The campus is proctoring digital AP exams for the 2024 school year.
Students are taking the exams on school-issued Chromebooks, at the same time as the typical paper ones. AP Seminar, AP US History, AP European History, AP World History, AP Computer Science Principles, and both AP English Literature and Language expect to be digital.
“We wanted to go ahead and start a process of transitioning and we thought it might be easier to start slowly with just a few exams, especially the larger ones,” Barrow said. “And then next year, there will be six AP exams that we will not have a choice but to go digital for those.”
Each year, College Board will give the school exams that will have to be digital, slowly transitioning exams from optional to mandatory. Students can anticipate math and science courses to be the last to transition.
“I mean you are given scratch paper obviously to take notes, do an outline, things like that. But it does look different,” Barrow said.
With digital testing, it is a lot easier to make accommodations for students who need them- like a time extension. Moreover, Barrow believes that scores will start to come out one to two weeks earlier than usual.
“Some students test better than others. Some have more experience with digital testing,” Barrow said. “Unfortunately, if you’re not good with digital that seems to be the way that all testing is starting to go.”
As many students have experienced, the STAAR and SAT tests have also become digital.
“But the AP teachers have known about it you know for this year and so I think they’ve done a really good job at training the students on how to optimize the digital experience,” Barrow said. “And luckily the scratch paper I think is very helpful when you’re trying to transition from paper to digital, so you at least have— a way to write down your thoughts before typing them.”
Barrow’s biggest concern for students is time; she advises students to utilize their scratch paper to organize their thoughts.
“While you’re testing, if the network goes out for any reason, the application is able to stay online, so you really only have to have connectivity at the very beginning when you’re logging in and at the very end when you’re submitting.”
She also recommends students to join the Google Classroom for their overall class. For example, the junior class has a classroom called Class of 2025. These Google Classrooms will have consistent updates and reminders for AP exams.
“It’s still a process, and we’re all trying to get used to doing things digitally,” Barrow said.
