The Word about the 2020 AP Physics 1 exam - from Matt Sckalor

Folks, you're hearing a lot of stuff about the format of the AP Physics 1 exam this year.  Most is baloney, as I've referenced before.  We do know that there will be two free response problems: one qualitative-quantitative translation, and one paragraph response.

If you don't know Matt Sckalor, he is the associate chief reader for AP Physics; he's one of the best physics teachers in the world; and, he's on the P1 development committee.  His word is the Word of God when it comes to AP Physics 1.

He posted to the AP teacher community with advice for our students about how to submit answers to this year's unusual exam administration.  With his permission, I've included that advice below. 

Your students can practice what Matt suggests by going to cb.org/apdemo.  This is the authentic website where the College Board wants you to practice submitting copied-and-pasted work.  They should try it out!

From Matt:

Having had experience grading handwritten and scanned AP exams, I highly recommend you encourage your students to type their responses.  The exams are specifically written to be answered in prose; words.  No diagrams, no graphs, no algebraic manipulations.  This has been repeated numerous times.  Chemistry and Calculus have different things going on that require a keyboard guide to help students answer on a keyboard.  That’s not us.  Many practice questions that are out there have aspects that may require algebraic manipulations or complex equations or derivations.  Those aren’t the test questions.

Can they USE equations in their response if they need it to explain their answer?  Of course. 

They can type equations like this: x = Vo*t + 1/2 a*t^2.  Or Fnet = mg sin theta.  Or L = I x omega.  Readable, yes?  No fancy equation editor needed.  In fact, if you try to insert an equation in Word, it’s inserted as a picture, which will NOT paste into the text field of the exam, and the guide says NOT to include pictures in your uploaded documents.   The guide is very clear, tell your students the three ways to submit their answers and be clear on the file types and specific instructions.

If, despite the benefits of typing, your students wish to hand write (and there are valid reasons for some students who wish to do so), implore with them to make sure to write darkly, legibly and that their work is organized.  Then above that, the picture should be in focus, well lit, include the entire document in the frame and they need to check it to be sure its readable!  As I said, I have seen photos of student work that even zoomed in and color corrected could not be read.  Some didn’t press hard enough on the page, some had the edge of their paper cut off, some just had work scribbled all over the place.  You will get their work back at the end of May and you can judge for yourself.  If you are an exam reader, you already know this.

And whatever device they click their e-ticket on is the device they should upload from.  That doesn’t mean they can’t type their work on another device, but they will need to transfer that work onto the device the exam is on.  In Google docs, that’s automatic.  Otherwise, they can email it, airdrop it, use dropbox, etc. 

Frankly, they will have enough to deal with taking the exam and answering the question, I don’t know why people are presenting more complicated scenarios, we should advise them to keep it as simple to complete as possible; one device, open and read, type, copy, paste, submit.  They are permitted to print the exam question on paper as well if they want to avoid scrolling and multiple screens.  You know your students and if they’re like some of mine, and if the instructions are more than 3 lines, there will be students who can’t follow it, and the cost is a zero on the question.