books for ap lit essay

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A lot of students wonder if there's a specific AP English reading list of books they should be reading to succeed on the AP Literature and Composition exam. While there's not an official College-Board AP reading list, there are books that will be more useful for you to read than others as you prepare for the exam. In this article, I'll break down why you need to read books to prepare, how many you should plan on reading, and what you should read—including poetry.

Why Do You Need to Read Books for the AP Literature Test?

This might seem like kind of an obvious question—you need to read books because it's a literature exam! But actually, there are three specific reasons why you need to read novels, poems, and plays in preparation for the AP Lit Test.

To Increase Your Familiarity With Different Eras and Genres of Literature

Reading a diverse array of novels, poetry and plays from different eras and genres will help you be familiar with the language that appears in the various passages on the AP Lit exam's multiple choice and essay sections. If you read primarily modern works, for example, you may stumble through analyzing a Shakespeare sonnet. So, having a basic familiarity level with the language of a broad variety of literary works will help keep you from floundering in confusion on test day because you're seeing a work unlike anything you've ever read.

To Improve Your Close-Reading Skills

You'll also want to read to improve your close-reading and rhetorical analysis skills. When you do read, really engage with the text: think about what the author's doing to construct the novel/poem/play/etc., what literary techniques and motifs are being deployed, and what major themes are at play. You don't necessarily need to drill down to the same degree on every text, but you should always be thinking, "Why did the author write this piece this way?"

For the Student Choice Free-Response Question

Perhaps the most critical piece in reading to prepare for the AP Lit test, however, is for the student choice free-response question. For the third question on the second exam section, you'll be asked to examine how a specific theme works in one novel or play that you choose. The College Board does provide an example list of works, but you can choose any work you like just so long as it has adequate "literary merit." However, you need to be closely familiar with more than one work so that you can be prepared for whatever theme the College Board throws at you!

Note: Not an effective reading method.

How Many Books Do You Need to Read for the AP Exam?

That depends. In terms of reading to increase your familiarity with literature from different eras and genres and to improve your close-reading skills, the more books you have time to read, the better. You'll want to read them all with an eye for comprehension and basic analysis, but you don't necessarily need to focus equally on every book you read.

For the purposes of the student choice question, however, you'll want to read books more closely, so that you could write a detailed, convincing analytical essay about any of their themes. So you should know the plot, characters, themes, and major literary devices or motifs used inside and out. Since you won't know what theme you'll be asked to write about in advance, you'll need to be prepared to write a student choice question on more than just one book.

Of the books you read for prep both in and out of class, choose four to five books that are thematically diverse to learn especially well in preparation for the exam. You may want to read these more than once, and you certainly want to take detailed notes on everything that's going on in those books to help you remember key points and themes. Discussing them with a friend or mentor who has also read the book will help you generate ideas on what's most interesting or intriguing about the work and how its themes operate in the text.

You may be doing some of these activities anyways for books you are assigned to read for class, and those books might be solid choices if you want to be as efficient as possible. Books you write essays about for school are also great choices to include in your four to five book stable since you will be becoming super-familiar with them for the writing you do in class anyways.

In answer to the question, then, of how many books you need to read for the AP Lit exam: you need to know four to five inside and out, and beyond that, the more the better!

Know the books. Love the books.

What Books Do You Need to Read for the AP Exam?

The most important thing for the student choice free-response question is that the work you select needs to have "literary merit." What does this mean? In the context of the College Board, this means you should stick with works of literary fiction. So in general, avoid mysteries, fantasies, romance novels, and so on.

If you're looking for ideas, authors and works that have won prestigious prizes like the Pulitzer, Man Booker, the National Book Award, and so on are good choices. Anything you read specifically for your AP literature class is a good choice, too. If you aren't sure if a particular work has the kind of literary merit the College Board is looking for, ask your AP teacher.

When creating your own AP Literature reading list for the student choice free-response, try to pick works that are diverse in author, setting, genre, and theme. This will maximize your ability to comprehensively answer a student choice question about pretty much anything with one of the works you've focused on.

