AP English Exam Pittsburgh PA

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Scoring is always a touchy subject. In fact, fights sometimes break out about which multiplechoice answer is better. Luckily, those fights take place secretly in the College Board headquarters while the exam is being written. Essay fights, on the other hand, occur in public while the tests are being reviewed.

Here’s some background on the essay scoring process: The College Board runs workshops on essay scoring for all the teachers hired to slap numbers on your brilliant writing. At those workshops, teachers are given sample student essays to grade as well as a set of very specific standards for grading. Then the fun begins! After they’ve graded their sample essays, the teachers have to compare the scores that they awarded with the official College Board scores. You probably can’t even imagine how passionate people get about one point! (Seriously, English teachers — and I include myself — need to get a life.) After four or five rounds, most graders see what the College Board is looking for, and the room begins to calm down.

Here’s the lowdown on essay scoring:

Each essay is given a grade from 0–9. Nine is the highest score, but anything in the 7-and-up range deserves a pat on the back.

You’ll almost always receive at least one point on an essay, just for trying. The only way to get a zero is to leave the essay blank or to ignore the prompt and write something completely different from what the question is actually asking.

The scoring is holistic. In other words, the grader doesn’t award 10 percent for good writing, 25 percent for evidence, 17 percent for originality, and so on. Instead, the graders simply go through the whole thing once (okay, maybe twice) and select a score they feel is appropriate.

The graders consider the depth of your analysis and the amount and relevance of the evidence that you’ve provided to back up your ideas. Basically, they want to see that you can read beyond the literal level and that you can make and support a case for your interpretation.

The graders also look at the quality of your writing. I hate to admit this fact, but grammar and spelling count only if the errors seriously impede the reader from understanding what the writer is trying to convey. The graders are much more interested in writing style — whether your work reads fluently and shows a command of the language.

You can get by in the essay section without using official lit-speak. All you really need to do is to analyze the material in regular, everyday language. However, your graders are English teachers, and their hearts beat a little faster when they see terms such as assonance, protagonist, and so forth. Throw them in if you’re confident they make sense and connect to a significant point about the literature; leave them out if they don’t.

Steer clear of the “laundry list” approach to literary terminology. In other words, don’t just work your way through five or six terms, saying that they do or do not appear in the selection. Also, don’t define the terms. Your graders are English teachers, so they know what a simile is. Both of these practices waste time and result in lower scores.

Each essay gets two readings by two different graders. Each grader assigns a number. The two essay grades are averaged, and averages that end in 0.5 are rounded up. If the numbers are more than two apart (one reader awards a 5 and the other awards an 8, for example), a College Board expert steps in to render a final judgment. Essays good enough to receive a 9 — the highest grade possible — are cause for celebration and comments, such as “you have to read this one” and “here’s the next Shakespeare.” In fact, the other graders usually pause to read the essay worthy of a 9 — even though they’ve already read a zillion other essays and are propping their eyelids open with toothpicks.

The multiple-choice and essay scores meet for a drink and . . . sorry, I got carried away with the romance of it all. The scores from each part of the test are weighted so that the multiplechoice counts for 45 percent of your final score and the essays for 55 percent.

Then the statisticians use complicated formulas to convert the multiple-choice and essay scores into a number from 1–5. These numbers, according to the College Board, mean the following:

5 = extremely well qualified (equivalent to an A in a college course)
4 = well qualified (in the B range in a college course)
3 = qualified (a C in a college course)
2 = possibly qualified (a D in a college course)
1 = no recommendation (a failing grade)

As you can probably figure out, colleges don’t give you credit for a 1 or a 2. Even a score of 3 is iffy — some colleges are okay with it, and others aren’t. Some colleges award credit for entry-level courses to those who scored four or five, and others bump you to a higher-level course if you’re in that winning category. If you’re unsure about your prospective school’s requirements, ask its admissions office.

The minute I take a test I want to know how I’ve done, and I assume you feel the same way. When you take the AP English exam, you have to wait a bit. The exam graders need time to plow through your superlative literary essays. They don’t need too long, though. You take the test in May, and in July the College Board mails your grade to you, to your high school, and to the college of your choice. The first college report is free; if you want more than one, you have to pay a fee. That fee is currently $15 — or $25 if you’re in a huge hurry and want expedited service. You can also get your grade over the phone at the beginning of July for a steep $8 a call.

Here are some important tips to keep in mind:

If you had a headache, a breakup, or a crackup on the day of the exam, you can ask the College Board to cancel your score, in which case it disappears forever. (Go to www. collegeboard.com for instructions on how to cancel a score. Or, speak with your school’s AP coordinator.) You have to make your request by mid-June, and you never get to see your score. You don’t pay for score cancellation, but you aren’t reimbursed for your exam fee either.

