Dr. Judith Covington was one of thousands of high school and college mathematics faculty to review Advanced Placement calculus exams. She is pictured with the advanced math teachers in her Table Group that met in Louisville, Kentucky, to review AP calculus exams June 11-17.
NATCHITOCHES – Dr. Judith Covington, professor of mathematics at Northwestern State University,
joined more than 2,600 high school and college faculty who spent the week reading and scoring over 280,000 AB calculus exams and over 162,000 BC calculus exams. About 435 of the readers participated on site in Louisville, Kentucky, while the remainder read from home. Each test has six questions, and each question was broken down into nine parts.
AP Calculus AB is an introductory college-level course that explores the concepts and applications of differential and integral calculus. AP Calculus BC is similar to AP Calculus AB but covers more content.
“The activity is referred to as a reading and not a grading,” she explained. “Readers are not assigning points. We are provided very detailed rubrics on what work is needed to earn each of the points. Thus, we are reading the exams and assigning points.”
Readers worked for eight hours per day June 11-17, including Saturday and Sunday, and were able to enjoy sight-seeing and social activities in the evenings.
“Readers are comprised of college faculty that teach calculus and high school AP calculus teachers,” she said. “This provides for a unique professional development opportunity. While I attend many conferences throughout the year, the attendees are mainly college faculty. This week gives me a chance to interact with teachers at all levels. The extremely detailed rubrics have impacted how I score my own exams. I now think about how many points each question on an exam is worth and what students will need to do to earn each of those points.”
Covington first applied to be a reader in 2024 and was accepted in 2025 when reviews for calculus and about seven other Advanced Placement subjects took place at the Kansas City Convention Center. This year, with Kansas City serving as a host city for FIFA World Cup games, AP calculus and precalculus readers were relocated to Louisville.
Information on NSU’s Bachelor of Science in Mathematics is available at https://www.nsula.edu/program/bachelor-of-science-in-mathematics/.