Accelerating Our Transition to Digital AP Exams By Trevor Packer July 25, 2024
Students and teachers work hard in AP® courses and deserve the confidence that other students aren’t gaining an unfair advantage. Unfortunately, this year, we saw a rise in bad actors compromising AP Exam content for financial gain.
We were able to avoid large-scale cancellations only because none of the compromised material was distributed broadly. But we believe that paper AP testing will continue to be vulnerable to theft and cheating.
We are getting ahead of the issue by accelerating our transition to digital AP Exams. Starting in May 2025, we will discontinue standard paper testing for 28 AP Exams—these exams will move to the Bluebook™ digital testing application. Digital exams are much more secure than shipping paper exams in boxes to thousands of locations weeks in advance.
In addition to ensuring exam security, digital exams have other advantages:
Digital AP testing is streamlined: No more lengthy bubbling and labeling of paper materials before testing can start.
Digital AP testing is accessible: Bluebook supports testing on commonly used devices and students can use their own or a school-issued device.
Digital AP testing is student-friendly: Students like the Bluebook interface for the way it helps them focus on the relevant parts of longer reading passages; enables faster writing and editing compared to handwriting; and provides a less stressful testing experience.
Each exam will deliver a customized digital experience, allowing us to offer a course-specific hybrid digital testing approach for subjects that require graphing or symbolic notation.
Fully digital AP subjects for 2025—no paper testing option available except for students approved by College Board to receive a paper exam for digital assessments:
AP African American Studies (U.S. schools only)
AP Art History
AP Comparative Government and Politics
AP Computer Science A
AP Computer Science Principles
AP English Language and Composition
AP English Literature and Composition
AP Environmental Science
AP European History
AP Human Geography
AP Latin
AP Psychology
AP Seminar
AP United States Government and Politics
AP United States History
AP World History: Modern
Hybrid digital AP subjects for 2025—students will view all of the exam questions in Bluebook but will answer free-response questions in a paper booklet as usual:
AP Biology
AP Calculus AB
AP Calculus BC
AP Chemistry
AP Macroeconomics
AP Microeconomics
AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based
AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based
AP Physics: Electricity and Magnetism
AP Physics: Mechanics
AP Precalculus
AP Statistics
The following subjects will remain unchanged for 2025, but will transition to Bluebook digital testing in the future:
AP Chinese Language and Culture
AP French Language and Culture
AP German Language and Culture
AP Italian Language and Culture
AP Japanese Language and Culture
AP Spanish Language and Culture
AP Spanish Literature and Culture
AP Music Theory
AP students will be able to access free online practice resources. Test previews will be available for all subjects on Bluebook later in the 2024-25 school year. Students will be able to access free online practice exams, quizzes, and other teacher-created assessments in AP Classroom.
Accelerating the digital transition will help us preserve the integrity of the AP Exam experience for students and educators. We understand that this is a significant change, and we will work closely with the AP community throughout the year to ensure that schools have the information and resources they need to prepare for digital AP Exams. College Board will provide schools with loaner devices and Wi-Fi supports as needed.
Visit AP Central for more information.
Johnathan Academy Secondary School 2025 AP Exam Registration will start soon, so please keep a close eye on our website.
Comments