So, I might, for example, choose:

A Midsummer Night's Dream , Shakespeare, play, 1605

Major themes and devices: magic, dreams, transformation, foolishness, man vs. woman, play-within-a-play

Wuthering Heights , Emily Bronte, novel, 1847

Major themes and devices: destructive love, exile, social and economic class, suffering and passion, vengeance and violence, unreliable narrator, frame narrative, family dysfunction, intergenerational narratives.

The Age of Innocence , Edith Wharton, novel, 1920

Major themes and devices: Tradition and duty, personal freedom, hypocrisy, irony, social class, family, "maintaining appearances", honor

Wide Sargasso Sea , Jean Rhys, novel, 1966

Major themes and devices: slavery, race, magic, madness, wildness, civilization vs. chaos, imperialism, gender

As you can see, while there is some thematic overlap in my chosen works, they also cover a broad swathe of themes. They are also all very different in style (although you'll just have to take my word on that one unless you go look at all of them yourself), and they span a range of time periods and genres as well.

However, while there's not necessarily a specific, mandated AP Literature reading list, there are books that come up again and again on the suggestion lists for student choice free-response questions. When a book comes up over and over again on exams, this suggests both that it's thematically rich, so you can use it to answer lots of different kinds of questions, and that the College Board sees a lot of value in the work.

To that end, I've assembled a list, separated by time period, of all the books that have appeared on the suggested works list for student choice free-response questions at least twice since 2003. While you certainly shouldn't be aiming to read all of these books (there's way too many for that!), these are all solid choices for the student choice essay. Other books by authors from this list are also going to be strong choices. It's likely that some of your class reading will overlap with this list, too.

I've divided up the works into chunks by time period. In addition to title, each entry includes the author, whether the work is a novel, play, or something else, and when it was first published or performed. Works are alphabetical by author.

Warning: Not all works pictured included in AP Literature reading list below.

Ancient Works

The Queen of AP Literature surveys her kingdom.

Don't get trapped in a literature vortex!

1990-Present

Don't stay in one reading position for too long, or you'll end up like this guy.

An Addendum on Poetry

You probably won't be writing about poetry on your student choice essay—most just aren't meaty enough in terms of action and character to merit a full-length essay on the themes when you don't actually have the poem in front of you (a major exception being The Odyssey ). That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be reading poetry, though! You should be reading a wide variety of poets from different eras to get comfortable with all the varieties of poetic language. This will make the poetry analysis essay and the multiple-choice questions about poetry much easier!

See this list of poets compiled from the list given on page 10 of the AP Course and Exam Description for AP Lit, separated out by time period. For those poets who were working during more than one of the time periods sketched out below, I tried to place them in the era in which they were more active.

I've placed an asterisk next to the most notable and important poets in the list; you should aim to read one or two poems by each of the starred poets to get familiar with a broad range of poetic styles and eras.

14th-17th Centuries

• Anne Bradstreet
• Geoffrey Chaucer
• George Herbert
• Andrew Marvell
• John Milton
• William Shakespeare*

18th-19th Centuries

• William Blake*
• Robert Browning
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge*
• Emily Dickinson*
• Paul Laurence Dunbar
• George Gordon, Lord Byron
• Gerard Manley Hopkins
• John Keats*
• Edgar Allan Poe*
• Alexander Pope*
• Percy Bysshe Shelley*
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson*
• Walt Whitman*
• William Wordsworth*

Early-Mid 20th Century

• W. H. Auden
• Elizabeth Bishop
• H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)
• T. S. Eliot*
• Robert Frost*
• Langston Hughes*
• Philip Larkin
• Robert Lowell
• Marianne Moore
• Sylvia Plath*
• Anne Sexton*
• Wallace Stevens
• William Carlos Williams
• William Butler Yeats*

Late 20th Century-Present

• Edward Kamau Brathwaite
• Gwendolyn Brooks
• Lorna Dee Cervantes
• Lucille Clifton
• Billy Collins
• Seamus Heaney
• Garrett Hongo
• Adrienne Rich
• Leslie Marmon Silko
• Derek Walcott
• Richard Wilbur

You might rather burn books than read them after the exam, but please refrain.

