Thirty-six AP Spanish Language students will have to retake part of their exam or forfeit college credit for the course because of an error in proctoring the test.

Roughly half of the students who took the exam learned from counselors yesterday that their scores for the free-response section of the exam had been invalidated. The free-response section includes writing and oral responses.

Some students taking the oral section in the computer lab had extra time to prepare their response while proctors were resolving a technical issue with the audio file.

The College Board gave students three options to address the issue: they can report a projected score based on their performance on the multiple choice section of the exam, take an alternate form of the free-response section June 13, or cancel the score entirely and get a refund.

Although the College Board claims the projected score is “statistically reliable,” many colleges won’t accept the incomplete score. This leaves many students frustrated with having to take the free-response section a second time or forfeit their scores altogether.

“I was pretty angry that we have to retake the entire second half,” junior Will Baker said.

The complex nature of the exam and its length—roughly six hours—makes administering it challenging for counselors and teachers who are not familiar with the process.

“Our exams are the most difficult to proctor,” resource teacher Pam Garcia said.

The proctor of the exam oversees students’ use of computers to record audio files, which includes complex instructions and a lengthy process to test the audio equipment.

“There’s a lot more to what the proctor is supposed to do on this exam compared to many others,” AP Spanish teacher Carol Gough-Alonso said.

Gough-Alonso proposed that former foreign language teachers, including Garcia, who is retiring after this year, administer the exam in the future. Currently, counselors proctor all AP exams.

Gough-Alonso and Garcia expressed disappointment with the possibility of many students forfeiting their scores despite extensive preparation throughout the school year.

Students have already come to Gough-Alonso saying that they would need to change family vacation plans to retake the exam. The retake comes with problems of its own, she added.

Even if the College Board gives students the retake, it’s not under the same conditions,” Gough-Alonso said.

Junior Sarah Dar, who has chosen to take the free-response section again, doesn’t feel as familiar with the material as she did when she first took the exam.

“I haven’t really thought about Spanish for a month,” she said. “I need to go back and re-study everything.”