Beginning in May 2025, the College Board has introduced digital testing for 28 Advanced Placement exams. Of these 28, 16 will be fully digital, while the remaining 12 will follow a hybrid format, allowing students to view questions online but write their free-response answers in a physical booklet. As AP exam season approaches, teachers and students are learning what a new digital format will entail.
For senior Manasa Satish, digital exams feel like an advantage to her compared to traditional ways of testing. With her past experience of taking AP Computer Science Principles, which was half digital and half on paper, she expressed how it would be easier for her to answer the questions if they were online.
“I feel like I would love to go back and rewrite my sentences. It’ll be easier if I type it versus when I’m writing,” Satish said. “I can’t really change things, and then I feel like it becomes messy.”
Junior Danielle Wong, however, argued that the difficulty of a digital exam depends on the subject. As a student taking both English and math-based AP classes, she sees pros and cons in the transition.
“I think it depends because for Lang (AP Language and Composition), I feel like it’s more helpful if it’s digital because it’s easier to make changes if you want to move different paragraphs elsewhere,” Wong said. “For math based (subjects), like calculus or physics, it’s better to have it written because it helps more thinking wise if I’m writing on paper.”
Satish prefers having a digital version of the exam as it is easier to check her work, yet she acknowledged that writing on paper would trigger a better connection with one’s mind.
“You know how they say when you’re writing things on paper, it triggers some flow? That might be more of an advantage of having it on paper,” Satish said.
Similarly, social science teacher Carol Schmale believes there is a better connection between the brain and hand when writing on paper, more so than typing. Schmale, who teaches AP European History, worries how the digital format will impact her students’ performance on the exam.
“For AP Euro, there is a document-based question where they have to read seven documents. Not being able to annotate on paper, I’m a little concerned about how that is, or to have a piece of paper to flip through versus scrolling,” Schmale said. “Recent educational research says that 70% of people read better on paper than digitally, so I’m a little concerned about how they’re going to read those documents and understand them.”
Although Schmale is not too keen on digital AP exams, she acknowledged that they do offer some benefits, particularly when it comes to accommodations for students. Like the CAASPP state testing, the new AP format could be more accessible, with tools such as text to speech or speech to text tools embedded into the testing application.
“If you’re a student who needs those kinds of things, then digital would be easier to accommodate those kinds of needs, or if a kid has dysgraphia and has trouble writing. Certain fonts are easy if you have dyslexia,” Schmale said.
For many students like Wong, it will be their first time taking a digital AP exam. To prepare, teachers like Schmale have been using AP Classroom as a primary resource for online test practice.
“I feel like it’s good that our teachers right now give us practice on AP Classroom, which has a similar if not the same format as the actual AP exam, which I feel more prepared for,” Wong said.
In addition to using AP Classroom, Schmale has ensured that her students test in similar conditions to those they will face on exam day, incorporating digital practice into their routine.
“Research shows that the more you practice in that tested environment the better you’ll do, so I’ve been trying to do it from the very beginning and hope that kids have figured out strategies to deal with the limitations of having an online test,” Schmale said.
Math and computer science teacher Rupali Satija did not change much of her teaching styles for AP CSP, as it previously included digital components. She was only informed about the switch to a fully digital AP Computer Science A exam in November 2024, months after she had originally planned her curriculum.
“For CSA, they (College Board) did not give me a platform where I can use and prepare my students for the FRQ,” Satija said. “Right now, I am still preparing my students with paper and pencil because I do not know how their software would work for the digital format.”
Despite Satija’s concerns about the lack of resources provided, she sees the transition as a step toward aligning AP exams with college-level assessments.
“I think AP may mainly go in parallel to colleges, and I don’t think in colleges anybody uses notebooks or paper,” Satija said. “You all can type and you all take even notes that way. Your assessments and everything are digitized.”