For many, the summer of 2022 marked the months of travel after a pandemic pause. For two Bellarmine teachers, Social Studies teacher Matt Ellis and Science teacher Jazz Etter, it also involved traveling so they could become College Board AP readers.

According to Ellis, “AP grading is like running a marathon; you have to forget the pain of the grading you just went through before you sign up for the next one.”

Etter said, “AP Scoring gives you insight into the mindset of what scorers are looking for because the rubric sometimes doesn’t specify to what extent things need to be explicit. When you score, you get familiar with parameters, so now I’m actually able to create scoring guidelines for labs that would mimic scoring guidelines on AP FRQ questions. This helps students get really familiar with phrasing and subtleties that they will need in order to score well on an FRQ question.”