If you want to withhold a score from a particular college, you pay about $10. Withheld scores still go to your high school and to you, just not to a college. However, they don’t disappear; your score can be sent to a college later if you change your mind — and, of course, if you pay $15.

You can take any AP exam more than once, though you have to wait an entire year to do so because they’re given only in May. Both scores will be reported to your school and to the college(s) you’ve selected. If your first score was pretty bad (say a 2), you may want to withhold that score from prospective colleges. For a fee (what else is new?) you can get your essay answer booklet back to review with a teacher or tutor before you try the AP again. The booklet will have no teacher comments on it, just a score. The deadline for this service is mid-September, and the cost is currently $7.

Check out the College Board Web site (www.collegeboard.com) or call 888-225-5427 for information, score reports, cancellations, and so forth.

Dealing with the Practical Stuff

If you’re taking an AP English course, your teacher will probably tell you everything you need to do in order to sign up for the exam. However, if you’re home schooled or not in an AP class (or if your English teacher has inhaled a little too much chalk dust), this section will help you. Here I explain the practical aspects of the test, including registering, getting score reports, fee waivers, accommodations for special needs, and so on. Because the AP exam has stranger procedures than a super-secret spy agency, I also explain candidate packs, seals, shrink-wraps, and other annoying stuff so you won’t be surprised on test day.

In the winter of the academic year in which you plan to take the exam, pick up a College Board student bulletin. The College Board issues these pamphlets to give you the date of the test, registration materials, deadlines, and information on fees. You can get the student bulletin from your school’s AP Coordinator (who may be identified by the worried look and hurried stride of someone who has way too much to do). In many schools, the AP Coordinator is a college or guidance counselor. If you aren’t sure who has the student bulletins, check with the principal or with your English teacher.

You can also find AP information, including a downloadable student bulletin, on the College Board’s Web site, www.collegeboard.com/apstudents. You can’t sign up on line, but you can find out where and how to register for the test. No Internet access? Not to worry. Call the College Board at 888-225-5427 for registration information. As long as you’re on the Web site, take a look at the practice exams and sample questions the test-writers provide.

AP exams aren’t cheap; currently you have to plunk down $83 for one test. You pay in advance to the AP Coordinator at your school. You may also face extra fees if you want extra score reports.

If the test fee is a stretch for your wallet, ask the AP Coordinator about reduced fees. In general, the price drops to $53 for those in financial need. Sometimes the federal or state government provides additional funds to defray the cost of the test.

If you aren’t currently attending a high school (you’re returning after time away or you’re home-schooled), call the College Board AP Services no later than the end of February (888-225-5427). They will put you in touch with the nearest AP Coordinator. Be sure to contact the coordinator as soon as possible, and no later than mid-March. Tell the coordinator that you want to take the AP English Literature and Composition exam, and notify him or her of whether you have any special accommodations (more on accommodations later in this article). The coordinator will give you a list of schools offering the AP English exam and will order an exam for you. The coordinator will also collect your fee and give you a code number, which is different from the general number used by students attending the school where the test is given. Be sure to bring a government-issued photo ID (passport, driver’s license, or a similar official document) and your code number with you on test day.

You can’t be late for a couple of very important dates in connection with the AP English exam and still be sure that you have everything you need — permission to take the exam, accommodation (if allowed), and so forth. Here are the basics:

Early February: If you need accommodations on the exam (extra time, Braille or large type text, and so forth) and you haven’t yet been certified, need a change in certification, or have changed schools, now is the time to submit documentation to the College Board.

Late February: If you need accommodations and have been certified by your school already, you still have to check that the correct forms have been sent to the College Board. Ask your guidance counselor, principal, or AP coordinator whether the correct forms have been mailed.

Early March: If you’re a home-schooler or a student in a school that doesn’t offer the AP program, you must contact the College Board for the name and phone number of an AP Coordinator who can arrange the exam for you. Also, all test takers need to get a government-issued photo ID. If you don’t have one, get one now.

Beginning of April: If you’re enrolled in an AP English Lit course and you don’t need accommodations, check with your teacher for the time and place of the exam. Find out when the fee is due and determine which school official will collect it.

I can’t supply exact dates because they vary slightly from year to year. Check out www. collegeboard.com/apstudents for more information. No Internet connection? Call 888-225-5427 for details.

On test day, expect to have a nervous breakdown. Just kidding! If you’ve spent some quality time with this article, you should be in great shape to do well on the exam. Here’s what to expect.

When you arrive at the test center, your teacher or a proctor (an adult who monitors the test) will direct you to the correct room. You’ll be asked to leave everything in a locker or storage area except for what you actually need for the test. Usually exam-takers are asked to wait outside the testing room until the proctor is ready. Then you rush inside. Oops! I mean you calmly, confidently stroll into the room. Allow about a half hour before the official start time of the test for pre-exam visits to the restroom, locker room, padded room, and so forth.

