<p>I'm not sure how many people on here took the test, but thoughts??
I thought it was reasonably difficult, where the listening was randomly hard and speaking was the death of me. Everything else wasn't bad though, I'm hoping for a 5 but that's wistful thinking...</p>
<p>I took it, too. To be honest, that was a really good exam for me. The listening and reading, which I thought would be my downfall, were relatively easy. Then, the writing portion was even better and I felt like I responded reasonably well. As for the speaking, it was definitely the hardest part, but judging it by its predecessors, it wasn’t bad at all. It wasn’t anything to sneeze at mind you. However, it was two topics that I think were simple to think of vocabulary for. Of course, my teacher pretty much made us practice all of these parts like clockwork in class, so that probably helped a lot.</p>
<p>I’m not hoping for a 5, 'cause I have no idea what my limits truly are. I’m kinda sporadic and fluctuated with all the practice my teacher gave me. If I got a 4, I’ll be happy.</p>
<p>It’s ironic for me too because I had always depended on listening and multiple choice as my safety net in terms of getting a good score yet this time, I’m uneasy whether or not I did well.
My teacher never actually practiced an in-class essay nor a letter in ten minutes, yet the two are the two things I feel most confident in.
I think I’m just bummed that I freaked out and my brain didn’t function during the conversational part. As for the oral presentation, it was the first time I actually completed it in time.</p>
<p>You’d be surprised. My teacher grades for CollegeBoard and she was a tough grader, but it was never as if we were without hope. If you just show you were a bit competent with the material, then you should be able to get at least a 3 on those parts.</p>
<p>It was okay for me. The MC portion wasn’t surprising, as I expected as much from previous practice tests I’ve done.</p>
<p>I am worried about my recording, though. I was an idiot and accidentally paused my recording during the dialogue at the very beginning, so the guy’s question was cut out, meaning the recording has me responding to two parts back to back (just for the very beginning). It won’t affect my score, will it? My proctor said it wouldn’t. I’m worried, lol.</p>
<p>Head’s up to College Board (if this gets their attention):</p>
<p>AP SPANISH TESTING NIGHTMARE - NEEDS ATTENTION:</p>
<p>The larger, public schools in San Diego County (Torrey Pines High School, Canyon Crest Academy, etc.) outsourced their AP exams to a third party company, APTS or AP Test Service. Before I say anything else - their customer service has been outstanding… this is a VENUE issue which is their responsibility…but this impacts over 1800 students so I thought I’d pick up the torch. </p>
<p>The test is being hosted at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in a 40,000 sq ft concrete building with no heat. It is freezing in the mornings since it sits overnight and isn’t heated for the morning exams. The afternoon exams are tolerable. This isn’t the main challenge - just uncomfortable and distracting.</p>
<p>The AP Spanish exam today was a complete disaster.</p>
<p>a) No heat</p>
<p>b) The speakers are set up in the “front” of the exhibit hall facing diagonally toward each other and the acoustics don’t work. The echo is so bad the students CANNOT understand the questions for the MC. The kids in the front few rows are better - still not great, but toward the middle and back is is 80% unrecognizable. The echo was so bad the proctor STOPPED using the mic and started yelling for a portion of the exam.</p>
<p>c) There is construction on the outside of the actual concrete exhibit hall they are in. The kids could not hear over the construction; and it was on both sides of the building. Imagine: loud echoing foreign language questions, construction (banging and drilling on both sides of you). It was so bad the proctors stopped the exam and went outside to talk to the construction workers. The work stopped momentarily and then started up again.</p>
<p>d) The recorders that were used for the last portion of the exam did not work properly. My daughter’s got stuck and she called a proctor over. They restarted it for her and she was afraid her first response was gone and said so. The proctor responded, “just start with the second question.” </p>
<p>When I picked up my daughter she was freezing and in tears. She said she almost got up in the middle of the exam and walked out but knew she couldn’t take it over again if she did. </p>
<p>AP Test Services (prior to test week) has had great customer service, really fabulous.
During my interactions, they informed me they did not expect the volume (over 1800 kids) of tests and they had to move the testing to the Del Mar Fairgrounds. We paid $125 per test instead of the $89 because the venue was more expensive. This was not expected, but justifiable.</p>
<p>The difference in price is not the issue, my challenge is that my child has spoken Spanish 7 years and most likely (fingers crossed) will do “alright” in spite of everything. Maybe a (4). However, shouldn’t she be allowed the OPPORTUNITY to earn a (5)? She had an AP PSYCH exam yesterday afternoon and although the venue was chilly, it wasn’t intolerable. Also, she has 4 more AP exams - in particular AP French. We are horrified if this isn’t fixed by next week and the experience repeats itself. </p>
<p>I feel frustrated if it impacts my daughter’s score - but she’s had 7 years of Spanish and 15 years of French and she’s taking 6 AP Exams so somewhere along the way she’ll be ok - but what about the kids that have only studied a 2nd language for 4 or 5 years and have worked really hard and are counting on this AP to set them apart?
