NPR

4 Things We Don't Know About AP Tests

Nearly 3 million students take their Advanced Placement exams in the coming weeks. There's very little independent research on the benefits of these courses.
Source: Oivind Hovland

This week and next is a national rite of passage for stressed-out overachievers everywhere. Nearly 3 million high school students at 22,000 high schools will be sitting down to take their Advanced Placement exams.

Created by the nonprofit College Board in the 1950s, AP is to other high school courses what Whole Foods is to other supermarkets: a mark of the aspirational, a promise of higher standards and, occasionally, a more expensive alternative.

AP courses promise to be the

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