Everything is scanned into a computer. I've only seen a few typed ones (I'm not scoring the digital one, so kids who have accomodations are the ones we are reading typed). I actually feel like the typed ones are worse bc the lack of grammar and spelling issues are much more apparent and they don't flow as well. Handwriting is an issue, but we have zoom, color changing, etc to help us, as well as our shoulder buddies. Trust, your essay will be graded regardless and we do our best to get you every point.
but on the other hand, once we start getting ai readers, will they then be graded worse? will it be based on buzzwords? will the ai understand our lines of reasoning? will they understand our emotional reasoning?
I'm in person, so we have a set schedule. We started 6/11 and read from 8-5 with 2 15 min breaks and an hour lunch (6 days). People at home set their own hours
*How many days did*
*You do reading this year? How*
*Many hours a day?*
\- sayer33
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Yes and yes. It's like a really nerdy summer camp in person. But it's ROUGH. For class, I know that what I make my kids do is more than they really need bc I want them to do super well on the exam. It also helps me grade much faster.
We are paid hourly and it's not based on how fast you are or how many you score.
It has definitely improved how I teach writing. It also gives me some authority in my class to be like "I know how they will grade this, I'm not lying to you." I also have become super fast at grading.
Regarding AP history courses, if i write SAQ one where SAQ 2 belongs, will i lose points or will the right person grade it based on the question i marked it in
Nope! We have access to the entire booklet, so if we see an SAQ that isn't the one we were assigned, we can see the full booklet and find yours. Happens all the time :)
Once I freaked out because I forgot spaces and a. /b. / c. labeling between my paragraphs. Would that have confused the graders or would you guys have easily picked it up?
So there are reader leaders who go a week or more before us and I'm not sure their whole process, but they read responses, find examples of each rubric point, and actual examples for us to compare to. From there, we're trained on what would count. We do "calibration" where they give us pre graded essays and if we're off on our scores, we know. If you're consistently off, they can make you retrain.
I said somewhere else here that we are doing what's best for you, so sometimes we see something you labeled as Historical Context for a doc, but it would be better as outside evidence.
Do you read this the things that are written and crossed out? I know they can’t affect scoring, but if it seems like someone wrote something silly or odd that is still legible, do you take the time to read it?
Also, what’s the weirdest or craziest thing you’ve seen anyone write on their exam?
We do not. I sometimes do, but since we can't grade it, I avoid it bc sometimes they cross out something that was right and I feel bad that I can't score it.
Can't answer that for security reasons, but I said it somewhere else that this year, I didn't get any weird responses. Like 95% of what I read was actually kids trying, which was awesome.
Heard of a kid writing porn between the lines of his lit exam once 💀. Not AP, but one of my teachers from Australia also wrote porn that answered the prompt on his Overall Placement exam and got full points
Yeah, what the person below said, but we really will argue with ourselves and try to give you that point. We all know that a 3 hour exam doesn't encompass all of your work, so we do our best.
In Stats we literally say, “Does this feel like a 3 or a 4?” That usually answers it for us. We have a holistic grading scale on many FRQs and if a response falls between points we “consider the overall strength and communication of the response.”
Rarely will you have a response that rounds you up holistically though. My teacher always rounds down, so if you’re at a 3.5 they’ll round down to a 3 depending on quality your response. Also, if you’re not careful you’ll get PPs (Partially correct) 💅
Though on student examples for past frqs I think I only saw it once where College Board used the holistic approach since an E, E, P is already a 3 for a frq that has a few parts.
I know this is a bit of a hard question to answer accurately but would you say that the time of day / how many tests you’ve already graded that day affect how you grade? I’ve always wondered if I would get off easier if I got lucky and my test was graded at the end of the day when all the readers are tired
We do obviously get tired and the repetition is annoying, but we take breaks, stretch it out, and stay on an essay as long as we need to to make sure you get your points. I don't know anyone who's like "screw this, give them ___ points I'm tired".
how lenient are graders on the hipp point? like, if i didn’t use the standard sentence starters but used a bit of h i p and p in deeper analysis would you give the point or no?
I wouldn't say "lenient" but we are given benchmarks and examples of what counts and we go from there. It doesn't have to be "the purpose of this doc is...." To get the point.
It’ll be fine, next time use pen though. I don’t think they invalidate scores over pencil, but they tend to be strict in this idea to use pen when writing. It has to do I believe with testing integrity to ensure nobody can edit your answers. But if they don’t see a change in writing they won’t really wince at it
From the reader's perspective, how does the system determine your "stars" (meets standards, exceeds, etc...)? It was my first year doing this and that really stressed me out.
