The clacking of keyboards and the bright reflection of screens are prominent now that testing days have gone digital.
The 2024-2025 school year is the first in which students are required to take their AP tests digitally. This includes 28 AP subjects, which is the majority of AP courses. With this big change come potential issues or purposes that could have preceded this decision, along with how it will now impact students.
“I think that has gone to the benefit of the company, as they are able to make cheaper tests because they can continue to use the platform that they’ve created,” Social Studies Teacher Brian Vento said. “They don’t have to print materials for the students anymore, and I don’t think that the cost of the test is not going to go up, but the technology is now in place that they will be able to do better for themselves.”
Rather than for the gain of students, going online is potentially more of a gain for the testing company, College Board. Specifically, testing is going digital for the sake of money, yet AP test prices remain the same for students. Technology’s benefit to companies could be blinding them from the opinions of teachers and students about changing the style of testing.
“Personally, I really like that it’s going digital because I think it’s a lot easier to type than writing,” junior Liliana Sheats said. “When I’m writing for that long, I get cramps, and you know, you get ink on your hand and stuff. I feel like it’s going to be an issue for some people because it can be really straining on the eyes to be looking at a computer screen for an exam for that long, and I also feel like for a lot of people, that helps to have the papers, the instructions, and the essay in front of you and to be able to circle and annotate the text in front of you instead of having to do it online.”
Looking at both perspectives, it seems as if some students will like the online test because of its efficiency and less physical burden. However, technology can fail to accommodate some people’s needs; consequences such as harder accessibility for materials and easier fatigue are more prevalent now that all aspects of the test are digital. Besides just AP testing, students have opinions about other tests, such as the SAT going digital, and why they challenge many factors about standardized testing. According to Hello College, it’s been proven that test scores have decreased with digital standardized testing.
“One of the reasons I’m upset with the change is because it’s not standardized anymore,” junior Kyle Massimilla said. “They call it a standardized test, but when the SAT changes difficulty after each module, it’s not standardized anymore. They should at least make it the same test for every person.”
Walking in the testing rooms now, screens will be reflecting with light regardless of preference and controversy.
