After Canceling Exam, College Board Touts Record Number of AP CSP Exam Takers 47
theodp writes: Q. How many AP Computer Science Principles 'exam takers' would you have if you cancelled the AP CSP exam due to the coronavirus? A. More than 116,000!
That's according to the math behind a new College Board press release, which boasts, "In 2020, more than 116,000 students took the AP CSP Exam -- more than double the number of exam takers in the course's first year, and a 21% increase over the previous year. In 2020, 39,570 women took the AP CSP exam, nearly three times the number who tested in 2017." Which is somewhat confusing, since the College Board actually cancelled the 2020 AP CSP Exam last spring, explaining to students, "This year, there will be no end-of-year multiple-choice exam in Computer Science Principles [the exam was to have counted for 60% of students' scores] -- your AP score will be computed from the Create and Explore performance tasks only."
Still, Sunday's Washington Post reported the good PR news, as did tech-bankrolled College Board partner Code.org, which exclaimed, "Young women set records in computer science exams, again!" In 2018, Code.org lamented that many students enrolled in AP CSP wouldn't get college credit for the course "because they don't take the exam", so perhaps an increase in AP CSP scores awarded -- if not AP CSP exams taken -- should be added to the list of silver linings of the pandemic.
That's according to the math behind a new College Board press release, which boasts, "In 2020, more than 116,000 students took the AP CSP Exam -- more than double the number of exam takers in the course's first year, and a 21% increase over the previous year. In 2020, 39,570 women took the AP CSP exam, nearly three times the number who tested in 2017." Which is somewhat confusing, since the College Board actually cancelled the 2020 AP CSP Exam last spring, explaining to students, "This year, there will be no end-of-year multiple-choice exam in Computer Science Principles [the exam was to have counted for 60% of students' scores] -- your AP score will be computed from the Create and Explore performance tasks only."
Still, Sunday's Washington Post reported the good PR news, as did tech-bankrolled College Board partner Code.org, which exclaimed, "Young women set records in computer science exams, again!" In 2018, Code.org lamented that many students enrolled in AP CSP wouldn't get college credit for the course "because they don't take the exam", so perhaps an increase in AP CSP scores awarded -- if not AP CSP exams taken -- should be added to the list of silver linings of the pandemic.
Metrics (Score:3)
They "extrapolated" metrics and then "foresaw" the theoretical number of takers using "Cloud AI", and finally "diarized" the results.
Re: (Score:2)
What's the actual deal here? Are these estimated grades or something? In the UK when exams were cancelled they used estimated grades based on coursework, practice exams and the like.
Re:Metrics (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, I think I figured out what has happened. They cancelled the exam but gave out grades based on coursework instead. That's what it says here: https://blog.collegevine.com/h... [collegevine.com]
"Itâ(TM)s also worth noting that the AP Seminar and AP Computer Science Principles assessments will not include an end-of-course exam this yearâ"students will only be assessed by their portfolio submissions."
So they are exam equivalents and the confusion is just poor reporting... Or not even that, they are calling them exam grades and when students this year present their education history they will just put them down as exam grades without the need for an asterisk and explanation of what happened this year.
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what is next
They threw out doing any course work and graded on attendance.
And next
They threw out showing up for class. And graded by who logged in online
Next
They threw out having to log in online and just gave everyone signing up an A+ and everyone sat home.
Wondering why everyone with college degrees was unqualified to do anything.
Re:Metrics (Score:4)
Slippery slope bullshit. Coursework is part of the assessment anyway on many courses, although I don't know about this one specifically. In any case it was an exceptional year, so due to the pandemic either they fail everyone and they have to repeat, meaning over-subscription next year and lawsuits flying over fees and costs, or they find some way to make it work and still give everyone a reasonably fair grade.
In the UK this year, and for some countries next year, exams were cancelled and only coursework used.
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Coursework is part of the assessment anyway on many courses...
Is this the case with AP courses these days? When I took AP, coursework did not count at all toward assessment. The test was much harder than the average course, so an A in the course did not at all guarantee a passing grade on the AP exam. But it was also positive in a way, because this arrangement allowed fluidity in how the course could be taught, which certainly couldn't be the case if the course had to be completely standardized for the sake of assessment. My AP History teacher was an amusing example;
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I don't know about AP, but coursework is a reasonable solution during the pandemic and not a downgrade over pure exams in terms of difficulty.
