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© 2020 College Board
The AP Course Audit form is submitted by the AP teacher
and the school principal (or designated administrator) to
conrm awareness and understanding of the curricular
and resource requirements. A syllabus or course outline,
detailing how course requirements are met, is submitted
by the AP teacher for review by college faculty.
Please visit collegeboard.org/apcourseaudit for more
information to support the preparation and submission
of materials for the AP Course Audit.
How the AP Program
IsDeveloped
The scope of content for an AP course and exam is
derived from an analysis of hundreds of syllabi and course
oerings of colleges and universities. Using this research
and data, a committee of college faculty and expert AP
teachers work within the scope of the corresponding
college course to articulate what students should know
and be able to do upon the completion of the AP course.
The resulting course framework is the heart of this course
and exam description and serves as a blueprint of the
content and skills that can appear on an AP Exam.
The AP Test Development Committees are responsible
for developing each AP Exam, ensuring the exam
questions are aligned to the course framework. The AP
Exam development process is a multiyear endeavor; all
AP Exams undergo extensive review, revision, piloting,
and analysis to ensure that questions are accurate, fair,
and valid, and that there is an appropriate spread of
diculty across the questions.
Committee members are selected to represent a variety
of perspectives and institutions (public and private,
small and large schools and colleges), and a range of
gender, racial/ethnic, and regional groups. A list of each
subject’s current AP Test Development Committee
members is available on apcentral.collegeboard.org.
Throughout AP course and exam development, College
Board gathers feedback from various stakeholders
in both secondary schools and higher education
institutions. This feedback is carefully considered to
ensure that AP courses and exams are able to provide
students with a college-level learning experience and
the opportunity to demonstrate their qualications for
advanced placement or college credit.
How AP Exams Are Scored
The exam scoring process, like the course and exam
development process, relies on the expertise of
both AP teachers and college faculty. While multiple-
choice questions are scored by machine, the free-
response questions and through-course performance
assessments, as applicable, are scored by thousands
of college faculty and expert AP teachers. Most are
scored at the annual AP Reading, while a small portion
is scored online. All AP Readers are thoroughly trained,
and their work is monitored throughout the Reading
for fairness and consistency. In each subject, a highly
respected college faculty member serves as Chief
Faculty Consultant and, with the help of AP Readers
in leadership positions, maintains the accuracy of
the scoring standards. Scores on the free-response
questions and performance assessments are weighted
and combined with the results of the computer-scored
multiple-choice questions, and this raw score is
converted into a composite AP score on a 1–5 scale.
AP Exams are not norm-referenced or graded on a curve.
Instead, they are criterion-referenced, which means that
every student who meets the criteria for an AP score of
2, 3, 4, or 5 will receive that score, no matter how many
students that is. The criteria for the number of points
students must earn on the AP Exam to receive scores of
3, 4, or 5—the scores that research consistently validates
for credit and placement purposes—include:
§ The number of points successful college students
earn when their professors administer AP Exam
questions to them.
§ The number of points researchers have found to
be predictive that an AP student will succeed when
placed into a subsequent, higher-level college course.
§ Achievement-level descriptions formulated by
college faculty who review each AP Exam question.
Using and Interpreting AP Scores
The extensive work done by college faculty and AP
teachers in the development of the course and exam and
throughout the scoring process ensures that AP Exam
scores accurately represent students’ achievement in the
equivalent college course. Frequent and regular research
studies establish the validity of AP scores as follows:
AP Score
Credit
Recommendation
College Grade
Equivalent
5
Extremely well qualied A
4
Well qualied
A−, B+, B
3
Qualied
B−, C+, C
2
Possibly qualied n/a
1
No recommendation n/a
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2AP Human Geography Course and Exam Description