I write this as a current highschool studnet enrolled in 6 ap classes. For some subjects such as World History or Human Geography the test is very comprhensive and teachers have no contention with teaching to the test. In World History we are required to write a DBQ (Document Based Question), LAQ (Long answer Question), as well as a slew of SAQ (Short Answer Questions). These questions require a significant amount of background knowledge to answer comprehensivly. In addition having low test cut-offs don't necessarily correlate to a high percentage of studnets actually receving a 5. In WHAP for example you cite the cut-off rate as 64% however, only 6.5% of students acheive this cutoff. I believe the reason for this low five rate is how comprhensive the test is in measusring the learning a students incurs throughout the year. I realize that I am very bias in wanting these tests to be comphrensive for my own benefit but I stronly believe in history and perhaps other subjects a 5 is acceptable even with these low cut-off rates. Because of how low the 5 rate is even with a low cutoff rate means those students contain a comprehenvise understanding of the material even if they are scoring barely above a 64%.
I write this as a current highschool studnet enrolled in 6 ap classes. For some subjects such as World History or Human Geography the test is very comprhensive and teachers have no contention with teaching to the test. In World History we are required to write a DBQ (Document Based Question), LAQ (Long answer Question), as well as a slew of SAQ (Short Answer Questions). These questions require a significant amount of background knowledge to answer comprehensivly. In addition having low test cut-offs don't necessarily correlate to a high percentage of studnets actually receving a 5. In WHAP for example you cite the cut-off rate as 64% however, only 6.5% of students acheive this cutoff. I believe the reason for this low five rate is how comprhensive the test is in measusring the learning a students incurs throughout the year. I realize that I am very bias in wanting these tests to be comphrensive for my own benefit but I stronly believe in history and perhaps other subjects a 5 is acceptable even with these low cut-off rates. Because of how low the 5 rate is even with a low cutoff rate means those students contain a comprehenvise understanding of the material even if they are scoring barely above a 64%.