Key Takeaways

Why do you need to read books to prepare for AP Lit? For three reasons:

#1 : To become familiar with a variety of literary eras and genres #2 : To work on your close-reading skills #3 : To become closely familiar with four-five works for the purposes of the student choice free-response essay analyzing a theme in a work of your choice.

How many books do you need to read? Well, you definitely need to get very familiar with four-five for essay-writing purposes, and beyond that, the more the better!

Which books should you read? Check out the AP English Literature reading list in this article to see works that have appeared on two or more "suggested works" lists on free-response prompts since 2003.

And don't forget to read some poetry too! See some College Board recommended poets listed in this article.

What's Next?

See my expert guide to the AP Literature test for more exam tips!

The multiple-choice section of the AP Literature exam is a key part of your score. Learn everything you need to know about it in our complete guide to AP Lit multiple-choice questions.

Taking other APs? Check out our expert guides to the AP Chemistry exam , AP US History , AP World History , AP Psychology , and AP Biology .

Looking for other book recommendation lists from PrepScholar? We've compiled lists of the 7 books you must read if you're a pre-med and the 31 books to read before graduating high school .

Ellen has extensive education mentorship experience and is deeply committed to helping students succeed in all areas of life. She received a BA from Harvard in Folklore and Mythology and is currently pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University.

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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., ap literature book list to help you prep for the exam.

There is not a required AP Literature Book List reading list for the AP English Literature and Composition Exam, but the College Board provides a long list of authors and poets with whom you should be familiar and whose work is of the caliber and density that you are expected to understand. The list may seem overwhelming, but fear not! The following tips on how to approach poems, novels, novellas, and plays for the exam, along with a curated list, will make preparing for the AP Literature Exam a little easier.

When you approach a poem on the AP English Literature exam, always read it at least twice before you go to the questions. The purpose of the first read is to get all the words in your head. Then, in your second read, focus on understanding what you’ve read in the simplest way possible. Don’t worry about symbolism Don’t worry about deeper meanings. The questions will direct you toward those aspects of the poem. Use your second read to look for the main idea. Practice reading the following poems at least twice to familiarize yourself with finding the main idea:

“Autumn Song” by W.H. Auden

“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop

“There’s a certain Slant of light” by Emily Dickinson

“Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes

“Crossing the Swamp” by Mary Oliver

"Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath

“Sunday Morning” by Wallace Stevens

“I Will Keep Broken Things” by Alice Walker

“The Prelude” by William Wordsworth

“The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats

Longer Works

To be prepared for the Literary Argument, you should know at least three works very well. Two of them should be longer works that you’ve studied in class. We’ll call these the primary works.

Your primary works should be fairly hefty. One of Shakespeare’s plays or a thick, complex novel will do anything that is so rich in incident and form that no matter what the literary argument question asks, you have something to say. The following full-length works are all good choices.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Shorter Works

The third work you should prepare for the Literary Argument will act as a safeguard in case, for some reason, you can’t apply your knowledge of the other works to the question at all, or in case you need to back up your points with another example. This will be your secondary work. Trust us, the question stem may say that you need to choose only one work to discuss, but an exam reader will be hugely impressed if you can adeptly discuss two or three pieces of literature. Listed below are examples of shorter novels, novellas, and plays that are acceptable to the AP Readers.

Novellas and Short Novels:

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers

Candide by Voltaire

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Hopefully this overview of how to prepare for the exam and introduction to the AP Literature book list will make studying for the AP Literature Exam more manageable.

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The Ultimate AP English Literature Exam Reading List

• Last modified 2024-03-27
• Published on 2021-04-25

Though  AP English Literature and Composition has become a more popular test among students,  it  has still remained  one of the  harder  AP  test s  (with a  5-point score rate of only 9.3% ). The broad topic s  and the complexity of literary analysis are challenging for students, especially those whose first language is not English. To help students have an easier time learning and reviewing for this AP Exam, we have gathered the ultimate AP English Literature Reading List. Now, let’s  take a look ! 

