When the stakes are so high that cheating could be optimal for kids bc the uncertainty of AP availability, content selection, and general test anxiety already virtually guarantees that AP score doesn’t reliably show their skills, https://twitter.com/ap_trevor/status/1259561915241676801

But the rewards that are packed into it are often so steep that you’d almost be silly not to do whatever it takes to raise that score.

Parts of this are widely accepted by AP Ts, not that I’m trying to throw shade more I just want to show what it can be like. My AP English teachers explained to us how to make up books and authors to answer essay questions with “evidence” when I couldn’t think of a real one.

Now that’s probably not cheating, but it does kinda show how sometimes the test is for showing your knowledge, but mostly it’s about “beating” the scorers.

Also, my school that part of a program that cut $100 checks to anyone who got a 3 or higher on any AP test. I’ll be the first to tell you that a hundred bucks was ABSOLUTELY worth my integrity on a test at that time.

I think this is all really just to say that this current AP virtual cheating scheme that’s unfolding ultimately says a ton more about the test and the system implementing it than it is about the character of the kids who schemed to cheat.

If you stuck with me to the end of this thread, let’s quickly pivot for two things:

1. Why?

2. Quarantine has illustrated to me how incredibly underrated house pets of all kinds are.