<p>So, my APUSH teacher just got back today (Friday) from grading AP exams. Guess what he told me...</p>
<p>He was assigned to grade question number 5 for the time he wasn't grading the DBQ, about comparing the goals of African-American leaders in the 1890s-1920s and 1950s-1960s. Around 75% of people chose that question over question 4 (immigration). The college board was artificially lowering the essay grades on that question!!! There were so many good answers that the curve was extremely harsh. You can get all the information correct, and still get a 4, or you can answer the question with one wrong piece of information and lose at least a point. The normal forgiving curve on the essay questions doesn't exist on this question at all.</p>
<p>If your AP score is 1 point lower than you expected, blame question 5. </p>
<p>Interestingly, he also said that about 80% of people chose question 3 (slave trade) over question 2 (political parties). He didn't know how the curve on the other questions were, so I don't either. We can, of course, guess the curve for 3 based on what happened with 5, but it's just a (educated) guess and might not be true.</p>
<p>The DBQ had a normal curve, if that gives you some peace of mind.</p>
<p>TL;DR if you did the African-American leaders question, expect a score 1 point lower than you thought.</p>
<p>Right, because the Part C FRQ is the only part of the raw score that gets converted to a scaled score.</p>
<p>Honestly, this sounds a bit far-fetched. I’m not surprised that most students chose questions 2 and 5; that was the phenomenon at my school. But this seems like a ■■■■■ post unless you can explain more (starting with what you mean by “essay curve”).</p>
<p>Impossible. The exam itself states that there will not be a variation in grading depending upon which essay is chosen. All essays are graded, consciously, at least, on the same level of difficulty. Picking five over four or four over five should not, by statement of the College Board, effect the grade which you receive. If you do the same, well on both, you receive the same on both.
However, this is just what is written on the exam free response packet itself. Perhaps the College Board decided to go back on their word.</p>
<p>What!?! I did 2 and 5! CollegeBoard stated that they would NOT do this on the exam itself, your information is either wrong or CollegeBoard went back on its word. They can expect a class-action lawsuit if this is true.</p>
<p>Ok, let me just say that that’s stupid!
I chose 2 and 5 as well. I am screwed then for question 5 because i mentioned Garrison, when clearly he was out of the time period. The College Board really shouldn’t do that! I’m mad now. Thankfully, essay 2 was my best.</p>
<p>Stop trusting 3rd hand sources that are likely exaggerating a ton. Hence the “3/4 of us are screwed” because there was a tiny drop in raw-score points on one of the AP tests with one of the easiest curves.</p>
<p>OK, I don’t have any proof, and there is no reason for you to believe me (I honestly probably wouldn’t believe this if someone else wrote it), but this is not a ■■■■■ thread. That is what my teacher actually said. Either way, it will not affect your scores. If you score one point lower on the test than you expected, and you chose essay topic 5 over 4, you now know why.</p>
I probably should have said grading criteria, not essay curve.</p>
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and
That’s not what I said. I said I only have the information from 5, and the DBQ. It is possible that 4 was graded the same way 5 was, I don’t know.
and
Oh. I’m just saying what he said, which was that 80% chose one over the other, and I thought he said 3. I could be remembering what he said wrong. I put in the topics myself, from memory. I probably just remembered that wrong.</p>
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Nope. They finished grading on Thursday (June 9) and he told my class on Friday (June 10).</p>
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This is true. The essay is only about 1/8 of the free response score, which itself is only part of the final raw score, which is weighted. I wouldn’t be surprised if this actually has no affect on the scores at all.</p>
<p>Now I see what OP means (and it seems plausible): There were a lot of great essay #5’s since there were so many of them. Because there were so many good ones, the CB decided to grade them more harshly. So an essay that’s completely factually correct (but perhaps lacks analysis or a strong/multifaceted thesis) that may have garnered a 6 or 7 in the past was given only a 4 or 5. While some essays got 8’s and 9’s, the standard for those high scores were raised.</p>
<p>OP, yes? Or am I not quite getting it? Either way, it’ll be quite interesting to see the contents of the scoring guidelines for the 2011 APUSH FRQ’s when they’re posted (I’m estimating around June 20th, since that’s when all AP exams have been graded).</p>
Yes, you are exactly correct. My teacher said one grader at his table had a 9, and had to confirm it with the table’s head grader (basically the judge who is gone to in case a grader comes to a situation he doesn’t know what to do with) because the 9s were so rare.</p>
<p>Whoo! I feel kinda smart now. OP, could you talk to your teacher and ask him how exactly the standards for scoring were tweaked? I figure this should hold my interest for the next day or two during this boring start to summer vacation. :P</p>
Friday was the last normal day of school (the next two weeks are regents weeks), but the US History regents are next Friday so I might see him then. If I get any more information, I’ll tell you.</p>
<p>The way I understood it, though, it seems that the essay just needs a ton of very specific information to get above a 5. Only an essay with lots of very specific information that is also very well written can get above a 7. Normally an essay can be somewhat well written and have some specific information and get a 6 or 7, but that essay will get a 3-5 now. An essay that’s poorly written and doesn’t have much specific information might normally get a 4 or 5, but now it might only get a 3.</p>
Don’t worry about it. If you did well on the MC and DBQ you’ll do fine.</p>
<p>I wrote a very general essay with some mistakes myself on 5, but that’s because I spend much more time than advised on the DBQ, and took a good amount of time for the slavery question (whichever number), so I had almost no time for 5.</p>
<p>And the US History regents are Thursday, not Friday. The English regents are Friday.</p>
<p>In case you don’t know, us New Yorkers have to take standardized tests called regents in the last 2 weeks of school. This might seem like a bad thing, but actually it’s not. The regents are required for graduation, so they are jokes (made for the lowest common denominator in the whole state), especially after an AP test in the corresponding subject. They count as 1/5 of our final class grade, weighted the same as the class. They also prevent the teacher from giving us a final worth 1/5 of our grade that is actually hard. Everybody in an AP class gets above a 90 (out of 100) on the regents, and most get 95-100. I got a 99 on the World History regents (after AP) last year and it brought my grade in the class above a 90 (although my school doesn’t use a 4.0 scale, so it doesn’t really matter). Some people take regents in middle school the same way we take APs in high school, and get high school credit for them. They also give us the last two weeks of school off.</p>
<p>You say that the DBQ had a normal curve. That seems counterintuitive as I heard from many people that their classes did not even cover Nixon. Let alone the fact that I do not think many people were expecting a DBQ from the Nixon era.</p>
<p>^Why is that counterintuitive? If most classes didn’t cover Nixon, the essays wouldn’t be of extraordinarily high quality, which would result in normally stringent grading. Essay #5 was graded more stringently because of the high number of really good responses.</p>
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<p>I wish the CA government would put standardized testing after AP testing. Or, at least, not in the 2 weeks leading up to AP exams. -___-</p>
I honestly have no idea how other states’ standardized testing works.
I know a lot about how NY’s tests work because I’ve been through the tests for the last 4 years (including this year). The regents that are not required to graduate (Chemistry, Physics, Algebra 2/Trig, foreign languages, maybe a few others) are generally harder than the others, although they’re still easy. The funniest part of the regents is that they’re all released after the test day, and you can find regents exams dating back to 1866 if you know where to look.</p>