AP Spanish Literature: 2021 Exam Results
The following data includes all 21,787 students worldwide who took the AP Spanish Literature Exam this year on any exam date prior to June 12.
Total group score distributions, 2021 vs. 2019
The following table enables comparisons of student performance in 2021 to student performance prior to the covid-19 pandemic:
| AP Score | 2019 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 10% | 8% |
| 4 | 25% | 21% |
| 3 | 38% | 36% |
| 2 | 21% | 25% |
| 1 | 6% | 10% |
The May 7 Exam Questions
The largest exam date for AP Spanish Literature was May 7, so the following information is specific to the exam version administered on that date.
Multiple-choice section:
- AP Spanish Literature students performed just slightly better on the reading questions than on the listening questions.
- Content: Students scored significantly higher on the questions about units 6-8 (“Teatro y poesia del siglo XX,” “El Boom latinoamericano,” and “Escritores contemporáneos de Estados Unidos y España”) than they did on questions about units 1-2 (“La época medieval,” and “El siglo XVI”).
- Skills: Students generally scored lowest on questions related to Skill Category 3 (Comparing literary texts ) and highest on questions related to Skill Categories 1A and 1B (Comprehension and theme identification).
- The lowest-scoring component of this year’s exam was the critical commentary multiple-choice questions; more than 10% of students could not answer any correctly.
- The highest-scoring component of this year’s exam was free-response question 2, the text and art comparison between Lorca’s La casa de Bernarda Alba and Santos’s “La tertulia.” Students generally did very well, with more than 15% of students earning every point possible on this question.
- The lowest average scores within this year’s free-response section were on question 3, the analysis of García Márquez’s “La siesta del martes.” About 8% of students left the question blank or earned no points in their response.