How to Find Your Scoring Rubric for the 2020 AP Exams
COVID-19 Series The Princeton Review
Hi, everyone.
I’m Rob Franek, Editor-in-Chief at The Princeton Review.
Last week, we published a video advising you to check out your scoring rubric before you
take the AP exams.
You should know how you’ll be graded so that you can be strategic about earning every
one of the available points.
We’re following up with you today because the process for finding those rubrics rivals
the process of prepping for the AP exams themselves.
I’m only sort of kidding.
So let’s dig right in.
How do you find your AP rubrics so that you can use them to prep?
Step 1: Go to the College Board’s site, and navigate to the page: AP Exam Schedule
2020.
(We’ll include all of the links I mention in the video description, as well.)
Then, scroll down to the subsection “Course-Specific Exam Information.”
There, you’ll find a list of AP subjects.
Click on your AP subject to expand it.
I’m going to click on AP English Language & Composition as an example.
Then, scroll down to the row in the table labeled “Corresponding free-response question
(FRQ) type in the course and exam description binder.”
That is where you’ll find info about the question type or types on your exam.
In this case, this year’s AP English Lang exam will have a Rhetorical Analysis question,
which is typically FRQ 2.
But we’re not done yet!
Step 2: Next, navigate to the AP Courses and Exams page.
From there, select AP English Language & Composition.
Scroll down and click “Go to Course.”
From there, go to “About the Exam.”
Then scroll all the way to the bottom and download the files labeled: 2019 AP English
Language and Composition Free-Response Questions and Scoring Guidelines.
You’ll want to pay attention to the information about FRQ 2, since that’s what your test
will consist of this year.
Easy-peasy, right?
Now, for some exams you may find there’s a small shortcut.
Let’s do this same process for AP U.S. History, for example.
Going back to Step 1:
Go to the College Board’s site, and navigate to the page: AP Exam Schedule 2020.
Then, scroll down to the subsection “Course-Specific Exam Information.”
Then, click on AP U.S. History.
Because this year’s exam consists of a Modified Document-Based Question—meaning, this type
of question was not on last year’s exam—College Board helpfully provides a link to the rubric
right there in the exam description!
Once you click on the hyperlinked word “rubric,” you’ll get taken to a detailed description
of precisely how you’ll be scored.
Now, I want to take a moment to acknowledge here that none of this is user-friendly or
intuitive.
But if you get this crucial information and apply it to your studying over the course
of this week, you will be in a very good position to ace your AP exams.
The best way to prep effectively is to know exactly how you’ll be scored, and then to
use that information to inform your practice.
Hope this video helps you do just that.
We’ll be back with you tomorrow.
Until then, please leave us a comment if you have any questions you’d like answered—be
well and take care.