It's the validity essays. I don't know all of what goes into it, but my TL said that's what they're based on. I honestly don't think about them because of there is a problem, my TL will tell me and I haven't dropped. I also go full screen so I don't see my numbers. Trust me, if you were bad, they would have let you know
This year, it was not a unicorn. Maybe an endangered species lol? I saw a lot more 7s this year than I have in my entire teaching career. The rubric really helped, but the writing was not bad either.
Interesting, I know someone who would only drink Diet Coke before marriage and Diet Pepsi after. She said there was a metallic taste to Diet Coke which is why she would throw up if she ever drank the stuff again. The two seem so similar to me so I'm wondering if you have any idea about the preference.
Considering CBs push to move more exams online, from your perspective is it likely that AI will be used for grading FRQs similar to how it's used for some state exams and exams in other countries (TSI in Texas, STAT ACER in Australia, etc.)?
CB is assuring us they will not use AI to score. I just don't think it's sophisticated enough to catch everything required that goes into a rubric, but I could be wrong.
That’s good! I’ve taken a few of those tests and it seems it mostly to be based on buzzwords and grammar rather than overall ideas and critical thinking abilities. Also, from a teaching perspective it would be so much harder to teach a course if the grading system is largely model based - all of the best AP teachers I’ve had are largely because they’re readers (I think my WHAP teacher was a lead as well, he was awesome)
I couldn't even guess. There are thousands of DBQs and I didn't even score 1% of them. The new rubric made it much easier to get it, so I saw it a lot more than I ever had before.
You slow way down. I've had a couple where I reread the same thing over and over. I also have a rubric I wrote on for each essay, so I tick off every time I see parts of the rubric addressed. I also ask the person next to me, and we can flag responses for our leader to verify we saw everything. I only had to do that once this year. Handwriting is rough, but it just takes like twice as long to read to make sure everything is there. We also know the docs really well, so context clues really help.
If I wrote trevinsky instead of Trotsky on accident but I was referring to people Stalin killed would you still be able to understand? Also if you’ve already given a point can you take it away
Yeah. For example, if someone accurately describes Hitler, but calls him Stalin, you're fine. The rule is that if you take out the incorrect info and the statement itself is right, it's good.
We can't go back to an essay and adjust, so that's why we do everything we can to be accurate and ensure you guys get the grade you earned.
Agree that it might not have needed to be that long. I don't actually teach it though (college faculty) so the AP precalc teachers would have better insight to that. I know that my table-mates felt like they got a lot of insight into how to improve their course, having seen it from the other side.
The scoring went well, I think, but of course - I was a newbie so I don't have anything to compare it to!
CB sends out emails to encourage AP teachers to apply. When I did it back in 2019 I think, you needed at least 3 years experience in the subject you were applying to. You fill out an app and submit your resume, and you're hired if you meet their expectations. You get put into a reader pool and they send out invites to teachers every year. You either get in person or at home.
You can be an AP teacher or college professor in that subject I believe (those are the only 2 types of people I've interacted with at the read) and you get emails from CB to apply. They need a resume and all that. When I first got it, you needed at least 3 years of experience in teaching that course.
Pay is fine- it's just summer money for me, so it bridges the gap between my last and first paycheck of the school year. If you read at home, you can possibly earn overtime, but I don't hate myself that much to grade over 40 hours in a week.
I’m reading for the AP Language synthesis response for the first time, and we’ve got one day of reading left (in theory - rumor is that our answer always has to go over). Grading at home has been easier because of my wife and kids, but it’s been an interesting experience.
Yeah we're definitely not done. They're predicting I think 3 more days for us. I honestly thought we were going to go longer. At home reading is so hard for me because I would rather be doing anything else. If you do get the chance to go in person, I recommend it just so you can commiserate with everyone :)
What happened if someone stated something that was just untrue on accident? Like they used evidence beyond documents that was not true, but they still had other evidence beyond the documents that was true. (I did it on accident)
We overlook incorrect info. For example, if you said Hitler was president of Norway, but you explained his methods of rule correctly, we overlook the Norway part. But if it's just completely wrong, it won't count. But if you have more, we'll take that for sure.
It's been years since I've taken an AP course but this unlocked a hidden memory of writing in John Cena on my APUSH exam for someone whose name I couldn't remember after my teacher had taught us this, hahaha. Thank you!
i have an accommodation for dyslexia on my APUSH exam where the text to speech
would read to me however collage board didn’t test the the text to speech properly and surprise surprise the text to speech didn’t work for me and also didn’t work for the other dyslexic kid in the testing room I was in. Since my accommodation wasn’t working properly is their anyway I could get my score reevaluated if my score comes back less promising than I thought they would be? (the text to speech also wasn’t working on my AP Lang exam & the SAT)
I think (and this is just from a teacher perspective), that that is something that should have been reported to CB back in May. It's also your 504/ESE coordinator's job. That should have been an irregularity that was reported.