1. Free Response Question #3

We only cover the free-response question #3 because, in this section, students must select a work of fiction from 25 to 30 listed pieces on the exam to answer the question within 45 minutes of the whole 2 hours of the exam. We’ve gathered some pieces that were picked more than 2 times throughout the course of 2012-2019:  

Among the top 19 books we’ve mentioned, there are 8 books that were picked more than 3 times in the past 7 years.   

Among th e  8 popular picks, half of them were published in the 19th century. The remaining  books  range from  the  17th to  the  20th century,  with the exception of  the 18th century. Books that were mentioned three times are from the 17th,  19th  and 20th centuries.   

It’s important to note novels, poems and plays  from   varied  eras have differen ces in  language and way s  of expression. Therefore, students should familiarize themselves with novels from all eras,  in order to be comfortable with answering the questions. 

Every year, the College Board provides a minimum of 25 literary works for students to analyze, and the list changes every year. However, having a list of the most common picks will give you an idea about which pieces and which  period of time  to focus your review on. Below, we give you the list of works that have been mentioned  on  the AP English Literature  exam  many times  over  the past 7 years.   

From the  above  list , you can see  most of the books are  actually required  readings  in other non-AP  high school  classes due to their  important influence and literary value from the past to the present.   

In order to help  students  prepare for High School English Literature  at the beginner and advanced levels, we have opened two courses, one is Intro to English Literature and one is AP English Literature. These prep classes are designed to fill in knowledge deficit and introduce new information for students. In addition to the two courses, we also have multiple year-long English courses.  Aralia’s English tutors are inspired teachers and professors who are committed to student success. They are recognized in their field or are currently teaching at top high schools and colleges/universities in the US. 

3. What's next

What books should I read to prepare for High School Freshman’s English Class? Read Top 12 Summer Reads for Incoming High School Freshmen

What’s the difference between AP English Lit and AP Eng Lang?  This complete guide will show you the ins and outs of AP English Language and AP English Literature

How can I succeed in High School English Classes? Read How To Succeed In High School English Classes to find the answer! 

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This test prep course focuses on 4 main contents: rhetorical analysis, assertion and evidence, reasoning and organization, and language style learning. This course will focus on non-fictional reading materials, enabling students to identify and explain the author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques. The weekly courses will focus on the types of questions students take when taking the AP English test, which are comprehensive essays, rhetorical analysis essays, and argumentation essays. In addition, there will be a strategy course for the multiple-choice part of the AP English exam.

In this course, students will develop skills in critically reading literature. They will also practice writing skills, including how to write arguments to support claims about what they read. This class is ideal for any student who wishes to be prepared once school resumes in a high school English class.

English Reading and Writing for Beginner course introduces students to the fundamental literature features to help them grow as readers and writers of English. The course will begin with an introduction to the rhetorical situation, which is critical for every writer to understand, and then discuss foundational literary elements like narrative, plot, diction, etc. Students will reflect on what they are reading through discussion in class, with their teacher and peers, and writing in biweekly assignments.

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How to Write the AP Lit Prose Essay + Example

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What is the ap lit prose essay, how will ap scores affect my college chances.

AP Literature and Composition (AP Lit), not to be confused with AP English Language and Composition (AP Lang), teaches students how to develop the ability to critically read and analyze literary texts. These texts include poetry, prose, and drama. Analysis is an essential component of this course and critical for the educational development of all students when it comes to college preparation. In this course, you can expect to see an added difficulty of texts and concepts, similar to the material one would see in a college literature course.

While not as popular as AP Lang, over 380,136 students took the class in 2019. However, the course is significantly more challenging, with only 49.7% of students receiving a score of three or higher on the exam. A staggeringly low 6.2% of students received a five on the exam. 

