With warm weather and end-of-year festivities come the dreaded AP testing that takes the school by storm. However, this year the AP exams have been changed to being fully online, whereas in the past it had been a hybrid format, either the questions were online or the reading materials were on paper. While this change aims to make the test more efficient for students, there have been many mixed opinions on whether or not it will be beneficial at all.
In previous years, AP tests have been a hybrid, allowing for students to make annotations on reading materials, however in the 2025 AP tests all aspects of the test will be online, except for a select few, including AP Biology, Calculus, and Physics. the College Board website explains, saying, “Digital AP Exams allow students to highlight and annotate exam stimuli and questions, mark questions to revisit, and eliminate answer choices for the multiple-choice section.” Students will still have a full range of whatever annotations they might have made on paper, either highlights, annotations, or quick notes, but this year they will be online instead. However, that isn’t necessarily beneficial for some students. Senior Lilly Rascoe states, “I like that on a paper test, I can sit and cross out or mark up questions and answers.”Similarly, Senior Julia Pineau states, “But for multiple choice questions I prefer on paper since you can mark up the questions and answers.” While students may be able to do that online, for some it is different doing it on paper. However, some students find that being online works best for some exam components. Senior Julia Pineau states, “I think it’s good that it’s digital for classes like [AP Language and Composition] or [AP United States History] where you have to write a lot.” With the test being online there is the added benefit of working faster with essays because students won’t have to handwrite them.
