Student-Produced Response
Student-produced response is The College Board’s way of
saying, “Do it yourself, Bub.” Simply put, you, the student, must
supply the correct answer without choosing from a group of answer
choices. Answering student-produced responses requires filling in
a grid like the one shown below. Therefore, we will refer to these
items as grid-ins:
An example of a question in the grid-in section might
be:
|
|
| 4. |
If  and  , what does b equal? |
|
It’s the same question as before, except that the answer
choices have gone to the beach.
The grid is fairly self-explanatory. If you work out an
item and the answer is 2, write “2” in the space, then fill in the
“2” oval underneath. There are also decimal points and fraction
bars in case your answer is not a whole number. We refer to an individual
grid-in as an item. A complete grid-in section comprised
of items is called a set.
There are three peculiar things about grid-ins:
-
There may be more than one correct answer to
each item. You’re probably stuck in the “only one correct
choice” mindset brought on by excessive multiple-choice preparation.
But don’t let this paralyze you: if you get more than one correct
answer, pick one, grid it in, and move on to the next item.
- Answers
can never be negative numbers. Although there is more than
one possible answer, there is actually a limit to what you can grid
in. There is no way to denote negative numbers on a grid-in. Why? Who
knows, and who cares, for that matter? The fact is that all grid-ins
must be positive (or zero, which is neither negative nor positive).
So if you come up with more than one correct answer, be sure to
choose one that is a positive number. On the item above, if you
come up with –8 as the answer (choice A on the multiple-choice version),
you know you’ve made a mistake in working out the item.
- Improper
fractions must be simplified or converted to a decimal answer. Let’s say
you come up with
as the answer
to an item. If you grid the answer in as 
,
the computer that scans your answer sheet will read your answer
as 
. To avoid getting this item wrong,
convert the improper fraction into the plain old fraction 
or
the decimal 1.5.