The AP Lit exam is similar to the AP Lang exam in format, but covers different subject areas. The first section is multiple-choice questions based on five short passages. There are 55 questions to be answered in 1 hour. The passages will include at least two prose fiction passages and two poetry passages and will account for 45% of your total score. All possible answer choices can be found within the text, so you don’t need to come into the exam with prior knowledge of the passages to understand the work. 

The second section contains three free-response essays to be finished in under two hours. This section accounts for 55% of the final score and includes three essay questions: the poetry analysis essay, the prose analysis essay, and the thematic analysis essay. Typically, a five-paragraph format will suffice for this type of writing. These essays are scored holistically from one to six points.

Today we will take a look at the AP Lit prose essay and discuss tips and tricks to master this section of the exam. We will also provide an example of a well-written essay for review.  

The AP Lit prose essay is the second of the three essays included in the free-response section of the AP Lit exam, lasting around 40 minutes in total. A prose passage of approximately 500 to 700 words and a prompt will be given to guide your analytical essay. Worth about 18% of your total grade, the essay will be graded out of six points depending on the quality of your thesis (0-1 points), evidence and commentary (0-4 points), and sophistication (0-1 points). 

While this exam seems extremely overwhelming, considering there are a total of three free-response essays to complete, with proper time management and practiced skills, this essay is manageable and straightforward. In order to enhance the time management aspect of the test to the best of your ability, it is essential to understand the following six key concepts.

1. Have a Clear Understanding of the Prompt and the Passage

Since the prose essay is testing your ability to analyze literature and construct an evidence-based argument, the most important thing you can do is make sure you understand the passage. That being said, you only have about 40 minutes for the whole essay so you can’t spend too much time reading the passage. Allot yourself 5-7 minutes to read the prompt and the passage and then another 3-5 minutes to plan your response.

As you read through the prompt and text, highlight, circle, and markup anything that stands out to you. Specifically, try to find lines in the passage that could bolster your argument since you will need to include in-text citations from the passage in your essay. Even if you don’t know exactly what your argument might be, it’s still helpful to have a variety of quotes to use depending on what direction you take your essay, so take note of whatever strikes you as important. Taking the time to annotate as you read will save you a lot of time later on because you won’t need to reread the passage to find examples when you are in the middle of writing. 

Once you have a good grasp on the passage and a solid array of quotes to choose from, you should develop a rough outline of your essay. The prompt will provide 4-5 bullets that remind you of what to include in your essay, so you can use these to structure your outline. Start with a thesis, come up with 2-3 concrete claims to support your thesis, back up each claim with 1-2 pieces of evidence from the text, and write a brief explanation of how the evidence supports the claim.

2. Start with a Brief Introduction that Includes a Clear Thesis Statement

Having a strong thesis can help you stay focused and avoid tangents while writing. By deciding the relevant information you want to hit upon in your essay up front, you can prevent wasting precious time later on. Clear theses are also important for the reader because they direct their focus to your essential arguments. 

In other words, it’s important to make the introduction brief and compact so your thesis statement shines through. The introduction should include details from the passage, like the author and title, but don’t waste too much time with extraneous details. Get to the heart of your essay as quick as possible. 

3. Use Clear Examples to Support Your Argument 

One of the requirements AP Lit readers are looking for is your use of evidence. In order to satisfy this aspect of the rubric, you should make sure each body paragraph has at least 1-2 pieces of evidence, directly from the text, that relate to the claim that paragraph is making. Since the prose essay tests your ability to recognize and analyze literary elements and techniques, it’s often better to include smaller quotes. For example, when writing about the author’s use of imagery or diction you might pick out specific words and quote each word separately rather than quoting a large block of text. Smaller quotes clarify exactly what stood out to you so your reader can better understand what are you saying.

Including smaller quotes also allows you to include more evidence in your essay. Be careful though—having more quotes is not necessarily better! You will showcase your strength as a writer not by the number of quotes you manage to jam into a paragraph, but by the relevance of the quotes to your argument and explanation you provide.  If the details don’t connect, they are merely just strings of details.