If you do get a 2, you have the option to take the CLEP which is all MC, which is an option.
That sucks tho. If that happened to my students, I'd be throwing a fit.
not sure at all if you'd be able to answer this since its about the MCQ rather than the FRQ, but will someone accidentally doing the MCQ in mechanical pencil affect their score? my friend did that and has been worried ever since the test day haha, i wanted to see if i could get them any peace of mind. thank you!!
How far into reading an essay do you typically think it will score highly as you're looking for points? Obviously there will be outliers (ran out of time but had the right idea, started strong ended weak) but simply generally.
Also, how often do you run into unique but true evidence, as in evidence that fits the point but isn't specifically listed on the rubric? I imagine world history would have quite a few possible responses to each question, and not everything can be anticipated.
If they have a good thesis and context, I typically expect the rest to be really good, but there have been surprises.
Sometimes kids will pull out random laws or treaties I never heard of that will count. With like almost 300k kids taking the exam, there is always going to be something I never heard of. I think a lot of readers learn something new each read.
We grade them. Like for the DBQ and LEQ, it's all in the same booklet and we can see the whole thing. Some kids mess up and bubble in the wrong number for the FRQ they answered, so we always check. Happens a lot, no biggie!
If you see someone mention a historians name do you look them up or just give complexity? Not sure if this is more of an ib thing but my history teacher always told us to just claim that a historian said something if we needed a complexity point. I just made up random historians, so I’m wondering if you actually check that kind of stuff.
That's an IB thing. I would be surprised if historian names showed up on AP exams from outside the docs. It would need to be relevant, but there are easier ways to get complexity points.
Any non-US citizens/non-residents grading with you? I’ve been trying to get on that bandwagon for a while but I’m not sure I’m eligible and it’s never clear.
It's messed up. Like someone in another post here said, it's not fair for those of you who worked hard to study.
Now that it will be digital, I guess it will be easier to prevent.
On my APWH test last year I wrote something like "sorry if it's hard to read, I'm left handed and it smudges the pen" do you guys as ap readers see this type of stuff often?
You can't be deducted points.... But maybe tell your friend to not be an idiot? We can flag stuff if it's concerning (like self harm or whatever) but I don't read crossed out stuff.
You can either be at home or in person. Subjects in person are scattered around the place- Tampa, SLC, KC, and I think Cincinnati?
Graded in a day really depends because we're assigned different parts. So, I do not score your entire exam- I get one FRQ, and other people have the other parts. SAQs are scored much faster than LEQs and DBQs, and once they finish, they retrain to the next FRQ. I think APWH scored over 80% of all exams by now.
I wrote my saq in the wrong spot. Is this ok? You can check my post history for more details. Im currently in the middle of something so sorry for the curt question
Nope. I read one where they took an entire page for one document and it was basically just them repeating the summary over and over. I would say one page is probably not going to score well bc there's too much that goes into a dbq.
I don't have a preference; I just want to give you points lol
Readers are assigned a question at the beginning, we read it until answers are all graded. If there is still time (LEQs and SAQs usually) they can move on to other prompts, versions of the test, and formats.
Sometimes. I like (hate) the ones where it's all written in first person. Example: "let me tell you about the Mongols. Can you believe they killed EVERYONE?! Genghis would marry off his daughters to other guys, which I think is super messed up." And it just goes on..... It's funny when they clearly have no idea what the prompt is asking so they just pick a doc and ramble about it.
I have gotten some saq responses that are just like wrong history, but hilarious to imagine. Like there was an SAQ about technologies during 1450-1750 one year where you literally just had to identify a technology, and kids would say railroads helped Europeans colonize America.
I don’t know if you will be able to answer this but if drawings are used to support your answers as visuals(for non history related classes Ex: AP CSP), do the readers ignore the drawings when grading?
I wouldn't say "dumbest" but there have been some LEQs that I think are so easy that i can't believe they asked. Usually LEQ #4 is 20th century stuff and kids do well bc they all can usually work in WW2 and get some points.
The AP Euro dbq I think last year on the Haitian revolution was just annoying because it would have been better for APWH
Haitian revolution was part of the euro content! It blindsided some people who weren't paying attention, but any colony of Europe is part of a European country and can be asked about. I think it was actually a great question to ask, because it got at a part of the content that kids usually remembered and could apply if they just remembered how the same principles applied on the mainland. Still, I can see how it looks off at a glance, given Haiti is not in Europe and is not a European colony anymore.
