<p>So, after the AP Gov Exam today, I was pretty confident that I was going to receive a 5 in the mail in July. In the past though, this has never been the case. I've always gotten 3's and 4's, and I'm under the impression now that the reason for it is simply because the readers feel that they don't have time to read my essays or just don't feel like it, because my handwriting isn't neat. </p>
<p>One of my friends today told me that a mutual friend of ours requested his essays back from collegeboard because he swore that he did enough to get a 5, but he only got a 3. Apparently, the readers wrote unreadable on one (or more) of his essays, so he wasn't credited with the points that he maybe could've gotten had they read it. Do unreadable markings only occur because of a smudging error or because a kid simply has sucky handwriting and the readers are too lazy to go through them?</p>
<p>Now, my handwriting is particularly bad, but I got a 12 on my SAT essay, which was written the maximum length. Clearly, the people who read SAT essays go through them, because you don't just award someone with a 12 without reading the essay and just say "oh, it's your lucky day, here's a 12." </p>
<p>So basically I'm wondering that even if I think or know that I did well, could I still not get a good score simply because the reader(s) didn't feel like reading my essay because it looked sloppy because of the handwriting? Note that I'm in no way saying that I deserved a 5 on every or even any exam that I've taken. I doubt my multiple choice has ever been that bad on any exam that I've taken though..</p>
<p>I think the readers due the best that they can and they only mark it “unreadable” if it really is unreadable. My friend has the worst handwriting of anyone I know and he’s gotten a handful of 5’s. I honestly dont think the handwriting is that big of a deal.</p>
<p>I have awful handwriting, and by awful I mean atrocious. As in my English teacher has given me zeroes on essays because she couldn’t read them. However I’ve gotten a five on every AP exam I’ve taken. I try to write neater on them than I would normally, though that’s still pretty bad. I agree it has to be truly unreadable for them to just not grade it</p>
<p>I don’t believe handwriting would allow them to deem your essays unreadable, and in fact, I’ve known fellow classmates who have truly awful handwriting and get 5’s on exams, and my Mom used to grade state-level exams (not AP) and was told by supervisors to also make the best effort to read students handwriting and to also try to make out illegible words in favor of the student. I know in the case of one girl, who had bad handwriting and could not for the life of her write a decent essay (content-wise) in class and the day before the exam, got a 5 on the AP World exam last year.</p>
<p>I also think everyones’ handwriting is worse than usually on AP day, I mean, we are asked to write essays in very short amounts of time- so I’m sure many graders are used to seeing some chicken-scratch. xD</p>
<p>It depends entirely on the grader. You may have a grader who is really tired and annoyed and gives you a low score because he/she can’t read your work or you may have a grader who will make an honest effort to read your work and give you the deserving score.</p>
<p>As people have said, readers have to make the most effort they can to read an essay. If they truly can’t read it, then they just don’t give you credit for it.</p>
<p>On a similar note, I had a LOT of cross-outs all over my AP Gov essay (Halfway through I realized I had Senate and House procedures mixed up and crossed out the entire first paragraph). Now, they say they don’t grade based on that but I can’t help but feel that it adds disorganization and messiness to my essay that graders will immediately judge. Do my worries have any relevance at all or am I just being paranoid?</p>
<p>I believe that if something is too hard for a reader to read, this reader must give it to the table leader. If the table leader deems it too difficult as well, upon further analysis, it could be deemed too illegible.</p>
<p>Our AP United States History teacher is a grader for the AP US test and he says that he can read almost anything lol. He said that once in a awhile he’ll get some papers that are illegible. I don’t think it means you’ll get a bad score though.</p>
<p>Dreamer, can you believe that there are people who actually sully their essays with cross outs that say YOLO and other hunger game references? Poor you, sitting here worrying about actually getting a good score and being as neat as possible when there are kids out there who have cross outs all over their FRQs because they think its funny and that the Ap grader will laugh upon reading their cross outs. Ha! What idiots. Good luck man.</p>
<p>Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using CC</p>
<p>The AP Exam is not graded on neatness.</p>
<p>Crossed out work is not included as part of the grade.</p>