4
Involving Your School’s Technical Consultant
We strongly recommend that your school’s technical consultant be involved in the following:
1. Determining if the Audacity software program is right for your school. (Use of Audacity is not required.)
2. Downloading Audacity and setting it up for each computer on which students will practice and take the exam.
3. Saving and naming MP3 files and preparing student-response CDs for return after the exam. Failure to
properly burn students’ MP3 files to CD may result in a score delay or an exam section score of 0.
Be certain to follow the detailed procedures given in the “Saving and Naming MP3 Files” section
of this document and in the
2015-16 AP Exam Instructions
book:
• French Language and Culture, pages 97–119
• German Language and Culture, pages 120–141
• Italian Language and Culture, pages 157–178
• Spanish Language and Culture, pages 239–260
Downloading and Installing Audacity
1. Open Audacity for your operating system (Windows or Mac), and follow the steps below.
W
indows: Audacity 2.1.2
installer (.exe file, 25.3 MB, including help files) or Audacity 2.1.2 installer
(.zip file, 10.5 MB, without help files)
To install, double-click the downloaded .exe file or right-click on the .zip file and extract the file to your
desired location. (Use the recommended folder to install Audacity.) Once the installation is complete,
click “Finish.” Audacity will launch unless the “Launch Audacity” box was unchecked.
Mac: Audacity 2.1.2 (.dmg file, 33.1 MB, including help files) or Audacity 2.1.2 (.zip file, 13.2 MB,
no help files)
To install, double-click the downloaded .dmg file to mount it or double-click on the .zip file and
extract the file to your desired location. Then drag the “Audacity” folder to Applications or any
other location of your choosing to install Audacity. Audacity will start downloading immediately,
or you will see a pop-up window asking whether you want to run or save Audacity.
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2. Audacity’s MP3 recording feature requires downloading of the LAME MP3 Encoder Library in order to
export MP3 recordings. Open the Lame .zip folder for your operating system (Windows or Mac) to install
the Lame Encoder Library.
3. Repeat these steps for each computer that will be used for testing.
4. To save recording files on a network drive or a file service, the user must have adequate file access
permi
ssions (read/write/change/modify) on the destination folder. It is highly recommended that you create
a network share on a file service for the purpose of saving audio recordings with appropriate disk space.
Then connect to this share from each recording workstation as a network drive. Assign necessary file
permissions to each user establishing the connection so that he or she can read/write files on the shared
location. Please seek assistance from your local site technician if necessary.
5. Be sure to configure your computer’s audio device as appropriate; seek technical assistance if necessary.
6. The Audacity website hosts a variety of links to helpful information and tutorials. The following link will
take y
ou to Documentation and Support, where you will find links to manuals, tutorials, and FAQs:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o.