For any AP student in October, the idea of the AP Exam may seem too far away to actually be a cause for concern. However, in terms of the AP Language and Composition Exam, preparing earlier can pose a variety of benefits. Overall, the AP Lang exam consists of two distinct components: the MCQ(Multiple Choice Question) and the FRQ(Free Response Question). In the MCQ section, you will be given one hour to critically analyze five nonfiction passages and answer forty-five multiple-choice questions. In the FRQ section, you will be asked to compose a total of three essays in two hours and fifteen minutes. Considering these time restraints, the AP Lang exam may come off as extremely daunting, and possibly even discouraging. Though, as someone who was able to earn a 5 on the 2023 Lang Exam, I’m here to guide you through obtaining this top score as well with ease!
For any rigorous course, creating a study plan is extremely important for success. While this notion can be applied to any class across high school or college, I would say this is especially true for the case of AP classes. Though, study plans can look different for each person, depending on their strengths and weaknesses.
Therefore, before even being able to set up a study plan, you need to test out your current level of AP Lang-based skills in order to see what areas of the exam you should hone in while studying. Mainly, the biggest struggle I faced with AP Lang was time management at first. When writing academically, I would say that I spend a lot of time “tinkering.” In other words, I wanted to make it the best it could possibly be. Additionally, practicing multiple-choice tests would always freak me out, as I would worry about reading and rereading, and finding the perfect answer. Therefore, my personal studying plan revolved around first mastering timed writing, and then going on to improve my multiple choice skills. However, depending on the person, this study plan could be shifted or flip-flopped.
As a slow writer, I was definitely very anxious about starting AP Lang. After learning about essay outlines though, this task became significantly easier. To explain, there are three essays on the exam: Rhetorical Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis. Given the time restraint of two hours and fifteen minutes, it’s suggested that each essay should take around forty minutes. Though, once again, depending on your skill set, the timing can be different. For instance, on my exam day, I set my time limits as 40 minutes for Rhetorical Analysis, 40 minutes for argument, and 55 minutes for Synthesis.
Therefore, when initially starting out practicing timed writing at home, it’s important to start out with larger time limits for yourself, and gradually train yourself to narrow the time frame. Finishing a marathon at one’s “goal time” doesn’t happen instantaneously, it takes work. This same logic can be applied to timed writing.
Moreover, it’s important to know the format of your exam. Most schools typically have paper-based AP Lang exams, but some schools (like mine) have now transitioned to online AP Lang exams. It’s good to know whether you will be typing your essays or handwriting them in order to properly simulate the conditions of the exam while you’re studying at home. Once you get the hang of writing the AP Lang essays, they become very systematic. Typically, I wrote about one timed essay every other week. Here are some sentence frames to help you get the jist of how to tackle each prompt:
Ultimately, for me, the argument essay was the most challenging. This was because unlike Rhetorical Analysis or Synthesis, all the evidence in your essay has to come from you. In order to generate potential examples I could use in this essay, I used the site Brainscape to create flashcards including personal experiences, current events, history, literature, science, and pop culture. After writing them down, I categorized them based on “themes” these could be connected to. This way, I had a multitude of different examples I could choose from, no matter what the prompt was.
As for “mastering” the multiple-choice questions, there are a lot of things you need to
keep in mind:
You’re not going to get all of the multiple-choice answers right. It’s okay! In order to get a five on the exam, you only need to bet around 75% of the multiple-choice questions correctly. Knowing this will help you spend less time on a question you’re stuck on.
Try to use the process of elimination. If an answer is half right, it is half wrong
Know the AP Lang terms. Whether it’s words that describe tone, literary techniques/devices, or logical fallacies, there are bound to be words that you might not know the definition of. Therefore, it’s important you start learning the various AP Lang terms that are likely to appear on the test to succeed!
Always note a tone shift in the passages!!!!
Practice reading/comprehending “older” English → It’s possible that the exam could contain passages written from the 18th or 19th century.
In terms of resources, there are a variety of tools available to you. For practice multiple choice, you can use Khan Academy’s SAT practice Reading/Writing MCQs (just keep in mind that the questions will be slightly more difficult than SAT MCQs), practice books (Princeton Review was the most helpful in my case), or you can look up “AP Lang MCQ practice” and a myriad of PDFs should pop-up for you to practice with.
Additionally, I found that sites like Reddit have links to practice exams as well. As for AP Lang terminology, I found lists already made on Quizlet, as well as writing down any words I did not know while taking a practice exam. For the essays, I mainly used the College Board site itself. Through AP classroom, you can access all the previous year’s prompts, as well as see example responses that earned top scores!
Finally, the AP site also houses rubrics that each essay will be graded with, so make sure to know the tasks involved within each essay! Good luck studying guys, you’ve got this!
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