Despite school closures due to COVID-19, high school students who take Advanced Placement courses will have an opportunity to take the final exam to earn college credit and/or placement through their AP scores.
Students in Glynn County Schools will take their exams from home – starting Monday, May 11 through Friday, May 22 – and tests will be 45 minutes with only extended response questions.
According to College Board, which administers the exam, unique security protocols are in place for this year’s online exams to ensure that all students worldwide take their tests at the same time. *(Georgia students will take their exams at 12 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. each day).
Other modifications made to this year’s exams include changes to the format, content and skills covered.
Since the AP exams will be open book/open note, most tests will have one or two free-response questions, and each question is timed separately. Students will need to access the online testing system 30 minutes prior to the test to get set up. Additionally, exams can be taken on any accessible device – computer, laptop or smartphone. There is also an option for students, who do not have reliable internet access, to handwrite their responses and submit a photo of their work via their cell phone.
If students have technical difficulties on the day of their exams, they can submit an incident form to College Board and will be given an opportunity to take those exams during the makeup schedule. To mitigate technical issues that could affect exams, the Glynn County I.T. Department has a few suggestions:
- Encourage other users in the household to limit Wifi-based activities to free up bandwidth while testing (i.e. watching Netflix and gaming).
- Run a virus scan (if on a Windows or MAC computer) well in advance of testing to make sure the computers they will be testing with are clean.
- Make sure all operating system updates have been applied.
- Make sure all web browsers have been updated.
- Run ONLY the web browser while testing, and close any unnecessary applications prior to the start of the exam.
In terms of portfolio courses, submissions for the three AP Art and Design courses, AP Seminar, AP Research, and AP Computer Science Principles have been extended until 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday, May 26, 2020.
The AP Seminar and AP Computer Science Principles assessments will not include an end-of-course exam this year. Students will be assessed on their portfolio submission only.
It is important to note that College Board will be using technology to detect plagiarism, and teachers will be receiving a copy of exams to compare with each student’s known work.
Visit AP Exam Schedule 2020 for course-specific information or Taking AP Exams to learn more about how students will take exams this year.