Teaching Comparative

Advanced Placement exams

If you're teaching Advanced Placement Comparative Government and Politics, you might have the same question that Martha Kerekes posed last week. The curriculum and the exam changed last year, and she asked about the real meaning of the exam changes.

AP students and teachers have to pay attention to such high stakes tests, especially when things change and past success is no longer a precedent for the future.

Since the early '90s, the written part of the AP exam has been called the "Free Response" (or FRQ, for Free Response Questions) section, not the essay section. Nonetheless, many teachers and students have continued to use "essay" when discussing the written half of the exam. It was only two or three years ago that the AP exam stopped using the word "essay" in its test instructions.

With those changes still reverberating, AP changed the FRQ section of Comparative exam last year with the announced purpose of focusing more on concepts and comparisons.

What's teacher to teach about taking the exam?

My advice to students in the face of changes remains the same. "Do what you're asked to do in the question." And "Answer the question that's asked."

Former chief reader for AP Government, Dr. Joe Stewart of Clemson University (quoted on p. 23 of my book) and Alberta provincial standardized test assessors both note that students often try to answer questions they expect rather than the questions they confront. That's never a good idea.

Students can do more than they're asked to do -- like write formal essays -- but they will only be graded on the specifics to which they are asked to respond. Readers (those wonderful people who devote an eight-day week each June to grading the FRQs) are looking for relevant and accurate responses. Students do not earn points for anything else.

Tomorrow, more on "doing what you're asked to do."

If you have comments or more questions, please use the "Comment" link below.

posted by Ken Wedding @ 10:50 AM