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All I know is I took the canceled exam 3 times. (Score:2, Funny)
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Meanwhile in 2020, poor boys still hardest hit because in their schools the teachers will still prefer to recruit the girls, and that's assuming their school even has a CS program.
Hang on a minute, you and many others here complaining about this are also saying that girls and women are just inherently less interested in CS and STEM subjects and we shouldn't try to do anything about it because it's natural.
So the same logic should apply here, right? Boys are just inherently less interested in studying, they would rather play outside or video games, girls are simply better communicators and better able to concentrate. It's biology and we should accept it.
Every time I suggest actually d
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The trolls have no answer for this, they know they are wrong so all they can do is try to censor it.
It hurts men, it hurts young boys. They claim to want to help but do everything they can to make sure nothing productive is done.
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Do note that the average private school tuition is $4,262
Where on earth did you come up with that number? I just checked the annual tuition costs for 4 private schools in my area - two parochial and two unaffiliated - and they priced out between 16,000 and 40,000 per year per student. In other words your $12,000 idea wouldn't cover any of them.
which is generally accepted to be of higher quality
Citation needed
Merely reducing class sizes does not automatically make education to be "of higher quality".
It's also worth noting that amongst many things that public schools provide for students, one that privat
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So the same logic should apply here, right?
No because the education system has many programs in place specifically to promote girls education, while boys get no such special treatment. So we shouldn't be at all surprised if girls outperform boys since they get special considerations.
But the claim that they are better students is not so clear either. If you look at standardized tests like PISA for the UK [oecd.org] you will find a reading/math/science score for boys of 494/508/506 and girls of 514/496/503 for a equally weighted average of 502.7 and 504.3 respe
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Meanwhile in 2020, poor boys still hardest hit because in their schools the teachers will still prefer to recruit the girls, and that's assuming their school even has a CS program.
Hang on a minute, you and many others here complaining about this are also saying that girls and women are just inherently less interested in CS and STEM subjects and we shouldn't try to do anything about it because it's natural.
No. They're saying that discrimination is discrimination regardless of the rationale put forward to justify what is, in this case, straight-up sexism. If girls are not applying because they are bullied or discriminated against, then those things need to be addressed. If that's not the problem, then it's nobody's business pushing aside boys who are interested to make room for girls who are not.
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Meanwhile in 2020, poor boys still hardest hit because in their schools the teachers will still prefer to recruit the girls, and that's assuming their school even has a CS program.
I sometimes wonder what would happen to Marx and Engels if we could drag them into the present. Would Marx be too horrified by the sheer stupid on how we describe "oppression" or would he nearly die laughing at the idea of a ruling class running around shrieking "stop oppressing me" at people who can barely afford to keep a roof over their heads? Maybe a little both?
Marx would probably be to busy try finding someone to mooch brandy money off of just like he did with Engles. Engles not having his fathers money to spend would probably have more problems.
Media today = Social Media which is (Score:2)
Reading is fundamental (Score:1)
They didn't cancel the it you fools. Can nobody read nowadays? I guess everyone on slashdot failed their basic reading AP exams, that would explain a lot.
From literally the first paragraph of the so-called cancelation link:
"This year, there will be no end-of-year multiple-choice exam in Computer Science Principles—your AP score *WILL BE COMPUTED FROM THE Create and Explore PERFORMANCE TASKS* only. Access the 2020 scoring guidelines (.pdf/154 KB) for the performance tasks, which are the same as the 20
Re:Reading is fundamental (Score:4, Insightful)
They didn't cancel the it you fools. Can nobody read nowadays? I guess everyone on slashdot failed their basic reading AP exams, that would explain a lot.
From literally the first paragraph of the so-called cancelation link:
"This year, there will be no end-of-year multiple-choice exam in Computer Science Principles—your AP score *WILL BE COMPUTED FROM THE Create and Explore PERFORMANCE TASKS* only. Access the 2020 scoring guidelines (.pdf/154 KB) for the performance tasks, which are the same as the 2019 scoring guidelines."
"This year, there will be no end-of-year multiple-choice exam in Computer Science Principles. There is usually an end of year test scheduled. Now there isn't. The test was therefore cancelled. They are still computing a final score, but you cannot say "record number of people take test" if there was no test to actually take.