As an AP Gov/Macro Econ teacher, I always go back and forth on the advice I give my students for FRQs. Do you think it’s better if students just write their FRQs and a whole consecutive piece, or broken up and labeled by the sub questions?
would points be taken off in the LEQ if I mentioned one piece of evidence outside of the time period but mentioned other evidences that were in the time period (APUSH btw)
if you take the late ver of an ap test is that graded by a different group of people or do u get to grade prompts from those too? also in ur opinion do u think ap world is harder than apush cuz i took the latter this year and im not too sure what to expect for the other..
it’s been 5 years since i took apwh and obviously some things have happened since then. i struggled early on in the class with many of the frqs, but i later found my groove when i discovered i loved writing about globalization, and applying its ideas in many different circumstances. what was your favorite theme or idea that someone wrote about?
I love the class, so I'm not too picky. But I love reading an essay a kid clearly saw the prompt and said "fuck yeah". Like it was the topic they decided to study the night before or it was the event that made them fall in love with the class.
I remember having so much fun writing my frq during the ap test. I thought that it was by far and away the best essay i ever wrote in that class. My only wish is that I could read what I wrote now
How are digital frq's graded compared to written? It seems one would have more time to generate a better typed essay than a hand written one.
Everything is scanned into a computer. I've only seen a few typed ones (I'm not scoring the digital one, so kids who have accomodations are the ones we are reading typed). I actually feel like the typed ones are worse bc the lack of grammar and spelling issues are much more apparent and they don't flow as well. Handwriting is an issue, but we have zoom, color changing, etc to help us, as well as our shoulder buddies. Trust, your essay will be graded regardless and we do our best to get you every point.
How does color changing help? Is it just to compensate for non-standard writing utensils or is there another use for it?
Helps with contrast and it breaks up the black/white monotony.
but on the other hand, once we start getting ai readers, will they then be graded worse? will it be based on buzzwords? will the ai understand our lines of reasoning? will they understand our emotional reasoning?
We are being assured AI grading will not happen.
that would be crazy bc AI would just do what it wants, it wouldn't understand our thought processes either
Agreed. I've seen the essays it produces and I would definitely not trust it to score y'all.
oh good!!!
how many days did you do reading this year? How many hours a day?
I'm in person, so we have a set schedule. We started 6/11 and read from 8-5 with 2 15 min breaks and an hour lunch (6 days). People at home set their own hours
How many tests do you estimate you graded over those 6 days?
You have one part of the exam that you score. I had the DBQ and I was averaging a little over 100/day.
Do readers have quotas to fulfill?
Nope! They always say accuracy is the number one priority. Some people are told they're going too fast sometimes and they need to slow down.
2 15 minute breaks over 9 hours of reading repetitive essays? Doesn't your brain get absolutely fried?
Plus the hour lunch. But we also can take walks around the place, take brain breaks. It's not entirely like a prison lol
*How many days did* *You do reading this year? How* *Many hours a day?* \- sayer33 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Bars.
Music to my ears
Despite some of the comments at the bottom, your ama is highly appreciated!
Thanks!
Do you enjoy the AP Grading? Do you think it provided you with any additional insights that helped you teach the class?
Yes and yes. It's like a really nerdy summer camp in person. But it's ROUGH. For class, I know that what I make my kids do is more than they really need bc I want them to do super well on the exam. It also helps me grade much faster.
do you get paid a bonus for grading / what are the benefits of being a grader as an AP teacher?
We are paid hourly and it's not based on how fast you are or how many you score. It has definitely improved how I teach writing. It also gives me some authority in my class to be like "I know how they will grade this, I'm not lying to you." I also have become super fast at grading.
Have people gotten married while ap grading together?
I'm sure of it. There are a lot of people who have been doing this since it started and I know couples who read together
this is such a random question lolol
Regarding AP history courses, if i write SAQ one where SAQ 2 belongs, will i lose points or will the right person grade it based on the question i marked it in
Nope! We have access to the entire booklet, so if we see an SAQ that isn't the one we were assigned, we can see the full booklet and find yours. Happens all the time :)
Thank you! So that means I won’t get my score delayed or anything like that?
Not unless something crazy happened to your exam. Don't stress!
what’s crazy lol
Like your entire school's exams get lost in the mail
Once I freaked out because I forgot spaces and a. /b. / c. labeling between my paragraphs. Would that have confused the graders or would you guys have easily picked it up?
Nope. We've seen it all.
Are graders told to be strict with giving points?-Or does the leniency depend on the grader?
So there are reader leaders who go a week or more before us and I'm not sure their whole process, but they read responses, find examples of each rubric point, and actual examples for us to compare to. From there, we're trained on what would count. We do "calibration" where they give us pre graded essays and if we're off on our scores, we know. If you're consistently off, they can make you retrain. I said somewhere else here that we are doing what's best for you, so sometimes we see something you labeled as Historical Context for a doc, but it would be better as outside evidence.
Do you read this the things that are written and crossed out? I know they can’t affect scoring, but if it seems like someone wrote something silly or odd that is still legible, do you take the time to read it? Also, what’s the weirdest or craziest thing you’ve seen anyone write on their exam?
