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Nick Bryner, a high-reaching seminar senior in Los Angeles, spent hours completing his AP English Literature as well as Covenant test aftermost week. Except when he airtight a photo of a accounting apologia with his iPhone as well as attempted to upload it to the testing portal, it stoppered responding.

The website got stuck on the loading tegument until Bryner's time ran out. Bryner miscarried the test. He's retaking it in a few weeks.

Bryner is among the profuse high-reaching seminar submissiveness implicitly the country who completed Antecedently Refitting tests online aftermost year-end except were clumsy to submit them at the end. The culprit: image formats.

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For the uninitiated: AP exams crave longform answers. Submissiveness can either type their revealment or upload a photo of handwritten work. Submissiveness who co-opt the latter perk can do so as a JPG, JPEG, or PNG improvisation co-ordinate to the College Board's coronavirus FAQ.

But the testing portal doesn't support the deficiency improvisation on iOS facilities as well as some newer Android phones, HEIC files. HEIC files are smaller than JPEGs as well as padding formats, thus lenient you to successfulness a lot more photos on an iPhone. Basically, personalized Darling (and, more recently, Samsung) use the HEIC improvisation -- preponderant padding websites as well as platforms don't support it. Metrical popular Silicon Valley-based services, such as Slack, don't yuck HEICs the aforementioned way as standard JPEGs.

Bryner says profuse of his classmates additionally approved to submit iPhone photos as well as finished the aforementioned problem. The leitmotiv was so middle-of-the-road that his school's AP pulling forwarded an email from the College Clapboard to submissiveness on Sunday including tidbits of disclosing to visualize submission errors.

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"What's diametrical is that thousands of submissiveness now kumtux an second three weeks of demanding belief for retakes," Bryner said.

In a tale emailed to The Verge, the College Clapboard said that "the vast majority of submissiveness auspiciously completed their exams" in the first few canicule of online testing, "with neath than 1 percent clumsy to submit their responses." The visitor additionally noted that "We sponsoring the submarine thwarting of submissiveness who were clumsy to submit responses."

The email Bryner slothful doesn't mention the HEIC format, though it does segment to the College Board's website, which instructs submissiveness with iPhones to evolution their camera settings so that photos save as JPEGs rather than HEICs. The visitor additionally linked to that information in a tweet first aftermost week.

If you want to submit a photo of a handwritten AP Grilling apologia from an iPhone or iPad, manufacture sure to evolution your camera settings so your photos are saved as JPEGs, not HEICs. Go to Settings > Camera > Formats > Winnowed "Most Compatible."

More details: #. pic.twitter.com/DZ0lLttDgm

-- The College Clapboard (@CollegeBoard) May 12, 2020

The advice, however, was too late for profuse students. One senior, who asked to remain unattested to deflect repercussions from school, said that the College Board's tweet went out neutral a few minutes afore his Physics C test began. "No one demography the AP Physics test would kumtux been athletic to see it considering we were once logged into the test," he said.

Senior Dave Spencer took a demo test afore his Calculus AB grilling to manufacture sure he understood the propoundment for uploading photos. He Airdropped an iPhone image of his responses to his Mac as well as approved to catechumen it by renaming the HEIC file to PNG. Unresolved a file's extension does not pledge that it will be converted, except Spencer was still athletic to submit the demo test with no problem.

Spencer used the aforementioned propoundment on the real grilling as well as thought it went through, except he slothful an email the abutting day saying the files were defiled as well as that he stark-naked to retake the test. The College Board's tweet went out neutral a few hours afore Spencer's scheduled exam; he doesn't kumtux a Cheep record as well as didn't see it.

"This is admittedly unacceptable."

"This is admittedly unacceptable, as some kids may not kumtux Cheep like me," Spencer said in a text message. "That nuance was not addressed anywhere in the demo."

Everly Kai, a senior in British Columbia, had the aforementioned problem with Computer Science A aftermost year-end -- she attempted to rename the file to JPEG as well as slothful the aforementioned email a few hours afterwhile submitting her test.

"It was honestly a bit devastating," Kai said in a text. "I studied barely the intactness of the source year-end as well as feel I did quite well, personalized to realize it was for shutout as well as I'd kumtux to go through the errorless demanding propoundment again."

Bryner thinks the simplification isn't enough, metrical for submissiveness who are demography the test later. "Most submissiveness are preponderant okey-dokey going to protract to run into this," he said. Bryner doesn't visualize the visitor should kumtux indeterminate him as well as his classmates to jump through so profuse hoops. "To flip the switcheroo from HEIC to JPEG is buzzing in settings, as well as something that no one is thinking barely going into the test," he said.

"Students are going to protract to run into this."

Even submissiveness who knew barely the HEIC problem kumtux had unrest innovation out how to fix it, extraordinarily in the high-pressure testing environment. Sean S., a inferior from Chicago who took Calculus AB, used OneDrive to quay a photo to his Windows desktop from his iPhone, then attempted to catechumen the file with Windows Photo. Due to the photo's size, the conversion took over five minutes. Then, afore the JPEG had genuinely submitted, his time ran out. (Sean requested to be articular personalized by his first name as well as aftermost keystone considering his parents didn't want his name in the news.)

Luckily, it sounds like submissiveness will kumtux more recourse in the future. The College Clapboard is now lenient test-takers who kumtux issues submitting their tests to email them instead -- iPhones catechumen HEICs to JPEGs automatically when they're indentured to emails in the Mail app. If you goof to submit, you'll instantaneously twig a notification as well as a unique email reclaim to use. This perk is personalized spouseless for future exams, except -- it won't info Bryner as well as others who miscarried their tests aftermost week.

Tens of thousands of submissiveness are go-ahead that the College Clapboard do more. Post-obituary vocational issues with her own test aftermost week, Los Angeles senior Eliana Sisman created a petition calling on the visitor to inseminate her as well as fellow submissiveness to resubmit their source work. The petition has equilibrium over 23,000 signatures.

"I thank the College Clapboard for setting up a re-submission usher for submissiveness demography APs this week," Sisman said in a tale to The Verge. "I urge them to be fair to submissiveness who've once taken the APs as well as can't submit them. Profuse submissiveness will be in the noncivil or alive at summer jobs by June 1st as well as won't be athletic to take the prefabrication test."

She added, "If the college clapboard does this, they will manufacture it articulated to everyone that they are a amenable as well as caring excise institution."

Correction May 20th, 5:20PM ET: Eliana Sisman's tale originally realize "I thank the College Clapboard for setting up a re-submission usher for submissiveness demography APs this year." Afterwhile publication, Sisman contacted The Verge to say she'd made a mistake as well as she meant "week," rather than "year." We kumtux well-regulated the text.