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Most people do not realize just how easy the AP exams have gotten. They are not college level.
Why/how have they become so easy? What's going on?
This might shock you... A brutal new piece in Education Next just dropped, saying the decline in rigor of the AP in the last two decades is, in large part, because the content has been GUTTED. For example:
— AP Biology cut 40% of its material
— Required lines from the Aeneid in AP Latin halved
— Spanish Lit reading list cut from 56 works to 38
Then the questions themselves have become absurdly easier. Readability measures show English passages have fallen multiple grade levels, and some now include footnotes defining basic words...
A 2025 AP English prompt included footnote definitions for words like "optimism" and "pessimism."
At the same time, scoring was recalibrated so that more students pass: guessing penalties disappeared, rubrics grew more generous, readers were told to give students the benefit of the doubt, etc. — "no one at College Board had any incentive to maintain rigor."
College professors are now seeing students arrive with AP credit who lack basic content knowledge and writing ability. The College Board insists the exams have not become easier, but everybody familiar with them knows they've become an absolute joke.
Advanced Placement is no longer advanced. This is not college level.
It must be replaced.
Why/how have they become so easy? What's going on?
This might shock you... A brutal new piece in Education Next just dropped, saying the decline in rigor of the AP in the last two decades is, in large part, because the content has been GUTTED. For example:
— AP Biology cut 40% of its material
— Required lines from the Aeneid in AP Latin halved
— Spanish Lit reading list cut from 56 works to 38
Then the questions themselves have become absurdly easier. Readability measures show English passages have fallen multiple grade levels, and some now include footnotes defining basic words...
A 2025 AP English prompt included footnote definitions for words like "optimism" and "pessimism."
At the same time, scoring was recalibrated so that more students pass: guessing penalties disappeared, rubrics grew more generous, readers were told to give students the benefit of the doubt, etc. — "no one at College Board had any incentive to maintain rigor."
College professors are now seeing students arrive with AP credit who lack basic content knowledge and writing ability. The College Board insists the exams have not become easier, but everybody familiar with them knows they've become an absolute joke.
Advanced Placement is no longer advanced. This is not college level.
It must be replaced.
