<p>Quite comical, but true. Due to IB testing I will be taking the alternate to the alternate AP Chemistry exam.</p>
<p>Has anyone had any experience with this (or at least the alternate test)?</p>
<p>I've heard a rumor that alternates are harder, or at least they get scored on a harsher curve. I hope this isn't true. Also, any other information that you guys have?</p>
<p>bummp? are alternates harder?</p>
<p>The rumors are not true. Alternate tests are drawn from the same question pool as the regular exam. So it is all the same.</p>
<p>Alex, would you mind elucidating the alternate alternate tests? I’ve scanned through the AP Coordinator handbook out of boredom and only saw mention (and the schedule) of the alternate exams. What date is your second alternate on?</p>
<p>The date has not yet been assigned and my school has to ask for special permission.</p>
<p>Its the first time this has happened to me…</p>
<p>The alternate to the alternate dates are not advertised in general, but QMP took an alternate to the alternate exam, due to multiple exam conflicts, including a conflict between two AP exams scheduled at the same alternate date and time. </p>
<p>I have also heard a rumor that the alternate exams are harder, but have no evidence for that. Actually, I doubt that it is the case. </p>
<p>It is conceivable that the grading on the free response is a bit tougher on the alternate dates than on the regular dates. If this is true, I suspect it happens almost by accident: A large number of the students who are taking alternate or alternate-to-alternate exams have multiple AP’s and/or IB’s and tend to be among the stronger students. This would make the “average” performance on the alternate exams higher in quality than the average on earlier exams–so it could be harder to stand out as excellent. This would have less effect on scores for the exams with formulaic grading (sciences, math, stats) than it would for essays with subjective grading.</p>
<p>Also, the alternate-to-alternate exams have no extra charge, if you have a “valid” reason for needing to take one. The scores come in slightly delayed from the regular scores, but not by much.</p>
<p>Ah, thank you! I wonder if the College Board reuses the FRQs from the alternate tests for the exception tests (with a bit of digging, that’s what they call the double alternates). I can’t imagine that enough kids would take each exception exam every year to make writing new FRQs profitable.</p>
<p>^ Well, neither the alternate nor the exception tests are released, so it’s possible that they could, but I suspect they don’t reuse the questions. But it wouldn’t surprise me to see some ideas that they’re looking at for regular time exams getting field tested during the alternate or exception exams just to see how they’ll work.</p>