Re: Reading is fundamental (Score:2)
By your quirky definition of exam, an English exam where you write an essay isnâ(TM)t really an exam.
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Just because they cancelled the multiple choice part of the exam doesn't mean they cancelled all the exam. The students still took an exam: specifically, "Create" and "Explore": in fact the first link explicitly calls this an "exam". In other words, whoever wrote this article needs to go back and work on their fundamental reading comprehension, because this story makes them look like a clueless moron. There absolutely was an exam, which is what the PR statement claimed. The exam just didn't contain a multip
Re:Reading is fundamental (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, reading ins fundamental. You should try it sometime.
The referenced press release clearly says (I read it, and not just the summary above)
"In 2020, more than 116,000 students took the AP CSP Exam—more than double the number of exam takers in the course's first year, and a 21% increase over the previous year. In 2020, 39,570 women took the AP CSP exam, nearly three times the number who tested in 2017."
TOOK THE EXAM...EXAM TAKERS...
But there were in fact no exams taken. Those may be the numbers for enrollment in the classes, and perhaps even for AP credits given, but since no exam was given the numbers for exams taken is just wrong.
Re: Reading is fundamental (Score:2)
By your weird definition of exam, an English exam where you write an essay is not really an exam.
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They didn't cancel the it you fools. Can nobody read nowadays? I guess everyone on slashdot failed their basic reading AP exams, that would explain a lot.
From literally the first paragraph of the so-called cancelation link:
"This year, there will be no end-of-year multiple-choice exam in Computer Science Principles
I can read just fine, thanks.
Submitting a piece of coursework is not "sitting an exam".
AP CSP Only Cancelled STEM Exam (Score:3)
AP Exams 2020 by Local Start Times [archive.org]: "The AP Seminar and AP Computer Science Principles assessments will not include an end-of-course exam this year. Students will be assessed on their portfolio submission only."
What actually happened (Score:5, Informative)
The examination consists of two parts. One part is a multiple-choice examination. The second part is a portfolio submission of work. While they canceled the multiple-choice examination (all AP examinations were free-response only last year), they retained the portfolio submission.
This is analogous to what happened with AP CS A (the course that is equivalent to Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming at many universities). I teach that course, and the multiple-choice questions were eliminated, the students had to answer a series of free response questions.
Incidentally, the MC section of AP CS A is much harder than the free-response, in my opinion. It is loaded with tricky questions that require close reading (students who are not careful readers often are hurt by this portion). I have seen veteran programmers during AP instructor workshops get questions wrong on the multiple choice. Some of these are people who left industry after a long career and entered teaching. Last year, I had a 100% pass rate on AP CS. I expect that some of my "3" scores (minimum passing grade) would have been "2" scores had the multiple-choice test occurred. I also teach AP Calculus BC and in my opinion, I think the situation is reversed on that one (FRQs are harder than MC) because they are very picky about how answers have to be written up.
This year I expect AP examinations will be back to normal. We have enough time to figure out how we can administer the examination in a socially distanced format. We have already had to do that (successfully) with the PSAT. Just like university students got some easier grading in Spring 2020, so did students in AP classes. I'm okay with that for one year. It most likely won't happen again. We may have another pandemic, but we've learned a lot from this one and we probably wouldn't need six months to figure out what to do.
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It is confusing to say "The final exam is canceled this year" and also "Hurray! 100 thousand plus people passed the exam this year!". But the clarification makes sense.
I think the bigger issue is it seems very misleading, disingenuous even, to celebrate record passing numbers this year as a big win, when removing the MC exam is almost certainly the only reason such record numbers were achieved. If the MC portion normally accounts for 60% of the grade, it is clearly the most important part of the exam, which
College Board Rebranded 'Assessment' as 'Exam' (Score:2)
Archive.org shows that in late May - after the 2020 AP Exams were administered - the College Board still referred to the AP CSP performance tasks and the end-of-course AP Exam collectively as the "Assessment". In mid-August, wording on the page had been changed for the 2020-21 school year to instead refer to the AP CSP performance task and an end-of-course AP Exam collectively as the "Exam."
May 27, 2020 [archive.org]
Assessment Overview
The AP Computer Science Principles assessment consists of two parts: p
It's Future World (Score:2)
In the future you'll have to be a computer wiz to cheat at exams.
Examination (Score:1)