Given the unprecedented events of 2020, preparing for AP exams was understandably a mixed bag of anxiety and frustration for parents, students, tutors, and teachers alike. How would the shift to online, at-home testing, date changes, the exclusion of multiple-choice questions, and tech issues on the day of the exam affect student performance?
Now that the first round of results has been released, we have some answers—along with further questions.
Score trends
We looked at eight of the most common AP exams: Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Biology, Chemistry, English Language, English Literature, US History, and World History.
At first glance, the numbers seem to indicate good news for this year’s test takers.
- Across these exams, the percentage of students earning scores of 5 increased by an average of 14.7%, while the percentage of students scoring 2 or lower dropped by an average of 10%.
- On the two history exams we looked at, there was approximately a 10% increase in the percentage of test takers who scored 3 or higher.
- Across both English exams, the average percent increase of test takers scoring 3 or higher was a whopping 17%.
- Even more strikingly, there was approximately a 32% increase in the percentage of test takers who scored 5 on the Biology exam. Last year, Trevor Packer of the College Board tweeted, “AP Biology students achieve an all-time high: in 65 years of AP Biology, this year’s students have earned the highest % of 3+ scores ever”—and this year's percentage is even higher.
- Although there were slight decreases in the percentages of students scoring 3 or higher on the Math and the Chemistry exams, it’s worth noting that these drops were marginal. For example, on the Calculus AB exam, those scoring 5 dropped by only .5%.
Questions and takeaways
It’s worth recognizing that this year’s scores raise questions for several reasons:
- Disparities in students’ internet access, technology, and at-home testing environments. These challenges prevented some students from accessing or performing to the best of their abilities on this year’s at-home exams—and likely exacerbated the issues of equity that already existed.
- The exams’ abbreviated formats, elimination of content from the end of the year, and overall changes in pacing and structure. Assessing students on fewer questions and concepts than usual may lower the reliability of these results, in addition to making it difficult to accurately compare students' scores across years.
- Increased opportunities to cheat. Despite the College Board’s efforts to limit opporunities to cheat, there were widespread concerns and reports of students cheating on this year’s at-home exams, which were unproctored.
- Scores affected by technical difficulties. Some students have reported that partial or blank pages were uploaded in place of their complete responses. It’s possible that some lower scores were due to tech issues and thus not reflective of the true quality of students’ work.
- AP readers adapting to new exam formats and rubrics. AP readers, who were scoring exams remotely this year, had less time than usual to get acquainted with different scoring systems, rubrics, and benchmarks, which may have affected the overall consistency of scoring.
The successes and failures of this year’s AP exams certainly give testing organizations a lot to think about and learn from for the future as the testing world continues to shift toward online exams. Despite all the challenges, we’re pleased to see that many students were able to persevere and that teachers’, tutors’, parents’, and students’ hard work paid off.
Want to learn more about the future of online, at-home testing? Click here to check out our guide.
For those of you who are interested in exploring this year's AP scores further, we’ve included some numbers below.
- English Language
- 2020 AP Eng Lang and Comp scores:5: 12.5%; 4: 20.4%; 3: 29.1%; 2: 26.2%; 1: 11.8%
- 2019 AP Eng Lang and Comp scores: 5: 9.9%; 4: 18.2%; 3: 26.2%; 2: 31.2%; 1: 14.5%
- English Literature
- 2020 AP English Lit and Comp scores: 5: 9.3%; 4: 17.3%; 3: 33.5%;2: 27.7%; 1: 12.2%
- 2019 AP English Lit and Comp scores: 5: 6.2%; 4: 15.7%; 3: 27.8%; 2: 34.3%; 1: 16%
- Calculus AB
- 2020 AP Calculus AB scores:5: 19%; 4: 20.4%; 3: 20.5%; 2: 24.1%; 1: 16%
- 2019 AP Calculus AB scores: 5: 19.1%; 4: 18.7%; 3: 20.6%; 2: 23.3%; 1: 18.3%
- Calculus BC
- 2020 AP Calculus BC scores:5: 44.2%; 4: 17.4%; 3: 19.2%; 2: 14.4%; 1: 4.8%
- 2019 AP Calculus BC scores: 5: 43%; 4: 18.5%; 3: 19.5%; 2: 13.9%; 1: 5.2%
- US History
- 2020 AP US History scores: 5: 13%; 4: 19.2%; 3: 26.6%; 2: 20.4%; 1: 21%
- 2019 AP US History scores: 5: 11.8%; 4: 18.4%; 3: 23.4%; 2: 22%; 1: 24.3%
- World History
- 2020 AP World History scores: 5: 9.2%; 4: 22.8%; 3: 28.2%; 2: 26.1%; 1: 13.7%
- 2019 AP World History scores: 5: 8.6%; 4: 18.8%; 3: 28%; 2: 28.8%; 1: 15.8%
- Biology
- 2020 AP Biology scores: 5: 9.4%; 4: 22.5%; 3: 36.6%;2: 24.2%; 1: 7.3%.
- 2019 AP Biology scores: 5: 7.1%; 4: 22.2%; 3: 35.3%; 2: 26.6%; 1: 8.8%
- Chemistry
- 2020 AP Chemistry scores: 5: 10.4%; 4: 18.2%; 3: 26.4%; 2: 23.8%; 1: 21.1%
- 2019 AP Chemistry scores: 5: 11.5%; 4: 16.6%; 3: 27.5%; 2: 23%; 1: 21.4%
Note: 2019 data based on these distributions. 2020 data based on data released via Twitter by the College Board. Actual percentages may vary. Final score distributions will be unavailable until Fall of 2020.
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