Aside from the elimination of the guessing penalty on the AP exam, which was instated during this 2010-2011 school year, the College Board plans to change the way APs are being taught and tested. The major problem that people have with AP courses is that too much information is being crammed into one course, and there is not enough time spent on the important topics. Consequently, in an effort to steer the exam away from having students memorize many facts and details, the College Board will emphasize the learning of conceptual ideas in its new AP courses.

Especially in a class such as Biology, more analytical thinking and scientific exploration will be incorporated into the curriculum. For example, the AP Bio exam which has 110 multiple choice questions and four essay questions will be changed to include fifty-five multiple choice questions and nine essays. Also, more time will be devoted to labs during the course so that students can learn more through scientific research. Basically, the amount of information covered in the course will be cut down and replaced by greater coverage of specific topics.

Animated about the new course, AP Biology teacher Mrs. Santarelli remarked, “I think the new changes are fantastic and overdue. I’m excited about the new course, and I believe it will be a positive for students taking it.”

In addition to Biology, US History is another popular AP that covers a vast amount of information and is about to undergo changes. Likewise, less memorization of detail will be required for the exam, and instead, there will be a greater focus on having students craft historical arguments. Moreover, the class will consist of nine time periods and several overarching themes.

However, even though College Board announced its plans to change its AP courses and exams, it has only released a new curriculum for AP Biology. Not much is known about the specifics of how all of the other APs will change.

When asked about the new US History AP course, Mrs. Zisk replied, “To be quite honest they [the College Board] have been very vague about what they are doing. I really have no idea what to expect except from what I read in the New York Times Sunday section a couple of weeks ago. And that may not be totally accurate based on an email I just received from the USAP listserv. I really have no idea what’s going to happen.”

Whether or not the new AP exams will be easier is yet to be determined. Nevertheless, if presented with the option, it might just be to a student’s advantage to wait for the new AP to be released as opposed to being a part of the last class to take the old AP.