4. Discussion is Crucial to Connect Your Evidence to Your Argument 

As the previous tip explained, citing phrases and words from the passage won’t get you anywhere if you don’t provide an explanation as to how your examples support the claim you are making. After each new piece of evidence is introduced, you should have a sentence or two that explains the significance of this quote to the piece as a whole.

This part of the paragraph is the “So what?” You’ve already stated the point you are trying to get across in the topic sentence and shared the examples from the text, so now show the reader why or how this quote demonstrates an effective use of a literary technique by the author. Sometimes students can get bogged down by the discussion and lose sight of the point they are trying to make. If this happens to you while writing, take a step back and ask yourself “Why did I include this quote? What does it contribute to the piece as a whole?” Write down your answer and you will be good to go. 

5. Write a Brief Conclusion

While the critical part of the essay is to provide a substantive, organized, and clear argument throughout the body paragraphs, a conclusion provides a satisfying ending to the essay and the last opportunity to drive home your argument. If you run out of time for a conclusion because of extra time spent in the preceding paragraphs, do not worry, as that is not fatal to your score. 

Without repeating your thesis statement word for word, find a way to return to the thesis statement by summing up your main points. This recap reinforces the arguments stated in the previous paragraphs, while all of the preceding paragraphs successfully proved the thesis statement.

6. Don’t Forget About Your Grammar

Though you will undoubtedly be pressed for time, it’s still important your essay is well-written with correct punctuating and spelling. Many students are able to write a strong thesis and include good evidence and commentary, but the final point on the rubric is for sophistication. This criteria is more holistic than the former ones which means you should have elevated thoughts and writing—no grammatical errors. While a lack of grammatical mistakes alone won’t earn you the sophistication point, it will leave the reader with a more favorable impression of you. 

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Here are Nine Must-have Tips and Tricks to Get a Good Score on the Prose Essay:

• Carefully read, review, and underline key instruction s in the prompt.
• Briefly outlin e what you want to cover in your essay.
• Be sure to have a clear thesis that includes the terms mentioned in the instructions, literary devices, tone, and meaning.
• Include the author’s name and title  in your introduction. Refer to characters by name.
• Quality over quantity when it comes to picking quotes! Better to have a smaller number of more detailed quotes than a large amount of vague ones.
• Fully explain how each piece of evidence supports your thesis .  
• Focus on the literary techniques in the passage and avoid summarizing the plot. 
• Use transitions to connect sentences and paragraphs.
• Keep your introduction and conclusion short, and don’t repeat your thesis verbatim in your conclusion.

Here is an example essay from 2020 that received a perfect 6:

[1] In this passage from a 1912 novel, the narrator wistfully details his childhood crush on a girl violinist. Through a motif of the allure of musical instruments, and abundant sensory details that summon a vivid image of the event of their meeting, the reader can infer that the narrator was utterly enraptured by his obsession in the moment, and upon later reflection cannot help but feel a combination of amusement and a resummoning of the moment’s passion. 

[2] The overwhelming abundance of hyper-specific sensory details reveals to the reader that meeting his crush must have been an intensely powerful experience to create such a vivid memory. The narrator can picture the “half-dim church”, can hear the “clear wail” of the girl’s violin, can see “her eyes almost closing”, can smell a “faint but distinct fragrance.” Clearly, this moment of discovery was very impactful on the boy, because even later he can remember the experience in minute detail. However, these details may also not be entirely faithful to the original experience; they all possess a somewhat mysterious quality that shows how the narrator may be employing hyperbole to accentuate the girl’s allure. The church is “half-dim”, the eyes “almost closing” – all the details are held within an ethereal state of halfway, which also serves to emphasize that this is all told through memory. The first paragraph also introduces the central conciet of music. The narrator was drawn to the “tones she called forth” from her violin and wanted desperately to play her “accompaniment.” This serves the double role of sensory imagery (with the added effect of music being a powerful aural image) and metaphor, as the accompaniment stands in for the narrator’s true desire to be coupled with his newfound crush. The musical juxtaposition between the “heaving tremor of the organ” and the “clear wail” of her violin serves to further accentuate how the narrator percieved the girl as above all other things, as high as an angel. Clearly, the memory of his meeting his crush is a powerful one that left an indelible impact on the narrator. 

