One AP Biology teacher's pass rate rose from 78% to 88%
After a year of FRQ practice with instant feedback on Magna, one teacher's AP Biology classes posted a 10 point jump in the share of students scoring 3 or higher on the 2026 AP exam, from 78.4% to 88.5%. Both years' classes started the year at the same level on the first unit test.
Play video: How One AP Bio Teacher Raised Pass Rates 78% to 88%What happened in this AP Biology classroom
What changed this year?
In the 2025-26 school year, this teacher's AP Biology students practiced free response questions (FRQs) on Magna and got instant feedback on every attempt. On the 2026 AP exam, the share of students scoring 3 or higher rose from 78.4% in 2025 to 88.5%, across more than 80 students, and the mean AP score rose from 3.49 to 3.54. Writing to Magna after the 2026 results came in, Jeffrey Smith called it “my best year ever.”
“My classes had a 10 point jump in the pass rate and a significant jump in the mean AP scores.”
Did both years' classes start at the same level?
Yes, almost exactly. On the first unit test of each year, taken before either class used Magna, the 2024-25 class averaged 76.9% and the 2025-26 class averaged 76.7%. Over the same two years, the global AP Biology pass rate barely moved, from 70.4% to 71.2%, and the global mean score slipped from 3.24 to 3.19. That makes the jump in these classes stand out, though it is still a comparison of two groups of students, not a controlled study.
Why was FRQ practice the hard part?
FRQs reward complete, precise reasoning, and students only get better at them with feedback. With a full load of AP students, scoring every practice response quickly enough to matter is close to impossible by hand. Magna scores each response against rubrics aligned with official AP scoring criteria in seconds, so students see which points they earned, which they missed, and what a full-credit answer needed.
“Being able to practice FRQs and getting instant feedback… can be a challenge as a teacher with a lot of students.”
Which students improved the most?
The teacher is direct about it: the practice only helps the students who do it. The strongest improvements came from students who actually used Magna through the year.
“Those kids who actually used it had incredible improvements.”
What comes next?
After the pilot year, the teacher plans to use Magna full-time with this year's AP Biology classes.
“I'm excited to be able to use it full-time this year with my students.”
From expecting a 2 to earning a 4
One student started the year worried he would score a 2 on the AP Biology exam; his teacher expected somewhere between a high 2 and a low 3. He dove into Ask Magna, the AI tutor built into Magna, more than any of his classmates. What he valued most was that it kept asking him to explain what he knew and checking whether he actually understood the biology. He earned a solid 4.
“He was worried he's gonna get [a] 2… He got a solid 4.”
“It constantly asked him… if he was actually understanding what was going on.”
Student details are withheld to protect the student's privacy.
Full video transcript
Lightly cleaned for readability: filler words, repeats and false starts removed, meaning unchanged. Words in [brackets] were added for clarity, and one detail that could identify a student was left out.
Read the full transcript
Jeffrey Smith, AP Biology Teacher, Thousand Oaks High School: We used [Magna in] AP Bio last year, and my classes had a 10 point jump in the pass rate and a significant jump in the mean AP scores. A lot of that had to do with being able to practice FRQs and getting instant feedback, which can really be a challenge as a teacher with a lot of students. That's what I was really excited about. Those kids who actually used it had incredible improvements.
I had one student who impressed me with his absolute love of Ask Magna. When he started the class, he wasn't even sure he would be able to pass the test. At the start of the year, he was worried he was gonna get a 2. In my mind I thought, OK, you'll probably get a 3. He was low 3, high 2, and we would do our best to get him through.
He was the one who absolutely dove into Ask Magna, and he actually compared it to ChatGPT and Gemini as a study [tool]. What he really appreciated was that it constantly asked him for feedback based on what he knew and what he learned, and whether he was actually understanding what was going on.
He got a solid 4, and I would not have been surprised if he got a 5, with how much he utilized it, more than any of my other students. The benefits that type of student got show the best of the value of a system like this.
That's why I'm excited to be able to use it full-time this year with my students: more practice with FRQs, and challenging them to take more quizzes, formatively or summatively, to give them different looks than just the AP test.
Questions about these results
Did Magna raise this teacher's AP Biology pass rate?
In one teacher's AP Biology classes of more than 80 students, the share scoring 3 or higher on the AP exam rose from 78.4% in 2025 to 88.5% in 2026, and the mean AP score rose from 3.49 to 3.54. Both classes scored almost the same on the first unit test before using Magna (76.9% and 76.7%). It still compares two different groups of students, so other factors may have played a part, but the teacher credits Magna's timely feedback on FRQ practice as a key reason scores improved.
How did the students use Magna?
Students practiced AP Biology free response questions and got instant, point-by-point feedback aligned with official AP scoring criteria, something the teacher says is hard to provide by hand with a lot of students. Ask Magna, the built-in AI tutor, also checked whether students understood the underlying biology, not just whether an answer was right.
Are these results typical for every class?
No. Results vary by school. These are results from one teacher's classes, and they are not a controlled study. In the teacher's words, the strongest improvements came from the students who actually used it. Magna's AP US Government results come from a separate quasi-experimental study.
About these results
Results vary by school. These figures compare two different groups of students in consecutive years in one teacher's AP Biology classes. The two groups scored nearly the same on the first unit test before Magna was used (76.9% and 76.7%), and global figures are College Board averages for all AP Biology test takers as reported by the teacher. This is a classroom result, not a controlled study, and other factors can affect scores from one year to the next. Individual results vary.
Pilot disclosure. These classes used Magna as part of a pilot in the 2025-26 school year. The pilot ran while Magna was updating its AP Biology content to the 2025 Course and Exam Description (CED), so students practiced on a course that was still being revised.
More on how Magna supports AP Biology: AP Biology practice and FRQ feedback. More classroom results: all stories.
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