Stuyvesant Students’ Thoughts on the New College Board DBQ and LEQ Rubrics

The College Board recently announced revisions to the DBQ and LEQ rubrics, which apply to the AP United States History, AP World History, and AP European History exams. These revisions will go into effect this school year. The new rubric makes it much easier for students to earn the complexity point for their essays and receive higher grades overall. What does the Stuyvesant student body think of this decision?

“The changes are gonna make things a lot easier. It’ll also make the test faster to complete, avoiding the factor that students run out of time. I think the College Board wanted to make things less formulaic for students, maybe giving more time for analysis rather than directly getting stuff from the documents, as well as to potentially give them more opportunities to show their understanding.” —Alice Dan, junior

“I personally think the test was doable prior to these changes with enough applied effort, but obviously I don’t mind having a significantly higher chance of scoring a 5. These changes will, without a doubt, decrease the test’s difficulty to the point where it’s harder not to score a 5 if studying as rigorously as one would have for the same test the year before.” —Joshua Shvartsman, junior

“I think that the new rubric is probably a good thing, since the previous rubric’s mention of the complexity point was a little convoluted and hard to understand. I think kids can achieve the complexity point more easily than previous years now, since I feel like it was kind of a difficult feat with the old rubric.” —Andrew Oh, senior

“I’m kind of in the small minority where I kind of enjoy writing DBQs, but I’m not angry at the College Board because they made the test easier. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter to me at all.” —Jason Ng, senior

“I think it makes sense, because the complexity point was so confusing to get that teachers used to tell us to not even try going for it, which makes it a strange category. I think scores more or less would stay the same, [...] maybe just making it a little easier to get a 5.” —Randy Sim, senior