units 8-9 | * | * | * |
| European History | Units 1-7 | Units 8-9 | * | * | * |
| French Language and Culture | Units 1-4 | Units 5-6 | * | * | * |
| German Language and Culture | Units 1-4 | Units 5-6 | * | * | * |
| Government and Politics: Comparative | Units 1-3 | Units 4-5 | * | * | * |
| Government and Politics: U.S. | Units 1-3 | Units 4-5 | * | * | * |
| Human Geography | Units 1-5 | Units 6-7 | * | * | * |
| Italian Language and Culture | Units 1-4 | Units 5-6 | * | * | * |
| Japanese Language and Culture | Units 1-4 | Units 5-6 | * | * | * |
| Latin | Units 1-4 | Units 5-8 | * | * | * |
| Music Theory** | Units 1-6 | Units 7-8 | * | * | * |
| Physics 1 | Units 1-7 | Units 8-10 | * | * | * |
| Physics 2 | Units 1-5 | Units 6-7 | * | * | * |
| Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism | Units 1-3 | Units 4-5 | * | * | * |
| Physics C: Mechanics | Units 1-5 | Units 6-7 | * | * | * |
| Psychology | Units 1-7 | Units 8-9 | * | * | * |
| Research | N/A | N/A | Academic Paper only (no presentation) | Digital Portfolio due date extended for all students to May 26 at 11:59 p.m. ET | |
| Seminar | No final AP Exam | No final AP Exam | Individual Research Report + Individual Written Argument only (no team or individual presentations or end-of-course exam) | Digital Portfolio due date extended for all students to May 26 at 11:59 p.m. ET | |
| Spanish Language and Culture | Units 1-4 | Units 5-6 | * | * | * |
| Spanish Literature and Culture | Units 1-6 | Units 7-8 | * | * | * |
| Statistics | Units 1-7 | Units 8-9 | * | * | * |
| U.S. History | Units 1-7 | Units 8-9 | * | * | * |
| World History | Units 1-6 | Units 7-9 | * | * | * |
* This information will be posted here by Friday, April 3.
** It will not be possible to provide subscores this year.
So, the exams will be shorter (going from 3 hours 15 minutes to 45 minutes), be FREE RESPONSE (from multiple choice) , only cover topics (that according to the pacing guide) students should have covered by EARLY MARCH.
So how should students prepare?
They should review the units that will be covered (see table above). Instead of memorizing facts and information, they should think ABOUT topics and how they should respond. They will be asked WHY, and HOW questions instead of WHO, WHEN, WHERE, WHAT questions. Students need to understand the topic and any controversies, beliefs, and having reasoning to back it up.
For instance: European History: Old Question:
“The situation is critical in the extreme. In fact it is now absolutely clear that to delay the uprising would be fatal.
With all my might I urge comrades to realize that everything now hangs by a thread; that we are confronted by problems which are not to be solved by conferences or congresses (even congresses of Soviets), but exclusively by peoples, by the masses, by the struggle of the armed people.
The bourgeois onslaught of the Kornilovites show that we must not wait. We must at all costs, this very evening, this very night, arrest the government, having first disarmed the officer cadets, and so on.
We must not wait! We may lose everything!
Who must take power?
That is not important at present. Let the Revolutionary Military Committee do it, or “some other institution” which will declare that it will relinquish power only to the true representatives of the interests of the people, the interests of the army, the interests of the peasants, the interests of the starving.
All districts, all regiments, all forces must be mobilized at once and must immediately send their delegations to the Revolutionary Military Committee and to the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks with the insistent demand that under no circumstances should power be left in the hands of Kerensky and Co…. not under any circumstances; the matter must be decided without fail this very evening, or this very night.
History will not forgive revolutionaries for procrastinating when they could be victorious today (and they certainly will be victorious today), while they risk losing much tomorrow, in fact, the risk losing everything.
. . .
It would be an infinite crime on the part of the revolutionaries were they to let the chance slip, knowing that the salvation of the revolution, the offer of peace, the salvation of Petrograd, salvation from famine, the transfer of the land to the peasants depend upon them. The government is tottering. It must be given the death-blow at all costs.”
Vladimir Lenin, “Call to Power,” October 24, 1917
In this speech, Lenin is acting as leader of the
A Bolsheviks
B Mensheviks
C Revolutionary Army
D Soviets
New Question:
Use the passage below to answer all parts of the question that follows.
“It was the weakness of Russia’s democratic culture which enabled Bolshevism to take root. . . . The Russian people were trapped by the tyranny of their own history. . . . For while the people could destroy the old system, they could not build a new one of their own. . . . By 1921, if not earlier, the revolution had come full circle, and a new autocracy had been imposed on Russia which in many ways resembled the old.”
Orlando Figes, historian, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution,
1891-1924, published in 1997
- a) Describe one piece of evidence that would support the author’s characterization of Russia’s political culture prior to the Bolshevik Revolution.
b) Describe one piece of evidence that would support the author’s interpretation of Russia’s “new autocracy” in the 1920s and 1930s.
c) Describe one piece of evidence that would undermine the author’s argument in the passage that the “new autocracy” in Russia resembled the old.
So the questions on this year’s 45 minute free response AP exam should be “not google-able”. They will require reading and thinking, NOT MEMORIZATION.
Hope this helps students study! Good luck!
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