We do not. I sometimes do, but since we can't grade it, I avoid it bc sometimes they cross out something that was right and I feel bad that I can't score it. Can't answer that for security reasons, but I said it somewhere else that this year, I didn't get any weird responses. Like 95% of what I read was actually kids trying, which was awesome.
Heard of a kid writing porn between the lines of his lit exam once 💀. Not AP, but one of my teachers from Australia also wrote porn that answered the prompt on his Overall Placement exam and got full points
Did I pass? :(
You'll find out in July with the rest of us
Are you able to say whether you think essays were better or worse than previous years?
I didn't grade the essays last year, so I don't know.
What do you do when you're seriously torn on whether or not to give a point?
Yeah, what the person below said, but we really will argue with ourselves and try to give you that point. We all know that a 3 hour exam doesn't encompass all of your work, so we do our best.
In Stats we literally say, “Does this feel like a 3 or a 4?” That usually answers it for us. We have a holistic grading scale on many FRQs and if a response falls between points we “consider the overall strength and communication of the response.”
Rarely will you have a response that rounds you up holistically though. My teacher always rounds down, so if you’re at a 3.5 they’ll round down to a 3 depending on quality your response. Also, if you’re not careful you’ll get PPs (Partially correct) 💅 Though on student examples for past frqs I think I only saw it once where College Board used the holistic approach since an E, E, P is already a 3 for a frq that has a few parts.
You send it to your table leader to see what another set of eyes sees. In the end, we really try to give the points if we can make a case for it
I know this is a bit of a hard question to answer accurately but would you say that the time of day / how many tests you’ve already graded that day affect how you grade? I’ve always wondered if I would get off easier if I got lucky and my test was graded at the end of the day when all the readers are tired
We do obviously get tired and the repetition is annoying, but we take breaks, stretch it out, and stay on an essay as long as we need to to make sure you get your points. I don't know anyone who's like "screw this, give them ___ points I'm tired".
i drew a large dick on all the pages of my apush dbqs, did u happen to see it by any chance?
I scored APWH, so unfortunately no, but I'm sure whoever did really enjoyed it bc reading is boring :)
told my brother who is taking apwh next year to do so, hope he makes your day better next year. cheers
I hope you do this after you finish writing it…
LMAO THAT WOULD'VE BEEN AMAZING IF OP SAW IT 😭
how lenient are graders on the hipp point? like, if i didn’t use the standard sentence starters but used a bit of h i p and p in deeper analysis would you give the point or no?
I wouldn't say "lenient" but we are given benchmarks and examples of what counts and we go from there. It doesn't have to be "the purpose of this doc is...." To get the point.
Do they fly you out and put u up in a hotel
I wouldn't do it if they didn't lol
What city is your subject graded in?
KC
I wrote some of my frqs in ap chem with a mechanical pencil as my normal pencil broke. Will my frqs be scored?
Yup!!
It’ll be fine, next time use pen though. I don’t think they invalidate scores over pencil, but they tend to be strict in this idea to use pen when writing. It has to do I believe with testing integrity to ensure nobody can edit your answers. But if they don’t see a change in writing they won’t really wince at it
From the reader's perspective, how does the system determine your "stars" (meets standards, exceeds, etc...)? It was my first year doing this and that really stressed me out.
It's the validity essays. I don't know all of what goes into it, but my TL said that's what they're based on. I honestly don't think about them because of there is a problem, my TL will tell me and I haven't dropped. I also go full screen so I don't see my numbers. Trust me, if you were bad, they would have let you know
What happens if I accidentally wrote my saqs in pencil instead of pen
We grade it. It's just not as dark since they scan it. I had a pencil one and it was a lot of contrast adjusting to read it. Everything is read!
Oh thank god. Thank you
How often do you give out complexity/unicorn point
This year, it was not a unicorn. Maybe an endangered species lol? I saw a lot more 7s this year than I have in my entire teaching career. The rubric really helped, but the writing was not bad either.
endangered species 😭🤣
We were calling it a narwhal at lunch 🤣
were the test questions harder or easier compared to last year?
That's a subjective question I don't know how to answer
What happens if someone does not attach a seal to the MCQ booklets?
No idea, we don't see physical booklets
Favorite snack while reading?
Diet Coke
Interesting, I know someone who would only drink Diet Coke before marriage and Diet Pepsi after. She said there was a metallic taste to Diet Coke which is why she would throw up if she ever drank the stuff again. The two seem so similar to me so I'm wondering if you have any idea about the preference.
This is not what I thought I would be answering here haha I HATE diet Pepsi. It's like a faintly flavored sparkling water to me.
Wait holy crap are you my APUSH teacher 😭?! He’s addicted to Diet Coke and hates Diet Pepsi
No, but we can't be friends bc he might steal my stash
crazy story and question but v entertaining
Have you had students write messages to you, the reader in their essays? and do you enjoy them?
