<p>Hey guys. I am a rising junior this year and took 2 AP exams last year. I took my AP biology (5) and AP US Government. Government was always an easy class for me because I regularly follow politics and enjoy reading about our government. The class itself felt like a review rather than learning session.</p>
<p>My teacher told me that I could take the AP exam blind and get a 5.</p>
<p>I received my score as a 4. At first I was dismayed. I couldn't understand how this had happened. I decided to send in a rescore request but had decided that I must have made some sort of mistake of the FRQ that cost me the grade, because I know my MC was a solid 56+ (collaborative checking).</p>
<p>Collegeboard sent me a letter that said my rescore was not successful and that my score was in fact a 4. I was not surprised and resolved to accept it. A 4 was not a bad score and wouldn't make much difference in the long run.</p>
<p>Oddly the next day I received a package from Collegeboard again. It was my Free Response Packet.</p>
<p>But I had explicitly only requested a rescore. I did not want to spend the extra 7 dollars on a frq packet if it made no difference. My father checked his checking account to make sure they didn't charge for it and sure enough they didn't. We double checked the letter we sent to Collegeboard and it had no mention of the FRQ packet.</p>
<p>That being said, when I started to gloss over the Free Response and compared it to the rubric posted online. I started to look at my Free Response and began to see that I did do an admirable job. But it is easy to have bias when grading one own's FRQ, so I had my father look over it judiciously.</p>
<p>He gave me a puzzled look and said that they seemed perfectly fine to him. I am not sure how to proceed here. Even with my most conservative estimates on my MC (Hypothetically lets say a 50) and FRQ (only counting the things that were verbatim in the rubric), I still managed a 5 with the hardest curve in the past 10 years (93-150).</p>
<p>I don't know what to do. How should I proceed? Should I attempt to call Collegeboard? Why and how did they send me my FRQ packet? Was there someone there that had sent me the FRQ to alert me of something? Was it merely accident? How is it that all these coincidences occur all together? Should I merely let it go?</p>
<p>That is strange. I don’t know if there is much you can do though. If you truly feel that you got a 5 after looking at the free response questions, then you could call college board and see what they say. Maybe your multiple choice was scored incorrectly or maybe you just filled them in incorrectly by mistake.</p>
<p>Stick to your gut. Wage a battle against college board and do not let them boss you around and use you as their pawn in the standardized testing business.</p>
<p>Just a quick note, Its not that I care about the 4 (not a bad grade mind you :)) its just this is really odd. Why would they send me the free response for no reason… Weird…</p>
<p>^^ yeah plus US government’s curve is very harsh. </p>
<p>Also, the MC from us gov are somewhat debatable i remember when i took the exam i knew the concept very well but was puzzled by possible answer choices.</p>
<p>I’ve had weird experiences with college board too. About a month ago I requested to have my scores sent to my college, and for some reason they also sent me another copy of my scores. Complete waste of paper considering I had received the first copy just a week prior, AND they sent me two envelopes each time because they couldn’t figure out how to put all my scores on a single piece of paper (it wasn’t even that many scores), or at least in a single envelope. I know this isn’t related to rescoring, but it’s another example of collegeboard’s weird doings and maybe both this and your experience were just dumb mistakes by them.</p>
<p>They did the same thing to me, Herasil! I requested CB send my AP scores to the college where I dual enroll, I paid the extra fees and the scores never even GOT to the college but they sent me an extra score! The college was like…nope…we don’t have your scores on file. It was so weird. They said I could show them my unofficial score report and it would be fine, but still… It sucks to have wasted that money.</p>
<p>Now I’m also wondering about my SAT Writing scores. Not quite relevant to your thread… But I found them a little…off. Now I’m not saying I’m a Pulitzer-worthy writer or anything, but I’ve always been told, by every teacher I’ve ever had, that I’m an amazing writer. When I was younger and took my statewide standardized writing test, I got the top score without studying or even trying. I’ve always considered writing one of my stronger areas and I got a 4 on the English Language AP (which is mostly writing) which I think backs that up.</p>
<p>But then I got a 7 on my SAT essay? I mean, yes I wrote it in limited time when I was tired and stressed, but so did everyone else. And I had the dumbest prompt ever, but I couldn’t have been the only one. And I’ll admit it was far from my best writing…But still, a 7 amounts to like a D. Was I really that bad? I’m just ranting here, it’s not like I’m planning to complain, but still. I guess I’m saying I feel your pain, MasterYster.</p>
<p>Look, it sucks that you got a 4 and all if you think you deserve a 5 on this exam…i knew the info backwards and forwards and also got a 4. But still, I’m pretty sure the college board didn’t screw up. Especially if they rescored it. The curve might have drastically increased…this exam was a lot easier than some of the ones in the past (i took some of the past ones for practice). If you feel like you deserve a 5, then you can fight it, but maybe you didn’t explain things in enough detail or maybe you got more MC wrong than you thought. Trust me, in the long run top universities barely glance at these scores. I know someone at an ivy league, and her AP scores were pretty bad.</p>
<p>I have come to terms with the 4 but I don’t why they’ve sent me my FRQ packet. Apparently “someone” put the order in and they didn’t disclose who. I wonder why someone would pay to send ME the FRQ packet? Ideas?</p>