AUTHORING THE AP MUSIC THEORY EXAM:
CONSULTATION AND COLLABORATION
Jocelyn Neal
UNC Chapel Hill
and
Elizabeth West Marvin
The Eastman School of Music
TEST DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
• Three college faculty
• Three high school faculty
• Chief Reader (responsible for grading the exam)
• College Board Advisor (also faculty)
TEST DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
• College faculty have included:
Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, Univ of
Minnesota
Jo Anne Caputo, Cleveland Inst.
Jane Clendinning, FSU
Melissa Cox, Emory
Jonathan Holland, Berklee
Eric Isaacson, Indiana Univ.
Rebecca Jemian, Univ. of Louisville
YouYoung Kang, Scripps
Joseph Kraus, FSU
Elizabeth West Marvin, Eastman
Patrick McCreless, Yale
Jocelyn Neal, UNC Chapel Hill
Sam Ng, Univ. of Cincinnati
Teresa Reed, Univ. of Tulsa
Ron Rodman, Carleton College
Ken Stephenson, Univ. of OK
Harvey Stokes, Hampton Univ.
HOW A TEST IS WRITTEN
• Stage 1: individual committee members write
questions
• Stage 2: committee meets and edits
questions; questions put in a pool
• Stage 3: committee reviews and selects
questions from the pool for an actual exam
• Stage 4: committee members review and
take the test
• Stage 5: page proofs go to the committee co-
chairs
EXAM COVERAGE
• Diatonic tonal harmony and voice leading plus
secondary dominant chords
• Basic topics of rhythm, meter, phrase structure and small
forms
• Motivic transformations (e.g., inversion) and sequences
• Vocabulary for texture and performance markings
• Repertory: tonal music, including a few selections from
twentieth-century art music, jazz, world, and popular
music
EXAM FORMAT
Multiple-choice
Score-based
• Section I:
– 80 minutes
– 75 questions
Multiple-choice
Recording-based
– pitch structure, harmony, cadences, form and phrase structure,
meter, rhythmic devices such as hemiola, texture, key relations,
and compositional devices such as sequences or motivic
transformations
EXAM FORMAT
• Section I: multiple choice
– Sample questions based
on a recording
EXAM FORMAT
• Section I: multiple choice
– Sample questions based on a score
EXAM FORMAT
• Section II: free response
– 80 minutes
– 9 questions
• 7 written answers
• 2 sight singing melodies
FREE-RESPONSE
WRITTEN ANSWERS
SIGHT SINGING
EXAM FORMAT
• Section II: free response
1. melodic dictation #1
2. melodic dictation #2
3. harmonic dictation #1
4. harmonic dictation #2
5. realize a figured bass
6. realize a harmonic progression
7. write an 18th-c. chorale-style bass line
8. sight-singing #1
9. sight-singing #2
TRY IT OUT!
• Let’s sight-sing:
EXAM HISTORY
• 1978: first offered
• 1996: sight singing added
• 2002: part-writing from Roman Numerals added
• 2004: chorale-style bass line question streamlined
* Teach the material from any standard college-level
textbook.
COLLEGE CORRELATION
• Continuously reviewed
• Syllabi and exams drawn from a range of types of music
departments and schools
COLLEGE CORRELATION
• Continuously reviewed
• Syllabi and exams drawn from a range of types of music
departments and schools
• Exam coverage is equivalent to one or two semesters of
theory across the aggregate of programs
COLLEGE CORRELATION
• Continuously reviewed
• Syllabi and exams drawn from a range of types of music
departments and schools
• Exam coverage is equivalent to one or two semesters of
theory across the aggregate of programs
• Individual faculty should figure out how that correlates
to your own courses
INTERNAL CORRELATION
• Statisticians, test-creation procedures grading processes
equate scores from one year to the next
5
(2014)
=
5
(2015)
SUMMARY
• Incredibly stable format
• Reflects the aggregate of first-semester college theory
courses
• Authored by a committee of 8 professional theorists and
teachers
AUTHORING THE AP MUSIC THEORY EXAM:
COLLABORATION AND CONSULTATION
Jocelyn Neal
UNC Chapel Hill
and
Elizabeth West Marvin
The Eastman School of Music