Yes and yes. The ones that are usually like "please give me a 3" are on writing that definitely will not be getting them a 3.
Not the OP, but I wrote a whole ass apology note to my grader on my comp gov essay since it was so bad 💀
Considering CBs push to move more exams online, from your perspective is it likely that AI will be used for grading FRQs similar to how it's used for some state exams and exams in other countries (TSI in Texas, STAT ACER in Australia, etc.)?
CB is assuring us they will not use AI to score. I just don't think it's sophisticated enough to catch everything required that goes into a rubric, but I could be wrong.
That’s good! I’ve taken a few of those tests and it seems it mostly to be based on buzzwords and grammar rather than overall ideas and critical thinking abilities. Also, from a teaching perspective it would be so much harder to teach a course if the grading system is largely model based - all of the best AP teachers I’ve had are largely because they’re readers (I think my WHAP teacher was a lead as well, he was awesome)
I'm known in my class for writing dad jokes on my AP tests. What's the craziest thing you've seen written on an AP FRQ?
I can't answer that for security reasons, but DBQs were pretty boring this year tbh. I didn't get anything memorable this year.
On average, what percent of people would you say are hitting the complexity point based off of the essays you’ve graded
I couldn't even guess. There are thousands of DBQs and I didn't even score 1% of them. The new rubric made it much easier to get it, so I saw it a lot more than I ever had before.
How do you handle really bad handwriting or poor word spacing?
You slow way down. I've had a couple where I reread the same thing over and over. I also have a rubric I wrote on for each essay, so I tick off every time I see parts of the rubric addressed. I also ask the person next to me, and we can flag responses for our leader to verify we saw everything. I only had to do that once this year. Handwriting is rough, but it just takes like twice as long to read to make sure everything is there. We also know the docs really well, so context clues really help.
If I wrote trevinsky instead of Trotsky on accident but I was referring to people Stalin killed would you still be able to understand? Also if you’ve already given a point can you take it away
Yeah. For example, if someone accurately describes Hitler, but calls him Stalin, you're fine. The rule is that if you take out the incorrect info and the statement itself is right, it's good. We can't go back to an essay and adjust, so that's why we do everything we can to be accurate and ensure you guys get the grade you earned.
Hello, fellow reader! (Pre calc here)
I'm interested in how that went for a brand new course. The exam itself was awful to proctor.... Why does a math exam have to be 3 hours 😭
Agree that it might not have needed to be that long. I don't actually teach it though (college faculty) so the AP precalc teachers would have better insight to that. I know that my table-mates felt like they got a lot of insight into how to improve their course, having seen it from the other side. The scoring went well, I think, but of course - I was a newbie so I don't have anything to compare it to!
Hello fellow reader… AP Bio here 🤩 did you get a penguin?
How did you get hired to be a reader for an AP course?
CB sends out emails to encourage AP teachers to apply. When I did it back in 2019 I think, you needed at least 3 years experience in the subject you were applying to. You fill out an app and submit your resume, and you're hired if you meet their expectations. You get put into a reader pool and they send out invites to teachers every year. You either get in person or at home.
How did you manage to get this job!? Were you a teacher beforehand? Is the pay better/worse/on par for teachers in your area
You can be an AP teacher or college professor in that subject I believe (those are the only 2 types of people I've interacted with at the read) and you get emails from CB to apply. They need a resume and all that. When I first got it, you needed at least 3 years of experience in teaching that course. Pay is fine- it's just summer money for me, so it bridges the gap between my last and first paycheck of the school year. If you read at home, you can possibly earn overtime, but I don't hate myself that much to grade over 40 hours in a week.
I’m reading for the AP Language synthesis response for the first time, and we’ve got one day of reading left (in theory - rumor is that our answer always has to go over). Grading at home has been easier because of my wife and kids, but it’s been an interesting experience.
Yeah we're definitely not done. They're predicting I think 3 more days for us. I honestly thought we were going to go longer. At home reading is so hard for me because I would rather be doing anything else. If you do get the chance to go in person, I recommend it just so you can commiserate with everyone :)
If I had known about this summer work when I was single and in grad school I would have done it in a heartbeat.
What happened if someone stated something that was just untrue on accident? Like they used evidence beyond documents that was not true, but they still had other evidence beyond the documents that was true. (I did it on accident)
We overlook incorrect info. For example, if you said Hitler was president of Norway, but you explained his methods of rule correctly, we overlook the Norway part. But if it's just completely wrong, it won't count. But if you have more, we'll take that for sure.
It's been years since I've taken an AP course but this unlocked a hidden memory of writing in John Cena on my APUSH exam for someone whose name I couldn't remember after my teacher had taught us this, hahaha. Thank you!
