Everyone who has taken AP World in the past likely remembers the constant chapter tests and preparing for a forty-minute timed essay for which you didn’t know what the prompt would be. Now, for better or for worse, round two has been added to chapter quizzes, meaning students can retake and get up to 80%. Unit tests have also been added to the class, meaning students can retake up to 100%.
AP Gov is seeing changes to the overall content of the course. However, the change that affects the most students is the change to the essay format for AP World and APUSH.
All these changes came into effect immediately on September 12, over a month into the school year. “Previous to that change, any changes in the AP always come out for the following year. You’re never surprised like that,” Nancy Thomas, who teaches APUSH, said.
Steven Williams, who teaches AP World, said that he and other AP World teachers had no input on the decision. “They send out questionnaires, like polls…little surveys for us to do, but it really wasn’t anything to do about rubrics,” Williams said.
Some APUSH students had already written their first essay when the changes were announced. Thomas said she was “floored” and “stunned” when she saw the email announcing the essay changes.
The main changes to the essays involve the number of times students have to do extended sourcing, or HAPP, for each document. “It’s the same skills. You just have to demonstrate them a fewer amount of times. So in theory, it’s going to hopefully increase scores,” Williams said.
The changes came off of a year when there was a nearly 70% pass rate of the AP World exam. “The pass rate was good, but it kind of seems like it’s going to help increase the pass rate, which kind of makes you think, ‘Okay, why are they doing this?’”Williams said.
It is also important to note that students will have the same amount of time, 55 minutes, to write their essays on exam day.
Students who took AP World in the past felt somewhat similarly. “I think it makes it easier for people to just…get a better score, but I think it counteracts what the whole point of the AP test is, because people can…not put as much energy in and still get a decent score.” Junior Octavian Ashford, who took AP World as a sophomore, said.