[3] Upon reflecting on this memory and the period of obsession that followed, the narrator cannot help but feel amused at the lengths to which his younger self would go; this is communicated to the reader with some playful irony and bemused yet earnest tone. The narrator claims to have made his “first and last attempts at poetry” in devotion to his crush, and jokes that he did not know to be “ashamed” at the quality of his poetry. This playful tone pokes fun at his childhood self for being an inexperienced poet, yet also acknowledges the very real passion that the poetry stemmed from. The narrator goes on to mention his “successful” endeavor to conceal his crush from his friends and the girl; this holds an ironic tone because the narrator immediately admits that his attempts to hide it were ill-fated and all parties were very aware of his feelings. The narrator also recalls his younger self jumping to hyperbolic extremes when imagining what he would do if betrayed by his love, calling her a “heartless jade” to ironically play along with the memory. Despite all this irony, the narrator does also truly comprehend the depths of his past self’s infatuation and finds it moving. The narrator begins the second paragraph with a sentence that moves urgently, emphasizing the myriad ways the boy was obsessed. He also remarks, somewhat wistfully, that the experience of having this crush “moved [him] to a degree which now [he] can hardly think of as possible.” Clearly, upon reflection the narrator feels a combination of amusement at the silliness of his former self and wistful respect for the emotion that the crush stirred within him. 

[4] In this passage, the narrator has a multifaceted emotional response while remembering an experience that was very impactful on him. The meaning of the work is that when we look back on our memories (especially those of intense passion), added perspective can modify or augment how those experiences make us feel

More essay examples, score sheets, and commentaries can be found at College Board .

While AP Scores help to boost your weighted GPA, or give you the option to get college credit, AP Scores don’t have a strong effect on your admissions chances . However, colleges can still see your self-reported scores, so you might not want to automatically send scores to colleges if they are lower than a 3. That being said, admissions officers care far more about your grade in an AP class than your score on the exam.

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Hey, I'm taking AP Lit next year and I want to get a head start on my reading. What are some must-read books that'll help me succeed on the exam? Any suggestions would be great. Thanks!

Hello! It's great to see that you're preparing for your AP Lit course. Since AP Literature focuses on analyzing texts in-depth, being familiar with a wide range of books can certainly help. Here are some titles that are frequently recommended for AP Lit students and have appeared on past exams:

1. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

4. Beloved by Toni Morrison

5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

7. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

9. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

10. 1984 by George Orwell

It's important to remember that the AP Lit exam doesn't mainly test your knowledge of specific books, but rather your ability to analyze literature in general. So, when you read these books, practice close reading and understanding the themes, motifs, symbolism, and character development.

Furthermore, consider diversifying your reading list with books from various time periods, genres, and authors, as this can improve your critical thinking and make your literature analysis more nuanced.

Lastly, do check with your AP Lit teacher when the next school year begins, as they may have a required reading list, which could help you focus on texts that'll be covered in class.

Happy reading!

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How to Write the AP Lit Prose Essay with Examples

March 30, 2024

AP Lit Prose Essay Examples – The College Board’s Advanced Placement Literature and Composition Course is one of the most enriching experiences that high school students can have. It exposes you to literature that most people don’t encounter until college , and it helps you develop analytical and critical thinking skills that will enhance the quality of your life, both inside and outside of school. The AP Lit Exam reflects the rigor of the course. The exam uses consistent question types, weighting, and scoring parameters each year . This means that, as you prepare for the exam, you can look at previous questions, responses, score criteria, and scorer commentary to help you practice until your essays are perfect.

What is the AP Lit Free Response testing? 

