Jeremy Wayne Tate:

— AP Biology cut 40% of its material
— Required lines from the Aeneid in AP Latin halved
— Spanish Lit reading list cut from 56 works to 38

Then the questions themselves have become absurdly easier. Readability measures show English passages have fallen multiple grade levels, and some now include footnotes defining basic words…

A 2025 AP English prompt included footnote definitions for words like “optimism” and “pessimism.”

At the same time, scoring was recalibrated so that more students pass: guessing penalties disappeared, rubrics grew more generous, readers were told to give students the benefit of the doubt, etc. — “no one at College Board had any incentive to maintain rigor.”

College professors are now seeing students arrive with AP credit who lack basic content knowledge and writing ability. The College Board insists the exams have not become easier, but everybody familiar with them knows they’ve become an absolute joke.

Advanced Placement is no longer advanced. This is not college level.

It must be replaced.

The attempt to fix “too much content” and remove rote memorization was to emphasize “depth over breadth.” And this is the result. Look at this example of AP History multiple-choice questions.

“What prior knowledge would an AP student need in order to guess that a picture of women building an airplane in the early 1940s shows that World War II mobilized American society?”

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The Decline and Fall of Rigor in Advanced Placement

Once a standard-bearer for college readiness, AP Exams today are a shadow of their former glory