The College Board – the creator of Advanced Placement (AP) courses and exams – announced that it is accelerating the organization’s efforts to move to digital exams.
Trevor Packer, head of the AP Program, said that this year the College Board saw “a rise in bad actors compromising AP Exam content for financial gain.” As a result of the spike in that kind of activity, the College Board decided to press fast forward on its efforts to deploy digital exams for the 2025 exam period.
“Students and teachers work hard in AP courses and deserve the confidence that other students aren’t gaining an unfair advantage,” Packer said.
Starting in May 2025, the College Board will discontinue standard paper testing for 28 AP Exams, and those 28 exams will move to the Bluebook digital testing application. The College Board said it will provide schools with loaner devices and Wi-Fi supports as needed. Parker noted that digital exams are much more secure than shipping paper exams in boxes to thousands of locations weeks in advance.
In addition to ensuring exam security, the College Board said digital exams have other advantages:
- Streamlining the testing process – No more lengthy bubbling and labeling of paper materials before testing can start.
- Improving accessibility – Bluebook supports testing on commonly used devices and students can use their own device or a school-issued device.
- Making the testing more student-friendly – The Bluebook interface helps students focus on the relevant parts of longer reading passage, enables faster writing and editing compared to handwriting, and provides a less stressful testing experience.
The College Board also explained that each exam will deliver a customized digital experience, allowing it to offer a course-specific hybrid digital testing approach for subjects that require graphing or symbolic notation.
To help prepare for the move to digital exams, AP students will be able to access free online practice resources. Test previews will be available for all subjects on Bluebook later in the 2024-25 school year. Students will also be able to access free online practice exams, quizzes, and other teacher-created assessments in AP Classroom.
“Accelerating the digital transition will help us preserve the integrity of the AP Exam experience for students and educators,” Packer said. “We understand that this is a significant change, and we will work closely with the AP community throughout the year to ensure that schools have the information and resources they need to prepare for digital AP Exams.”
