AP Spanish Students Experienced Test Irregularities

Students taking the 2021 AP Spanish exam not only faced a delay in the exam, but also experienced a “testing irregularity” according to AP and general Spanish teacher Jeanne Psket.

The AP Spanish exam consists of multiple choice reading, multiple choice audio, free response written, and free response spoken. During the multiple choice audio portion of the exam, in one of the three testing rooms, the proctor faced technical difficulty with an “audio technology glitch,” Psket said. This resulted in around a two minute delay for the AP test takers. 

The 28 students in the room during this test were given the option to either get a $100 refund for the test, retake the test, or accept projected scores. The projected scores, while only being based on the free response section of the test, could still potentially be used for college credits. 

Psket says “24 out of the 28 students from the affected testing room then chose to accept the projected score and 100% passed the exam with a 3 or higher.” The other four students were issued refunds for their test. 

Mckayla Murphy, a previous student of Arrowhead that was in the testing room, said they “just wanted to get the exam over with.” Murphy opted to receive her projected scores, telling us that they “got [their] college credits, and that’s all that matters.”

Psket says the “hardest part of this experience for the students and us was waiting for the scores to be reported.” 

Initially students worried that their scores would be completely dropped. This stress surrounding the scores was frustrating for some students as Murphy said that they were worried and upset about rumored scores being “dropped because it was a technical issue and [the technical issue] didn’t actually affect anything. It was just two minutes of us sitting in silence.”

Psket says that her students still performed extremely well. “ALL 81 students passed the exam with a 3 or higher!” She said the Arrowhead Spanish program’s average score was their “highest average ever at 4.12 (Wisconsin’s average was 3.35, the Global average was 3.39)”. 

Psket confirmed that there should be no change to the AP Spanish exams this year since the issue was an audio glitch. 

Adam Kurth, the new Arrowhead principal, stated in his Arrowhead newsletter that “This is an outstanding achievement for students who experienced many disruptions and distractions last year due to COVID -19!”