Advanced Placement Test Results

In response to my opponent's objections, I'm going to use this round simply to explain why my opponent's objections do not suffice to refute my points. 1. I agree that the stress is unnecessary, but it exists nonetheless. If you take an important test, you will generally be anxious about the results. The less time students have to wait to find out their scores, the less anxious they will be. Allowing the scores to be released earlier reduces the anxiety causes by the tests. Charging the students to remove their anxiety is an underhanded use of negative reinforcement to encourage people to pay money when it is, as my opponent says, irrational to do so. Teachers do not typically received scores by mail before students (they generally live in the same area and receive them around the same time) and the fact that colleges receive scores earlier does not help students who take AP tests before their senior year of high school. 2. My opponent suggests that the $8 fee could be justified for various purposes. I will illustrate why each of these purposes does not justify the cost. a) Maintaining the automated service: This assumes that the automated service is the best way to distribute the scores. If the fee is necessary to maintain the automated service then College Board should just do away with it an post the scores online as I suggested. b) Accessing the scores: I'm not sure what's meant by accessing the scores. Retrieving information from whatever database College Board stores test results on should not be very expensive to them and would not justify its own fee. c) Paying people who grade the tests/process the scores, etc.: This should already be covered by the cost of the exam, which is $86. If the extra $8 from some students is needed, this should be added to the cost of the test. Relying on people who call in to cover the excess costs of the test seems like a very unreliable strategy. What happens if not enough people call in? I think voters will agree that College Board would not employ such a risky plan. And yes, it does cost College Board money to maintain their website. However, as I explained, they already have the website for SAT scores anyway. It costs them money to maintain the website, but it would not cost them extra to post more scores on it. The extremely slight cost of posting the scores would be more than compensated by the mail that would not have to be sent. Now, I cannot go through every possible application of the $8 fee and prove why it's not justified. But if we can't conceive of a way that College Board would reasonably need this inconsistent extra income then there is no reason to assume it must be justified. It seems that the more reasonable explanation is that College Board is exploiting people's anxiety to make extra money which can be used as a financial buffer. Just because College Board is non-profit does not mean it isn't seeking to maximize it's income. 3. The SAT may cost less because it's more widely administered. I was simply trying to put into perspective the cost of the AP tests: it's almost twice what the SAT is. If fees are necessary to keep the College Board's test services operational, they should over these fees with the tests, not with random and unreliable extra costs that students are enticed with. Also, though I think it's kind of asinine to ask for a source to prove such easily access statistics, I will list at the bottom links confirming the costs that my opponent has asked for. 4. I have given reasons why the tests should be posted online. It would allow students to access the tests earlier, reducing anxiety. My opponent may think this anxiety is irrational but it certainly exists or no one would pay to get their scores earlier. Also, posting online, on an already operational website, is much cheaper than sending scores by mail or maintaining an automated phone service (which, my opponent contends, costs an astounding $8 per call to maintain). 5. Many colleges do indeed allow students to find out SAT scores earlier on their websites, which is important for scheduling purposes. However, it will still be better if the students could find the scores out on their own. That way by orientation they would have a better idea of what classes they can place out of and the scheduling and advisement process would be much easier. Also, many students take AP classes before their senior year of high school and thus they would not benefit from this at all. These students have even more a reason to be anxious about test scores because AP scores will appear on their college applications and they have not been accepted to colleges yet. So, my criticisms of the $8 dollar phone service are shown to be valid. The most sensible alternative is to post scores online. College Board already has an online service for accessing test scores so it only makes sense to post them there. This would not cost anything beyond what is already used to maintain the site. Furthermore, this would save money by reducing the need to mail scores. Almost all students have some access to a computer and those who do not could still receive there scores my mail. Overall, this change would cut mailing costs and it would not be necessary to tempt nervous students with the overpriced phone service. Sources: Here (http://sat.collegeboard.com...) is the cost of the SAT. It is $47 and not $45 as I originally believed. The source I used before, which I thought it was unnecessary to cite, must have been outdated. This two dollar discrepancy has no effect one the argument however. This site (http://www.kaptest.com...) shows that the new SAT has 170 questions and is over three hours and a half long. This site (http://www.collegeboard.com...) shows that the AP tests are typically two to three hours long. The AP tests vary in length and format, but no test exceeds 100 questions. I do not have a single source proving that and I'm not going to post a link to the syllabus of every AP test. If you are so inclined you can go to College Board's website and see that the (far cheaper) SAT is much longer than any AP tests. I'm not disputing that the extra costs are necessary, but if College Board relied on the phone service to fund the tests they would not need to make them so much more expensive. This site (http://www.collegeboard.com...) shows that the cost of the AP tests is $86.