Create PT Written Response Template

Can students create pdf of their written response using the code.org template and submit to digital portfolio on college board?
Are they required to use the college board provided template?
When they turn in the pdf on turnitin.com, the resource highlights a 35% similarity because of the instructions to each response, 2a-2d.

I had students turn in pdfs of the template from here, the college board template and docs that had only the answers (w/out the question prompts). It did not seem to matter. Maybe someone else knows if there is a way (or settings) for turnitin that will allow it to skip the template when checking for plagiarism?

From the College Board Digital Portfolio site:

Use AP CSP Written Response Templates

We strongly recommend students use the Written Response Templates for the Create and Explore performance tasks to ensure accurate scoring and to respond to all the performance task requirements in an organized and properly labeled manner.

The use of College Board templates may help to avoid suspicion of plagiarism . Use of templates that contain sentence starters or fill in the blanks are a violation of the task guidelines and may result in you scoring 0 on your performance task.


It will be graded if you do not use the template (or delete the instructions), just make sure each section is clearly marked.

Thank you @gjschmidt and @biermanl for your response. I have a couple students who have already submitted their final responses using the templates from code.org. From your responses I gather that is fine. These templates definitely kept the students address the responses in an orderly fashion and on task.
I was worried that they might be flagged as plagiarism because of the 35% similarity that turnitin.com reports.