After you’re in the room, you have to be quiet. No last minute whispers about Emily Dickinson, the Beatles, or the party next week. Any hint of cheating and you’re gone, so be careful to maintain silence and to limit your field of vision to the proctor, your watch, and the ceiling.

Before the exam begins, the proctor gives you a student pack. The student pack, also known as the candidate pack, has bar-coded, self-stick labels that identify you and your test materials. If you’re taking more than one AP exam, the proctor will take the student pack at the end of every exam except the last, at which point you can take it home and frame it. Okay, well, actually you use the ID number on that pack to get your scores over the phone. Don’t throw it away until you know how you did.

The proctor also distributes answer sheets. At this point, you have to take an ID label from your student pack and stick it on the answer sheet. Then you answer some easy questions, such as your name, address, and so forth. (Some schools take care of these tasks ahead of time, just to save test-day energy for the things that count. Others sweat you through it right before the exam.)

At this time, the proctor will also distribute the exam, which is wrapped in clear plastic, and he or she will read some legal notices. What these legal notices basically mean is that when you open the plastic package you accept the College Board’s right to investigate if it thinks you or anyone you know on this planet has cheated. You also give the College Board the right to use your answers for any purpose it wants. No one will recite your essay on American Idol, but your work may be used in one of the College Board’s publications as, perhaps, a sample to train graders.

You’re getting closer to being ready to begin the exam, but you aren’t quite there yet. You still need to copy the name of the test and the form number (it’s on the test booklet) onto your answer sheet. You also have to read the legal stuff on the front and back covers of your exam and then sign your name, indicating that you accept the terms. By accepting these terms, you agree not to cheat, not to talk about the multiple-choice questions ever (they reuse some), and not to divulge the essay questions for a few days.

After you finish the multiple-choice section, you seal the question booklet with little stickers that are in your student pack. The proctor then collects the question booklets and answer sheets, and you get a ten-minute break (during which you’re pretty much in solitary confinement, though you can sprint for a bathroom if necessary). You aren’t allowed phone calls or conversation about the questions.

During the second part of the exam, you return and open the next plastic-wrapped package. This pack contains a green question sheet and a pink answer sheet. Now you get to listen to all the legal stuff again, write your name and stick a few more bar-coded labels on the booklets, and then compose your essays. Two hours later, you hand in the whole thing and begin to breathe again. You’re done!

If you wind up sick on test day, chances are good that nothing terrible will happen if you can’t take the exam. If you have the sniffles or a once-in-a-lifetime chance to play in the state championship softball game, simply tell your AP Coordinator. He or she will arrange for an exam during the makeup week, which is the first week following the usual AP period — in other words, around the third week in May. If you’re out for more than that (you couldn’t make bail, fell terribly ill, or got stranded on an island with polar bears and mysterious hatches), you’re out of luck. You have to wait until next year, and you have to pay the fee all over again.

Before you give up, however, check with your AP Coordinator. He or she may be able to arrange a last-minute accommodation (perhaps extra time for someone with a sprained wrist) that will save the day.

Students with special needs can take the AP English exam, and many do. Depending on your situation, you may be entitled to extra time, a computer (for those with dysgraphia, which is an impairment that causes you not to be able to write), large-type or Braille exams, a reader for the questions, or a writer to take down your answers.

If you need accommodations, the AP Coordinator in your high school should take care of everything; home-schoolers or those not enrolled in a school that has an AP program can get help from the AP Coordinator in their area. (See the earlier section, “Signing up,” for more information on finding an AP Coordinator.) The College Board’s Services for Students with Disabilities Office is another good resource. Contact the office at 609-771-7137 (TTY 609-882-4118). You can also e-mail the office at ssd@collegeboard.org. Or, check the Web site for more information (www.collegeboard.com/ssd/student/index.html).

The school has to fill out and submit a “Services for Students with Disabilities Eligibility” form, affectionately known as the SSDE. In general, after the College Board has certified you as needing accommodations on one of its exams (the SAT, for example), you’re certified for all. However, if anything changes — your address, your school, your physical or mental ability — you need a new form.

The school has to do the work here, but you’re the one who’s ultimately responsible for making sure that the SSDE is in proper shape, in the proper hands, at the proper time. The deadlines are in February or March before the exam, with the earlier date for students who are being certified for the first time and the later date for those who have been through the ordeal before. Check with your AP Coordinator well before that time to be sure everything’s in order and to find out the exact dates.


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For Dummies is a registered trademark of Wiley Publishing, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Used here by license.

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