The College Board is migrating 28 of its Advanced Placement (AP) exams from paper to a digital format in response to a rising number of cheating attempts.
In May, the College Board allowed only eight AP exams to be taken digitally on the Bluebook app, the same platform used to administer the SAT college admissions exam.
Starting in May 2025, however, a total of 16 exams will be fully digital, with no pencil-and-paper option available. Those are primarily humanities courses, including U.S. History and AP English Language and Composition, and computer science exams.
Another 12 will be delivered in a hybrid format, with students viewing questions on the app but writing their free-response answers in a physical paper booklet. Those are primarily for math- and science-based courses, including biology, calculus, and statistics.
The decision to expedite the digitization process was prompted by an uptick in AP score cancellations tied to leaked materials, according to Trevor Packer, who has been directing College Board’s AP program for more than 20 years.
“This year, we saw a rise in bad actors compromising AP Exam content for financial gain,” Mr. Packer said in a statement. “We were able to avoid large-scale cancellations only because none of the compromised material was distributed broadly. But we believe that paper AP testing will continue to be vulnerable to theft and cheating.”
Before May’s exams, discussions about leaked test materials involving a wide range of subjects emerged on social media sites such as Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit. Those materials, traded mainly on Chinese online marketplaces as a cash-for-questions scheme, were able to reach a large number of students but weren’t deemed a serious enough threat for the College Board to cancel entire exams or scores from whole countries.
When AP results were released on July 8, students received a message saying their scores were canceled for academic integrity violations. In the following weeks, thousands of posts about canceled AP scores appeared on Little Red Book, one of China’s most popular social media apps.
In its message, the College Board stated that the decision was made after a “comprehensive investigation” that found “clear and overwhelming evidence” of misconduct. The company didn’t disclose the exact number of cancellations this year but confirmed that it was higher than usual.
According to Mr. Packer, the digital exam is less vulnerable to leaks than its traditional counterpart because it doesn’t involve shipping paper exams to thousands of test locations weeks in advance.
He also said the digital format allows for a more student-friendly experience, as the Bluebook app enables faster writing and editing than handwriting does and helps test-takers focus on the relevant parts of longer reading passages.
The company also promised to provide schools with loaner devices and Wi-Fi support as needed.
- AP African American Studies
- AP Art History
- AP Comparative Government and Politics
- AP Computer Science A
- AP Computer Science Principles
- AP English Language and Composition
- AP English Literature and Composition
- AP Environmental Science
- AP European History
- AP Human Geography
- AP Latin
- AP Psychology
- AP Seminar
- AP United States Government and Politics
- AP United States History
- AP World History: Modern
- AP Biology
- AP Calculus AB
- AP Calculus BC
- AP Chemistry
- AP Macroeconomics
- AP Microeconomics
- AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based
- AP Physics 2: Algebra-Based
- AP Physics: Electricity and Magnetism
- AP Physics: Mechanics
- AP Precalculus
- AP Statistics
