AP exams will be held online this year • Hacker News Board

Re: AP exams will be held online this year

#11

Post by thaumasiotes » Mon, Mar 23, 2020, 11:18 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #9

thaumasiotes wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I was still in High School, I'd probably be pleading with my AP coordinator to let me take more tests because of the advantage... Why would you need permission to take more tests?

Because the school has to order them and proctor them for you. The school has to be certified to give the tests which is why some schools only have AP or IB. Fun fact though. Your school doesn’t have to offer the AP class to take the AP test. I just straight up asked if I could take the AP CompSci tests despite having no computer programming classes. I sat in a room alone with my counselor for a day while he administ…

You're not required to take the tests at your own school.

Re: AP exams will be held online this year

#12

Post by hansvm » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 2:29 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #11

Spivak wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the school has to order them and proctor them for you. The school has to be certified to give the tests which is why some schools only have AP or IB. Fun fact though. Your school doesn’t have to offer the AP class to take the AP test. I just straight up asked if I could take the AP CompSci tests despite having no computer programming classes. I sat in a room alone with my counselor for a day while he administ…

You're not required to take the tests at your own school.

No, but you still need to have a means to get there on test day. My school wouldn't proctor tests for classes I hadn't taken, and I only found one other school within an hour willing to do that for a student out of their boundaries. I jumped at the opportunity, but I could have just as easily not had it all if, for example, my family hadn't moved while I was in middle school.

Re: AP exams will be held online this year

#13

Post by viklove » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

parsimo2010 wrote: post #6

tmpz22 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're going to have a full year of students who essentially get to take a mulligan, they're going to be able to cheat on every test, postpone tests, get extra study time etc. It's about time we realize that education was never about merit in the first place.

While cheating may happen, it’s not like this will result in a whole class of college graduates being unqualified. You aren’t given an engineering degree just because you got a 5 on the BC calc exam. You still have pass your college classes. The kids that couldn’t pass without cheating will fail their coursework (some will cheat all the way through college, but that has always happened). The kids that could have pass…

There are only so many seats though, so some kids will get cheated out of going to their school of choice (or going at all) because of some cheaters.