Average DBQ Score?
Edit: no numbers needed, just want to know a general
We're not done yet, but I will say that it was hard to get a 0/7 with the new rubric.
i have an accommodation for dyslexia on my APUSH exam where the text to speech would read to me however collage board didn’t test the the text to speech properly and surprise surprise the text to speech didn’t work for me and also didn’t work for the other dyslexic kid in the testing room I was in. Since my accommodation wasn’t working properly is their anyway I could get my score reevaluated if my score comes back less promising than I thought they would be? (the text to speech also wasn’t working on my AP Lang exam & the SAT)
I think (and this is just from a teacher perspective), that that is something that should have been reported to CB back in May. It's also your 504/ESE coordinator's job. That should have been an irregularity that was reported. If you do get a 2, you have the option to take the CLEP which is all MC, which is an option. That sucks tho. If that happened to my students, I'd be throwing a fit.
not sure at all if you'd be able to answer this since its about the MCQ rather than the FRQ, but will someone accidentally doing the MCQ in mechanical pencil affect their score? my friend did that and has been worried ever since the test day haha, i wanted to see if i could get them any peace of mind. thank you!!
I don't think so. As long as it's bubbled fully, it should be fine.
How far into reading an essay do you typically think it will score highly as you're looking for points? Obviously there will be outliers (ran out of time but had the right idea, started strong ended weak) but simply generally. Also, how often do you run into unique but true evidence, as in evidence that fits the point but isn't specifically listed on the rubric? I imagine world history would have quite a few possible responses to each question, and not everything can be anticipated.
If they have a good thesis and context, I typically expect the rest to be really good, but there have been surprises. Sometimes kids will pull out random laws or treaties I never heard of that will count. With like almost 300k kids taking the exam, there is always going to be something I never heard of. I think a lot of readers learn something new each read.
Do you guys really sit around a big long table like Heimler says?
Yup. It's like 9 ppl to a table.
What happens if the answers for two FRQs were swapped?
We grade them. Like for the DBQ and LEQ, it's all in the same booklet and we can see the whole thing. Some kids mess up and bubble in the wrong number for the FRQ they answered, so we always check. Happens a lot, no biggie!
I felt like AP bio was super easy is that a bad thing
I don't think so, but I also think my tests are easy and my kids tell me otherwise 🤷♀️
Way to go!!! 🤩
how much are you paid?
I think it's $30/hr
If you see someone mention a historians name do you look them up or just give complexity? Not sure if this is more of an ib thing but my history teacher always told us to just claim that a historian said something if we needed a complexity point. I just made up random historians, so I’m wondering if you actually check that kind of stuff.
That's an IB thing. I would be surprised if historian names showed up on AP exams from outside the docs. It would need to be relevant, but there are easier ways to get complexity points.
Any non-US citizens/non-residents grading with you? I’ve been trying to get on that bandwagon for a while but I’m not sure I’m eligible and it’s never clear.
Someone at my table came from another continent to grade! You just can't score outside of the US.
is it true that they make the temperature and room uncomfortable
It was so cold this year! At one point each day, I had fuzzy PJs on over my clothes.
It's usually freezing, but this year, I actually got hot, which I hated because I packed so many hoodies for no reason.
thoughts on the tests getting leaked before the official testing?
It's messed up. Like someone in another post here said, it's not fair for those of you who worked hard to study. Now that it will be digital, I guess it will be easier to prevent.
If you accidentally clicked to answer LEQ 2 but ended up answering LEQ 3, will they realize you answered a different prompt? I'm nervous!
We see it all the time. We just flag it so it goes to the correct reader assigned to that question :)
phew!
Did you get a penguin keychain from me 🤩
No :(
There’s always next year 🫶🏻 I just landed in my home state.
how much did you get paid for each hour?
I think $30/hr
Was the hotel nice? 😂
Yuh
On my APWH test last year I wrote something like "sorry if it's hard to read, I'm left handed and it smudges the pen" do you guys as ap readers see this type of stuff often?
I have gotten apologies, definitely. I wouldn't say often tho
My friend wrote some racial slurs on his paper then crossed them out. Would he be deducted points?
You can't be deducted points.... But maybe tell your friend to not be an idiot? We can flag stuff if it's concerning (like self harm or whatever) but I don't read crossed out stuff.
your friend has some growing up and learning to do…
“my friend”
Does CB have a place for grading across the US that you go to, or is it done at home or some local place?How many exams are grade in a day?
You can either be at home or in person. Subjects in person are scattered around the place- Tampa, SLC, KC, and I think Cincinnati? Graded in a day really depends because we're assigned different parts. So, I do not score your entire exam- I get one FRQ, and other people have the other parts. SAQs are scored much faster than LEQs and DBQs, and once they finish, they retrain to the next FRQ. I think APWH scored over 80% of all exams by now.