Serious problems with the acoustic, construction, echoes and faulty equipment. On the bright side, if you aren’t in San Diego - you have an advantage!</p>
<p>Could you contact College Board about it?</p>
<p>There are times when we’re put in odd situations for the AP exams. I remember one year at my school that the CD they sent us was corrupted and it skipped a few lines of a narrative. The scores were sent anyway, despite administration’s reluctance to do so (as not sending it at all wouldn’t have been an option).</p>
<p>I really wonder why College Board doesn’t send their own machines to record from to standardize everything. After all, isn’t that what the AP examinations are for anyway?</p>
<p>Yikes! And I thought my school had problems. I couldn’t imagine doing the listening part with such distraction, it was so difficult!
Literally, the only issue we had were some people having to rerecord their speaking due to failure of saving and my old mean proctor.</p>
<p>Re-record their speaking? That’d mean they got a second chance at the exam. Isn’t that illegal? lol</p>
<p>I honestly think AP Test Services did the “best they could” but either bit off more than they can chew by overselling their services to too many large schools or…? I don’t know. I do know that this is 100% unfair to 1800 kids. I left a voicemail at AP Test Services - I just don’t know at this point what they can do. The test is over, the kids can’t take it over because that isn’t fair to the rest of the country, and the AP exams for German and French are just days away. I posted on the College Board Facebook pages… and I’ve left a voicemail at the College Board toll free number. Any advice is appreciated. I’m not trying to be a trouble maker - in fact, my D will probably do ok… but shouldn’t all these kids be given the opportunity to do outstanding?</p>
<p>Definitely. Everyone should be given the same chance to do their best. To be honest with you, I’d be infuriated had that happened to me. My school luckily does their own AP testing without a third-party stepping in.</p>
<p>Your daughter’s track was half-erased? I’m not sure what will happen. Obviously the folks at College Board will know something went wrong, but they can’t give your daughter a second chance since that would itself be unfair.</p>
<p>After taking today’s test, I was astounded by how un-standardized it was. Everything was a mess.</p>
<p>I honestly think AP Test Services did the “best they could” given the circumstances… Just got off the phone with them. </p>
<p>College Board apparently outsources everything to third parties (sometimes it is the schools if the schools are small enough - the larger schools HAVE to outsource because school is still in session for the rest of the students and there are no rooms large enough for the test). These third parties are 100% responsible for trying to find a venue, sound engineers, etc. for ALL the kids in a district and keep it affordable. Apparently, when things like what happened today happen, there is an “irregularity” report that gets submitted with the tests and these “circumstances” are taken into consideration for ALL KIDS tested. (not just the complaining parents like me). So, fingers crossed that all these kids get a fair shake. I’m of the mind that one doesn’t complain unless they offer a solution. I offered my feedback to AP Test Services and I was pleasantly surprised that the proctors already shared most of my concerns with the AP Test Services administration and they were already in contact with the Sound Engineer company and the fairgrounds. </p>
<p>So outstanding customer service still in tact, fingers crossed it all works out.</p>
<p>TBH, the AP Spanish test was okay, the second listening comprehension was weird, but relatively okay for me. The essay about laughter was interesting. And I really got into it when it came time for the simulated conversation. The 2-minute presentation was okay if you saw that they both did sports for recreation and not for competition.</p>
<p>I also found it funny how on the informal writing they put “hacer camping.” That just seemed so Spanglish.</p>
<p>For the presenational writing and speaking, I didn’t cite my sources… I made sure to use them all with quotes and reference, I but I never cited them. I just said “El articulo dice…” or “[The person] dijo que…” is that fine? Or will I get marked down a lot… Cuz I wrote a 2.5 page essay… but didn’t cite it… I hope I get a 3 or 4/5 on the essay.</p>
<p>What does the college board do when people have to re-record? It really isn’t fair for the rest of the country, but everyone at my school taking it had to. After recording for the speaking section, our proctor accidentally deleted all of our recordings so we had to sit in silence for half an hour and then redo the entire speaking section. Nontheless, an incident report has to be filed. What happens to all of our tests? Someone mentioned that they get graded on a separate curve now, or not counted at all.</p>
<p>Makes me feel really fortunate that my (fairly large public) school has 4-5 classrooms dedicated to test.</p>
<p>Our Spanish teacher said never to say “dice”, but instead to use “expica”, or “afirma”, or “menciona” I just said “La primera fuente del periodico ‘Eriski Consumer’ explica como podemos evitar el estres con la risa.” Would this be okay on the test?</p>
<p>There’s no reason for it to not be okay. ^</p>
<p>for me personally, i thought that the interpersonal speaking part was difficult, especially since at our school, we do it in a computer lab, and the mouses were locked, so when all our screens went black, we were kinda screwed over due to time issues…oh well, i kinda knew that i was going to do bad on that part anyway. However, for the grabacion formal, i wrote down most of what i was going to say during the reading period/prep time, then read it off and BS’ed my way through a conclusion. Good plan, i think. Overall, if i get a five i will be ecstatic…</p>