Chinese Advanced Placement Exam hits Snags

“Students at Fremont’s Irvington and Mission San Jose high schools seeking college credits have been studying hard in preparation for the spring Chinese Advanced Placement exam. Now, it turns out that about 150 students at the two schools may not be able to take it at all. The College Board, which administers the SAT and AP exams, has decided it will offer the Chinese and Japanese AP tests only online. To administer the test, a school must have computers equipped with sound cards and software to convert English letters into Chinese characters — and meet a slew of other requirements. Finding money to purchase the equipment itself would be a challenge. But more troublesome is that neither Irvington nor Mission San Jose has the Internet capabilities to permit all the students to take the test at once, administrators said.”