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The first round of online, at-home AP exams concluded with tech glitches and submission errors galore. Thousands of students must now prepare for June make-up exams. Indeed, the exact number of affected students is unknown because the College Board tellingly stopped sharing numbers after the first few days of testing. Even so, their previous estimate—less than 1% of test-takers unable to submit responses—would still point to tens of thousands of students needing to retake AP exams next week.
If you’re one of those students, the silver lining is that we know more now than we did two weeks ago. You’re heading into the June testing window with more time to study, as well as a clearer idea of what to expect and how to handle the most common issues that could arise. The extra preparation may help you perform even better than you did the first time around.
Here’s what you should do this week to get ready:
Continue your regular studying schedule, ideally 2-3 independent study sessions and 1-2 tutoring sessions per week for each subject you’re preparing for. For example, this week’s schedule could look something like this:
And now that you’ve had a trial run, think about what worked and didn’t work for you when it came to the “open note” aspect of the exam. With that in mind, revise the notes and other resources you’re planning to use during your make-up test. For more ideas about making the most of your notes, check out this blog post.
The most common tech issues can be avoided by:
Make sure to check out the rest of our tech tips here and review the College Board’s troubleshooting page here.
If you still end up seeing the “We Did Not Receive Your Response” page at the end of the exam, you can email your responses to the College Board.
If you don’t get to the “We Did Not Receive Your Response” page or you run into other issues that prevent you from emailing your submission within 10 minutes, call the College Board at 888-225-5427 for further support and next steps.
The College Board is also now offering a final round of make-up exams (which they're calling "exception testing") at the end of June. You can click here for the exception testing request form, which will be available between June 1-7. The final round of make-up exams will take place from June 22-30. Check out the full testing schedule here.
In the meantime, it can also be helpful to follow the College Board (@CollegeBoard) and Trevor Packer (@AP_Trevor) on Twitter. During the May testing window, many AP exam updates and tech solutions were posted to Twitter first—sometimes less than an hour before exams began.
Above all, remember to focus on what's in your control. As you’ve already experienced, certain aspects of test day may be unpredictable, but by preparing and following the steps above, you’ll be in the best possible position to successfully get through your June make-up exams.
The recommendations above are general suggestions. If you have specific questions, reach out to our experts here. We’re happy to help in any way we can.
ArborBridge is the global leader in innovative, digital, one-on-one tutoring. With nearly a decade of experience teaching students online, ArborBridge supports students of all kinds: home schoolers, AP students, test preppers, and more. Our tutors specialize in creating personalized plans and in providing compassionate support for students and families.