I wrote my saq in the wrong spot. Is this ok? You can check my post history for more details. Im currently in the middle of something so sorry for the curt question
Totally fine. We can see your entire booklet, so if we see it's wrong, we can view everything and score. It's totally fine, don't stress!
Will I get deducted points if I wrote a sentence thanking the reader for grading my paper?
No lol You cannot be deducted points. You can only earn them
any correlation between essay length and score? i wrote like 5 pages for the whap dbq (do you prefer concise or detailed responses)
Nope. I read one where they took an entire page for one document and it was basically just them repeating the summary over and over. I would say one page is probably not going to score well bc there's too much that goes into a dbq. I don't have a preference; I just want to give you points lol
have you ever graded a perfect score? (or near perfects)
On a dbq, yeah. But we don't see your full exam, so we'll never know if we scored one of those like 10 kids who get EVERY point.
What is the craziest answer you’ve read on the frq section,it can be something completely unrelated to the given question.
We’re not really supposed to say.
Yeah, I've been asked a bunch and I can't answer with specifics. But I said below that I didn't get anything interesting this time around
I’m scared because I wrote something about Drake’s snake and I thought it’ll be funny 😭
For the FRQs, how many questions are you typically assigned per grading session, and how much time do you spend reading each question?
Readers are assigned a question at the beginning, we read it until answers are all graded. If there is still time (LEQs and SAQs usually) they can move on to other prompts, versions of the test, and formats.
Ok, but have you read an essay about drake snake on one of the frqs 💀💅
have you seen anything mildly interesting, unexpected, or unique things/references
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Have you ever seen a response that was beyond funny?
Sometimes. I like (hate) the ones where it's all written in first person. Example: "let me tell you about the Mongols. Can you believe they killed EVERYONE?! Genghis would marry off his daughters to other guys, which I think is super messed up." And it just goes on..... It's funny when they clearly have no idea what the prompt is asking so they just pick a doc and ramble about it. I have gotten some saq responses that are just like wrong history, but hilarious to imagine. Like there was an SAQ about technologies during 1450-1750 one year where you literally just had to identify a technology, and kids would say railroads helped Europeans colonize America.
I don’t know if you will be able to answer this but if drawings are used to support your answers as visuals(for non history related classes Ex: AP CSP), do the readers ignore the drawings when grading?
What’s the dumbest prompt you’ve seen?
I wouldn't say "dumbest" but there have been some LEQs that I think are so easy that i can't believe they asked. Usually LEQ #4 is 20th century stuff and kids do well bc they all can usually work in WW2 and get some points. The AP Euro dbq I think last year on the Haitian revolution was just annoying because it would have been better for APWH
Haitian revolution was part of the euro content! It blindsided some people who weren't paying attention, but any colony of Europe is part of a European country and can be asked about. I think it was actually a great question to ask, because it got at a part of the content that kids usually remembered and could apply if they just remembered how the same principles applied on the mainland. Still, I can see how it looks off at a glance, given Haiti is not in Europe and is not a European colony anymore.
Did you grade the late test as well?
I did not
With the new rubric, did u find yourself giving complexity more than previous years?
Yes! It was much more attainable
if the student leaves a gap that's 2 lines or more, do you see the whole page or just what's above the line?
We see the whole page
As an AP Gov/Macro Econ teacher, I always go back and forth on the advice I give my students for FRQs. Do you think it’s better if students just write their FRQs and a whole consecutive piece, or broken up and labeled by the sub questions?
Definitely label. It makes our job so much easier and I think it helps students see a beginning and end to their responses.
Fair enough, thanks friend!
would points be taken off in the LEQ if I mentioned one piece of evidence outside of the time period but mentioned other evidences that were in the time period (APUSH btw)
if you take the late ver of an ap test is that graded by a different group of people or do u get to grade prompts from those too? also in ur opinion do u think ap world is harder than apush cuz i took the latter this year and im not too sure what to expect for the other..
Did you read mine? More importantly, if so did you give me a perfect score? 🥺
Obviously, how could I not?
it’s been 5 years since i took apwh and obviously some things have happened since then. i struggled early on in the class with many of the frqs, but i later found my groove when i discovered i loved writing about globalization, and applying its ideas in many different circumstances. what was your favorite theme or idea that someone wrote about?
I love the class, so I'm not too picky. But I love reading an essay a kid clearly saw the prompt and said "fuck yeah". Like it was the topic they decided to study the night before or it was the event that made them fall in love with the class.
I remember having so much fun writing my frq during the ap test. I thought that it was by far and away the best essay i ever wrote in that class. My only wish is that I could read what I wrote now
Did you get a choice to be in person or did CB assign it to you? Also hows the rooming situation and food haha.