Sean Mayer ‘25

ART MANAGER

Recently, the College Board has shifted to a more digital approach. The organization has turned its focus to digitizing the Advanced Placement (AP) Exams after the launch of the Digital SAT (DSAT) last year. Exams such as AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Statistics, and more are becoming hybrid and on the route to being fully digital. When deciding which is the better option–digital or paper–each student's opinion can vary; everyone has their own preferences so there is no clear right answer.

Starting with the SAT, the digital test is a multistage, adaptive exam. Each test section (Reading & Writing, Math) is divided into two modules, and a student’s performance on the first module determines if they receive the easy-level second module or the hard-level second module. There are numerous advantages to the digital version. The passages are much shorter in the Reading & Writing section, which helps individuals to maintain focus. Additionally, in the Math section, students now have access to the useful graphing utility Desmos.

Despite these advantages to the DSAT, the disadvantages far outweigh the positive changes. At the beginning of each Reading & Writing module, there is a vocabulary type of question that was originally taken off the SAT in 2016 but has been brought back. When a student has not encountered a particular vocabulary word, context clues can only help to a certain extent, so students are forced to take a guess because there is no way to deduce the correct answer. Furthermore, although the paper SAT passages were harder to maintain one’s focus on, they were much easier to comprehend. In the second module of Reading & Writing, some questions are incredibly confusing and require students to reread the passage multiple times.

On the other hand, the Math section of the DSAT tends to align with student expectations, but it can present time- consuming problems that test students’ logical thinking as well as math skills. Depending on the SAT test date, the questions can vary drastically in difficulty, which can change how a student performs.

Although the DSAT negatively affects the test-taking experience, making the AP exams digital was a great decision. Previously, for exams such as English and History, students had to write down their answers with pencil, which made it more difficult to correct prior sentences. In contrast, typing helps students get their ideas down and edit their mistakes more quickly. Some students also have illegible handwriting, so typing has improved conditions for the AP graders as well. Grading-wise, digital exams are less of a hassle because students’ answers can be submitted immediately to the College Board through the computer. When considering if the digital transition was for the better, there are definitely advantages and disadvantages for each format. It is clear that the SAT should have stayed on paper while AP exams should continue to function better digitally.