Blog: Power Outage During AP Exam at CHS Causes Scores to be Deleted

You're sitting at a table in your school gym, taking the AP exam that you and your classmates have spent countless grueling hours preparing for. It's 20 minutes into the exam, the questions seem ok, and you're feeling fine as you scratch in the little bubbles on your answer booklet. You glance at the time, you're doing all right...

BAM. The lights go out.

And just like that, your exam doesn't count anymore.

This was the situation of students taking the AP Psychology Exam as the power went out at exactly 1:12 sharp. After spending 20 minutes doing the multiple-choice section of the exam, the students were suddenly engulfed in complete darkness.

The outage lasted about an hour, during which the examinees were not allowed to talk or look around due to the strict rules placed by the College Board on testing procedures.

"The proctors were saying, 'We've got to keep this legal, we've got to keep this legal'" junior Shannon Casey said, who was one of the AP Psychology examinees.

They had to close their test booklets, drop their pencils, and sit in darkness for the entire outage while the test proctors and administrators called the College Board to get information on how to proceed, said Casey.

"Mrs. DeLuca was on the phone with the College Board and gave us routine updates," Casey said. "Eventually we found out that our scores would be canceled, and that we'd have to re-take the test."

The make-up test date is May 25, the Friday after Carlsbad's prom. It may not seem like a huge deal to take the test on a different day, but unfortunately for the AP Psych students, it could have a negative impact on their scores.

"The test is curved based on all the kids who take it," Casey said. "Our scores are compared with all the other kids. But since we're doing the make-up test instead, our scores will be compared with the much-smaller pool of kids taking the make-up test."

With a relatively tiny pool of students to compare on the make-up AP Psychology exam, the curve may not be as generous, resulting in lower scores on that AP exam.

Luckily, the AP Psychology exam was the only afternoon AP exam on that day, so it was the only exam affected by the power outage. AP students in upcoming exams can only hope that such an incident doesn't happen during their big test days, either.

 "I just wish we could have thought of a better solution to prevent retaking this test," Casey said. "Now, because I have to take it again, I won't be able to focus on other subjects or even have a good time at prom because this test is going to be in the back of my mind."