After encountering issues and facing criticism throughout last year’s AP testing process, the College Board has once again amended their AP exam agenda for 2021. This year, they opted for full-length exams that can be given either in-person or remotely.

The College Board established three administration windows for each school to choose between. D128 opted for the second and third windows so that students will be able to choose between paper-and-pencil exams (if available) or digital exams taken at home. 

Some students, such as Kristen Cai (12), prefer the earlier testing date since it’s still during the school year.

“For most [exams] I’m trying to do the second window because I just want to get it over with earlier since I’m graduating,” Cai said.

On the other hand, others welcome the extra time to prepare for the third administration of tests in June. 

“I ultimately [chose to take] AP Lang and APUSH in May because I thought I would be ready and both test windows were online,” Alyssa Choi (11) said. “However with physics, it wasn’t a matter of online or in-person, but what option gave me more time to prepare.” 

Mr. Joshua Ravenscraft, AP Physics teacher, sees the benefits of both options and will prepare his classes for both exam dates.

“It’s about 50/50 between my students taking it at the end of May and students waiting another two weeks and taking it online in June,” Mr. Ravenscraft said. 

Upon the announcement of differences between the in-person and online exams, conversations arose about whether there could be advantages to taking one version over the other.

The majority of in-person test options provided in the second testing window consist of math, science, and world language courses. As opposed to the paper version of the exam, the online tests will have more multiple-choice questions and a  faster pace. 

“What I think is one of the biggest cons for the multiple-choice online is that… students aren’t going to be allowed to go back,” Mr. Ravescraft said. “You’re limited to a certain amount of time, so if you spend too much time on a question, without the ability to go back and look at it, you really just have to make a guess and move on.”

While there are some advantages to the online test since students will have access to notes and a calculator, it all comes down to what the student is most comfortable with and which version they prefer.