By Elizabeth Miller ’15, Co Editor-in-Chief
In July, thousands of teenagers across the country went to the College Board to find out their scores on the AP Biology exam they took in May. Many
were disappointed.
2013 was the first year that the College Board gave the new AP Biology exam. This test was based on being able to analyze information and apply skills to problems, unlike the old exam, which was, in many ways, spitting out facts onto the page. In the words of Mr. Tim Dunn, the AP Biology teacher and chair of the science department, it has become more of an “aptitude than achievement test”. However, he doesn’t have very much of a problem with this, and does not plan to change his course in any way, especially because it is designed to prepare students for two different tests: the AP and the SAT Subject Test in Biology. All of the more factual information is necessary for the SAT Subject Test, and is extremely helpful for understanding concepts on the AP.
The change that students and teachers were not prepared for was the changes in scoring. For the last 10 years, the distribution of scores has been relatively even. In 2012, 19.4% of students who took the AP received a 5. 16.9% got a 4, 14.3% got a 3, 14.6% got a 2, and 34.5% got a 1. AP Biology was one of the easiest tests to get a 5 on.
This year, only 5.4% of students received a 5. 21.4% got a 4, 36.3% got a 3, 29.5% got a 2, and 7.4% got a 1. In comparison to all other AP tests in 2012, it is the hardest exam to get a 5 on, closely followed by AP World History, in which 6.9% of students received a 5. The College Board has established the score of a 5 as a new “gold standard”, where only the best of students will receive the highest score.
This change has partially come about due to changes in how the test is graded. In years past, it was based on a panel of college students taking biology courses who took the test. This gave an extremely accurate representation of how the scores should be distributed, as the AP Biology course is designed as a college-level class. Now, the scores are determined by a panel of college professors.
One of the biggest issues caused by these changes is for seniors who took the test, hoping to use their scores to get out of requirements in college. People who would have received a higher score are in some cases suing the College Board, as they were relying on having the exam’s score distributions stay the same. However, this is not an issue for Country Day students, as practically every AP Biology student is a sophomore.
The main problem for Country Day students is that their scores are in many cases lower than they might have been, which might hurt their acceptances into colleges. Mr. Dunn advises these students to keep in mind that they are guinea-pigs in this situation, as they were the first group of students to take the test. “Colleges will be aware of the difference” when they are considering people who took the test in 2013.
How the College Board will handle the unfavorable backlash to their changes is yet unknown, but Mr. Dunn believes that it is perfectly possible that they could change the distribution again, making it easier to receive a higher score again. We’ll just have to wait and see.
