AP Lang
Advice Page
Advice for AP Exam Prep
Week-before Preparation--Remember this is a skills test not a memory test! So you must practice those skills.
How do you feel about your FREs? If you want more practice, download one or more from AP Central at the College Board web site (link on this page). Set your phone's timer and write this FRE (all are 40 minutes with 15 extra reading time for the synthesis). Ask a tutor to sit down with you to review your essay. You can do this for each type of FRE or for one type multiple times. Do what you feel you must do to feel confident.
I have also set FRQ practices in AP Classroom. If you do any of those, email me so I know to score for you.
You also have two complete AP exams in AP Classroom, timed at 60 minutes each. Those will self-score and give you feedback as soon as you submit.
Night-before Preparation
The most effective actions you can take prior to the AP Lang exam are to go to bed early and to eat a protein-rich breakfast. Don't overestimate your brain's power to think and read critically, read and respond quickly, and write coherently and quickly when it doesn't have rest and fuel. This is no time to be flippant or cocky about sleep and breakfast!
During the exam, as soon as you can open the prompt booklet, do the following (the FREs follow this order):
Other reminders:
How do you feel about your FREs? If you want more practice, download one or more from AP Central at the College Board web site (link on this page). Set your phone's timer and write this FRE (all are 40 minutes with 15 extra reading time for the synthesis). Ask a tutor to sit down with you to review your essay. You can do this for each type of FRE or for one type multiple times. Do what you feel you must do to feel confident.
I have also set FRQ practices in AP Classroom. If you do any of those, email me so I know to score for you.
You also have two complete AP exams in AP Classroom, timed at 60 minutes each. Those will self-score and give you feedback as soon as you submit.
Night-before Preparation
The most effective actions you can take prior to the AP Lang exam are to go to bed early and to eat a protein-rich breakfast. Don't overestimate your brain's power to think and read critically, read and respond quickly, and write coherently and quickly when it doesn't have rest and fuel. This is no time to be flippant or cocky about sleep and breakfast!
- Look over the sample test you received during the Creating AP-style Test Questions project. You can also find it in the Course Description starting on page 115; if looking at the PDF pagination, go to page 122. Recognize the difference between reading questions (1–8) and writing questions (9–17).
- Other preparations: Choose five selections (articles or books) that you know well (including the author and title!) to use as support for the argument FRE. Remember that anything provided in the prompt is NOT evidence. You must provide your own, so choosing these in advance can help you from blanking during the exam.
- Choose potential organization schemes from the mini outline samples for each of the FRE types: synthesis, argument, and rhetorical analysis.
- Choose five Entering the Conversation transitions to use on the synthesis FRE.
- Choose six rhetorical devices to use on both the argument and synthesis FREs. Make two of them advanced devices.
- Write a sentence to explain to yourself what a rhetorical strategy is vs. what a rhetorical device is vs. what parts of rhetoric are.
- Reread
- "Developing an Argument"
- "Preparing for the Synthesis Question: Six Moves to Success"
- All your FREs
- FRE 8's Q&A
During the exam, as soon as you can open the prompt booklet, do the following (the FREs follow this order):
- On the synthesis prompt, write your five Entering the Convo transitions, "Opp Add," your six devices, and your chosen organizational scheme.
- On the rhetorical analysis prompt, draw a mini tri-ircle and star speaker, audience, subject, and intention to remind yourself that you must connect everything to these and that your thesis should include these parts of rhetoric. Then write, "CONNECT EVERYTHING TO THE PROMPT and WATCH MY OWN ASSUMPTIONS" where you won't miss them when you come back to that FRE. Then write your organizational scheme choice.
- On the argument prompt, write your five titles and authors, your six chosen devices, and "OPP ADD." where you won't miss it when you get to this prompt. You will be tired by the third FRE, so make sure you draw attention to it before then. Then write your organizational scheme choice.
Other reminders:
- On the MC portion, look at the five passages you must read. Warning: the test booklet reprints passages so you don't have to flip through several pages to find the passage as you answer questions—count correctly.
- Determine which are asking reading questions and which are asking writing questions (unlike the unit tests, the writing and reading questions aren't combined). You should find 2 reading-question passages and 3 writing-question passages.
- For reading questions: allow only 15 minutes per passage and its questions. If you have questions remaining after 15 minutes, leave them and go to the next passage. If you work straight through, you could end up reading all passages, but not allowing time to answer many or any questions for the last passage. You don't want time to end while you are reading a passage.
- For writing questions: allow only 10 minutes per passage and its questions. If you have time left, you can return to any unanswered questions.
- On MCQ, don't spend an inordinate amount of time on any single question. Each question counts equally. If one is taking too long, skip it.
- For FREs, make sure you understand the prompt fully. As prewriting, write an intention statement that tells what you will do to connect to the prompt.
- For synthesis FRE, do not turn it into a pro/con or either/or debate, look for the complexity inherent in the prompt.
- For argument prompt, make sure you understand the approach that the prompt indicates: pro/con eval, Rogerian, issue argument, call to action, set-up opponent, take on another person's argument to make it your own, etc.