When the College Board decided to move all AP tests online, everyone’s first thought was the same: what about cheating?
It’s inevitable that some students will try to find a work around and cheat during their exams. Therefore, it’s important to understand how these students will most likely cheat, and what the College Board can do to stop them.
It has become common practice for top colleges and universities to use AP exam scores as factors in the admission process. Over the years, APs have become just another checkbox on a student’s college admission profile. Students are incentivized to cheat because they want to receive all 4s and 5s and have a better chance at getting into their dream school.
How Will Students Cheat?
Todays students are craftier than ever. They can google anything they want, set up chats with their friends to discuss the exam, even work on the exam together on one big document. Perhaps the sneakiest way students will try to cheat is by hiring a professional tutor to write their AP exam for them.
How is the College Board Preventing Cheating?
Currently, the College Board only seems to be preventing plagiarism, which is important but not the only way students can cheat. The College Board has digital security tools and plagiarism software to detect cheating. They have also said the AP questions will be questions a student can’t just google or figure out by chatting with friends.
While this positive, it won’t catch all cheaters, especially those who use a private tutor.
Three Things the College Board Can Do to Prevent Cheating
1. Create a machine learning algorithm that imports writing samples from the student and compares it to the student’s AP responses to detect if the writing came from the same student. This of course is complicated and it is unclear if the College Board has the resources to create something like this.
2. Record students taking the exam. This will prevent students from having a brainstorming session with a tutor. There are softwares out there where you can record a student taking a test and prevent them from browsing the internet as well. However, this would penalize lower-income students who do not have a camera on their device.
3. Have english teachers of AP course work validate their students AP exam responses and flag students for potential cheating. For example, if a D student writes a professional level essay, the teacher can flag that student. However, this places a lot of weight on the teacher who may be incentivized to help their students.
Best Response to Inevitable Cheating
Someone, somewhere in the country will cheat on their AP exam. So the best way to combat this is to change the incentive of the test. We should get back to what the true purpose of an AP exam is: to get credit in high school that can then be used in college so a student can get out of intro courses or graduate early. Colleges should not use AP exams as an admission tool and instead use them to allow their students to receive credit as incoming freshman.
Cheating will happen, but the College Board and universities don’t have to sit by and do nothing
FAQs
The College Board has digital security tools and plagiarism software to detect cheating. They have also said the AP questions will be questions a student can't just google or figure out by chatting with friends. While this positive, it won't catch all cheaters, especially those who use a private tutor.
What percent of students cheat on online tests? ›
Online exam cheating was self-reported by a substantial minority (44.7%) of students in total. Pre-COVID this was 29.9%, but during COVID cheating jumped to 54.7%, although these samples were more heterogenous.
How can professors detect cheating on online exams? ›
Online tests are increasingly equipped to detect screen sharing or the use of secondary devices. Advanced monitoring software can detect unusual activities, such as running screen-sharing programs or having multiple displays active, which could be indicative of cheating.
Do wrong answers count against you on AP exams? ›
These is no penalty for wrong answers on the multiple-choice section of AP exams, so the score that you receive on this section of the test is simply the number of answers you got correct. You'll never see this score, though. Instead, it is used to help calculate your final composite score.
Can AP classroom quiz detect cheating? ›
Can AP Classroom detect cheating during an exam? The answer is no, AP Classroom doesn't have features like fancy screen recorders or programs that track which tabs you have open. So, you can breathe a sigh of relief there.
Is cheating possible in online test? ›
Candidates may use external devices such as smartphones, tablets, or smartwatches to cheat during online exams. They can use these devices to access notes, search for answers, or communicate with other individuals. Prevention: Prohibit the use of external devices during the exam.
Does online cheating count? ›
An online affair, or cyber affair, is generally considered a form of cheating. 1 Cyber affairs are secret extramarital relationships that include intimate and sexual undertones. They're conducted online through chat, email, or social media, or they can happen via sexting.
Can online test proctors see your screen? ›
Proctors can view the test taker's screen during an exam
A serious security and privacy risk, proctors who have this ability could view a test taker's screen, see the questions presented, and identify the answer provided by the test taker.
Can online tests detect changing tabs? ›
Yes, if you try to switch tabs or leave the test page, they'll detect. This combo of Respondus Monitor and Blackboard makes sure proctored exams are super secure and real.
How do I make sure students don't cheat on online tests? ›
Here are 14 ways to do so:
- Create questions that require higher order thinking. ...
- Use varied question types. ...
- Creatively remind students of academic integrity policies. ...
- Require students to sign an academic integrity contract. ...
- Restrict testing window. ...
- Set-up the exam to show one question at a time. ...
- Prohibit backtracking.
To answer your question directly, no, you can't score a literal zero on an AP test; the scores range from 1 to 5. Even if you were to leave the entire test blank, you'd still get a 1. Now, to earn that score of 1, it means the test taker demonstrates no understanding of the material.
Do colleges care if you get a 2 on an AP exam? ›
Some smaller schools or less competitive colleges may be more lenient and accept a 2 for placement purposes or elective credit, rather than for specific course credit. It is also worth noting for your friend that having a lower AP score doesn't eliminate the value of having taken the course.
Does a 2 on an AP exam look bad? ›
While a 2 on an AP exam isn't ideal, it's important to remember that AP scores don't hold as much weight in the college admissions process as the actual AP courses and grades you receive in those courses.
Is it illegal to cheat on an AP test? ›
Consequences for Violating Security Policies
College Board will prohibit individuals from taking the SAT, AP, or CLEP exams when we conclude they've deliberately gained or attempted to gain or share an unfair advantage on any College Board test, or otherwise threatened the integrity of the test.
Can my teacher see what I got on my AP exam? ›
Access for Teachers
Only teachers authorized through the AP Course Audit for the most current year for which AP score data has been released have access to their students' exam scores online.
Can AP Classroom see if you switch tabs? ›
The teacher cannot actively monitor the quizzes themselves because they do not control what happens on AP classroom that is the college board's site no theirs. The only way the teacher could see if you switched tabs on the quiz is if they have a separate app that monitors each student's computer.
What are the statistics on cheating? ›
Nearly 44% of women and 22% of men have cheated with someone their spouse knows. On business trips, infidelity occurs in 62% of men and 57% of women. A shocking 36% of both men and women admit to committing infidelity with a co-worker, often spending more time with them than their spouses.
How many students are using AI to cheat? ›
Over half of students BestColleges surveyed (54%) say that the use of AI tools on college coursework counts as cheating or plagiarism. Jane Nam is a staff writer for BestColleges' Data Center.
Do students cheat more in online courses cheating in the digital age? ›
Watson and Sottile (2010) surveyed 635 students and discovered that the students reported a much higher likelihood (greater than four times) of cheating in the online environment versus a face-to-face setting.
Why do students cheat on tests? ›
Some students might cheat because they have poor study skills that prevent them from keeping up with the material. Students are more likely to cheat or plagiarize if the assessment is very high-stakes or if they have low expectations of success due to perceived lack of ability or test anxiety.
