Humor

And Now, An Announcement from the College Board

David Coleman’s very official, very serious announcement about new testing.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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By Ismath Maksura

Hello, Stuyvesant students. It’s me, David Coleman, the Lucifer you’ve probably never heard of because none of you have tried to bribe me for test scores like the Loughlins. However, the rumors are true: I’m CEO OF THE COLLEGE BOARD! Mwahaha!

My reason for reaching out to you, as always, is to inflict the maximum amount of pain while raking in the greatest amount of profit. This is, of course, why we canceled the June 6, 2020, SAT administration: you’ve already spent all your money on getting practice tests and textbooks, but now you can’t take the test. And if you were studying for an SAT II exam, you’re double-screwed! For those of you who already took the test in 2019, we’ve ensured that half of your favorite colleges no longer want good test scores, meaning that your precious 1590s are USELESS! Or… how should I put it? Does “given less weight in the holistic admissions process” sound right to you?

Man, I love rubbing in just how hard I’ve pawned all of you. Now that I’ve graduated from Stuy, I get to come back and give you guys nightmares! It’s the perfect revenge!

Now that we’ve put that aside, I’ve got a NEW change to the Advanced Placement (AP) exams to announce!

We’re actually making them all 15 minutes long. You heard me right: this year’s AP students, the ones who thought they were so cool for taking advanced classes, will have WORTHLESS test scores! All of your Princeton Review and Barron’s books? Pointless! And just to ensure that these tests won’t count for anything, they’re going to be, well, different.

I’d urge you to examine the test formats below to comprehend this.

AP Computer Science A

Exam Description: Students will have five minutes to read and respond to Question 1 and then five minutes to upload their responses. After uploading the responses to Question 1, students will have five minutes to respond to Question 2. Once their responses to Question 1 have been submitted, they cannot go back to them. Question 1 will be about how to add elements to ArrayLists, and Question 2 will be about how to use “for loops.” We’re not even kidding. This is somehow barely more specific than our 45-minute test format. But you’d better take it anyway since everyone else is, and you already paid for it!

AP U.S. History

Exam Description: Students will have 15 minutes to write an introductory paragraph with a thesis for a long essay question. The prompt will be derived from the time period between when the signers of the Declaration of Independence began signing the Declaration of Independence to when they finished, and it will be focused on the Revolutionary War. In fact, let’s just tell you the prompt: “Did the Americans win the Revolutionary War?” If you can write a good paragraph for this, then we’ll give you a 5.

AP European History

Exam Description: Because European History needs to be the hardest course we offer, we’re actually going to make this test double the length of the other tests. That’s right: it’s a full HALF-HOUR long. Students will have to complete 300 multiple choice questions, list all the kings of every European country in chronological order, list every single pope and what they did, and write five essays describing different viewpoints at the Congress of Vienna. If you manage to avoid dying during the test, we’ll still probably only give you a 2!

AP Physics 1: Algebra-Based

Exam Description: Students will have 15 minutes to… oh whatever, it’s just KINEMATICS! KINEMATICS! That’s all we’re testing you on. Can YOU divide 15 meters by three meters per second? And yes, that is the first and only question on the exam, so don’t make any memes about it because the contracts that minors sign are definitely legally binding.

Bonus Round: The New SAT

Exam Description: We still need colleges to take this test seriously so that we don’t lose any of our conspicuous amounts of money… well, drat.