Inside the AP Macro Reading: FRQ Tips for Teachers

Early in my teaching career, I learned about the AP Reading from a very talented colleague. When she described the work — reading student essays for 8 hours a day, seven days straight — I was not jumping at the chance to participate. But she convinced me it was worth a try.

My first AP Reading was for AP U.S. History (APUSH) in Louisville, KY in 2008. I stuck with that subject for 10 years and then switched to AP Macroeconomics, which was, honestly, much easier. No essays. In fact, students can earn a perfect score on the AP Macro exam without writing a complete sentence. I've served as an AP Macro reader from Cincinnati, OH and from home.

This summer, I'm sharing some of what I observed, because even if you can't make it to the Reading yourself, the insights are worth sharing for both educators and students.

What is an AP Reading?

Each year, College Board convenes thousands of AP teachers and college faculty to score student exams. This is the AP Reading. Readers are assigned to specific free-response questions (FRQs) and apply a standardized rubric to ensure every student response is evaluated consistently, regardless of who scores it.

This summer, I was able to commit to reading AP Macro FRQs for 5 hours each day from home. I worked with a group of other at-home readers on a long (10-point) free-response question and applied the rubric to over 1,000 student responses.

We happened to be assigned the FRQ that College Board publicly released shortly after the exam date. The prompt asks students to illustrate an inflationary gap and explain how that gap could be closed through long-run self-correction or through the actions of a central bank operating in a limited reserves environment. Students are then asked to connect the monetary policy-induced change in the nominal interest rate to international capital flows, the price of previously issued bonds, private domestic investment spending, and the unemployment rate.

That's a lot of ground to cover, and it reflects just how much AP Macro students are expected to synthesize by exam day.

The Truth About the AP Reading

I don't want to sugar coat this: the Reading is work. And that work can be quite tedious. But I take comfort in knowing students' work is being carefully and fairly evaluated.

The Reading can also be a lot of fun. I always enjoy talking about teaching, and economics, and any number of other things with fellow educators. And beyond the camaraderie, the Reading is fantastic professional development. The insights you gain from evaluating hundreds — and sometimes thousands — of student responses, combined with conversations with other readers, consistently strengthen both your economics knowledge and your pedagogy.

Not everyone can participate, and that's understandable:

• Seven days of work (especially if it's in another city) is a significant time commitment, and the opportunity cost is quite high
• Educators have plenty of other obligations in the summer
• There are only so many slots available

But if the opportunity ever presents itself, I'd encourage you to consider it. You can learn more about becoming an AP Reader on College Board's site. In the meantime, here's what I took away from this summer.

What I Saw in Over 1,000 Student Responses

First: students are impressive. Once you've been teaching economics for a couple of years, the correct responses to the FRQs may seem obvious. But most of the students who take this exam started learning economics for the first time only months ago. I saw many perfect FRQ responses in which students wrote with startling clarity about economic concepts and chains of cause and effect.

There were also many common errors. After scoring over 1,000 responses this summer, a few stand out consistently: incomplete graphs (missing equilibrium labels, unlabeled axes or curves), under-explaining (failing to use discipline-specific language), and over-explaining when the prompt only asked for a direction. And while this isn't a mistake per se, misordering a response increases the chance of reader error.

What to Tell Your Students Before the Exam

1. Label equilibrium in any model at the axes

Many students lose graphing points because their models are incomplete. Use labels on the axes to indicate equilibrium values. Also use tick marks or dotted lines extending from the intersection of curves to the axes to make the equilibrium very clear. While you're at it, make sure all axes and curves are labeled. This is one of the most consistent sources of lost points, and it's entirely preventable.

2. Use the language in the prompt

The prompt tells you exactly what your graph needs to show. If it says, "Draw a correctly labeled graph of the money market in Micanapy, and show the effect of the open-market operation identified in part C(i) on the nominal interest rate" — then your graph should include the nominal interest rate (NIR) and make clear whether it increased or decreased. Axis labels help enormously here.

3. If the FRQ doesn't ask you to explain, don't explain

This one trips students up more than you might expect. If the prompt asks, "Based on the interest rate change in Part C(ii), does private domestic investment spending increase, decrease, or remain the same in the short run?" — the correct answer is simply "increase," "decrease," or "remain the same." If a student goes on to explain their reasoning and the explanation is incorrect or confused, they lose the point even if their even if they identified the correct direction of change.

4. When asked to provide an explanation, use the language of economics to do so

Students often provide vague explanations. Using discipline-specific vocabulary significantly improves the likelihood of earning a point. For example, in Part E of FRQ referenced above students needed to explain a change in the unemployment rate. Many students wrote about more or fewer "job opportunities" and did not earn that point. Responses that correctly explained the change in unemployment as a result of a change in aggregate demand or real GDP performed much better because they communicated with greater precision.

5. "Remain the same" is very rarely the correct answer

Worth noting separately: when students are unsure, "remain the same" tends to feel like a safe middle ground. It almost never is.

6. Answer in the order the prompt is written

Record responses in the same order as the prompt — don't answer Part E before Part C. If you're unsure about Parts C and D, leave space for these responses before recording your answer for Part E. That way when you return to Parts C and D, the entire response is correctly ordered.. Readers are human, and out-of-order responses are an easy way to create confusion that costs points.

7. Use the next page, not the top of the current one

Similarly: if you run out of space on a page, continue on the next page rather than circling back to add a response in the top corner. Keep the flow of your work readable and sequential.

Megan Kirts

Executive Director  ·  Econiful

Megan Kirts is the Executive Director of Econiful and a veteran economics educator with nearly two decades in the field. A former high school social studies teacher, she currently serves as Director of the University of Arizona Office of Economic Education and as an Instructor and Curriculum Developer at 3rd Decade, and brings that experience directly into everything Econiful builds.