College board announced last night, incredibly late in my opinion, that they are changing the exam for this year. Will code.org be updating their materials for the create performance task and exam prep?
@jwyman Thanks for raising this question. Since the updated information from the College Board is quite new, I expect Code.org to add updates to Unit 9 as soon as the College Board updates the Student handbook next month.
Just some water cooler talk. My understanding that the changes is primarily moving the written response from the create task to the actual exam. They will have to answer 4 questions about the task (which is from a bank of questions), about what? I assume the same key points the create task is asking about: Explain a function with a parameter, how a conditional works, and how a library works with iteration.
I do agree though, I am almost on Unit 2 and I still don’t know exactly what the changes are!
Yep, I’ll be interested to see what happens! Erik at Code.org acknowledged the changes here and shared that they are hoping to have new info soon.
Based on some discussion with folks at collegeboard (not related to code.org) it sounds like they’re expecting teacher’s planning/prep to be very similar to what it is now. Practice creating your own original work, practice explaining it, practice making a video. The exam won’t necessarily change much, the timing (what happens when) will with the shift of the 4 questions to the exam timeslot. Its a bummer for students who don’t do great sitting for exams, and definitely motivated by Generative AI. Silver lining is perhaps that students who procrastinate and are not great with executive functioning skills may have a little more of their timing/organization scaffolded because it streamlines the items that need to be done during the create task process.
Time will tell!
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Just a heads up, AP sent out an email yesterday with the updates, they are attached below:
ap-computer-science-principles-course-and-exam-description.pdf (4.9 MB)
ap-csp-student-task-directions.pdf (374.8 KB)
There is also a webinar explaining the changes next month, you need to register for it through your myAPcollege board account:
2023-24 Create Performance Task Updates
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
7 – 8 p.m. ET
This webinar, geared toward both AP teachers and students, addresses the different components of the Create performance task, how they’ve been updated for the 2023-24 school year, and how they relate to the overall AP Computer Science Principles Exam.
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