In AP Literature, you read books, short stories, and poetry, and you learn how to commit the complex act of literary analysis . But what does that mean? Well, “to analyze” literally means breaking a larger idea into smaller and smaller pieces until the pieces are small enough that they can help us to understand the larger idea. When we’re performing literary analysis, we’re breaking down a piece of literature into smaller and smaller pieces until we can use those pieces to better understand the piece of literature itself.

So, for example, let’s say you’re presented with a passage from a short story to analyze. The AP Lit Exam will ask you to write an essay with an essay with a clear, defensible thesis statement that makes an argument about the story, based on some literary elements in the short story. After reading the passage, you might talk about how foreshadowing, allusion, and dialogue work together to demonstrate something essential in the text. Then, you’ll use examples of each of those three literary elements (that you pull directly from the passage) to build your argument. You’ll finish the essay with a conclusion that uses clear reasoning to tell your reader why your argument makes sense.

AP Lit Prose Essay Examples (Continued)

But what’s the point of all of this? Why do they ask you to write these essays?

Well, the essay is, once again, testing your ability to conduct literary analysis. However, the thing that you’re also doing behind that literary analysis is a complex process of both inductive and deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning takes a series of points of evidence and draws a larger conclusion. Deductive reasoning departs from the point of a broader premise and draws a singular conclusion. In an analytical essay like this one, you’re using small pieces of evidence to draw a larger conclusion (your thesis statement) and then you’re taking your thesis statement as a larger premise from which you derive your ultimate conclusion.

So, the exam scorers are looking at your ability to craft a strong thesis statement (a singular sentence that makes an argument), use evidence and reasoning to support that argument, and then to write the essay well. This is something they call “sophistication,” but they’re looking for well-organized thoughts carried through clear, complete sentences.

This entire process is something you can and will use throughout your life. Law, engineering, medicine—whatever pursuit, you name it—utilizes these forms of reasoning to run experiments, build cases, and persuade audiences. The process of this kind of clear, analytical thinking can be honed, developed, and made easier through repetition.

Practice Makes Perfect

Because the AP Literature Exam maintains continuity across the years, you can pull old exam copies, read the passages, and write responses. A good AP Lit teacher is going to have you do this time and time again in class until you have the formula down. But, it’s also something you can do on your own, if you’re interested in further developing your skills.

AP Lit Prose Essay Examples 

Let’s take a look at some examples of questions, answers and scorer responses that will help you to get a better idea of how to craft your own AP Literature exam essays.

In the exam in 2023, students were asked to read a poem by Alice Cary titled “Autumn,” which was published in 1874. In it, the speaker contemplates the start of autumn. Then, students are asked to craft a well-written essay which uses literary techniques to convey the speaker’s complex response to the changing seasons.

The following is an essay that received a perfect 6 on the exam. There are grammar and usage errors throughout the essay, which is important to note: even though the writer makes some mistakes, the structure and form of their argument was strong enough to merit a 6. This is what your scorers will be looking for when they read your essay.

Example Essay 

Romantic and hyperbolic imagery is used to illustrate the speaker’s unenthusiastic opinion of the coming of autumn, which conveys Cary’s idea that change is difficult to accept but necessary for growth.

Romantic imagery is utilized to demonstrate the speaker’s warm regard for the season of summer and emphasize her regretfulness for autumn’s coming, conveying the uncomfortable change away from idyllic familiarity. Summer, is portrayed in the image of a woman who “from her golden collar slips/and strays through stubble fields/and moans aloud.” Associated with sensuality and wealth, the speaker implies the interconnection between a season and bounty, comfort, and pleasure. Yet, this romantic view is dismantled by autumn, causing Summer to “slip” and “stray through stubble fields.” Thus, the coming of real change dethrones a constructed, romantic personification of summer,  conveying the speaker’s reluctance for her ideal season to be dethroned by something much less decorated and adored.

Summer, “she lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,/ And tries the old tunes for over an hour”, is contrasted with bright imagery of fallen leaves/ The juxtaposition between Summer’s character and the setting provides insight into the positivity of change—the yellow leaves—by its contrast with the failures of attempting to sustain old habits or practices, “old tunes”. “She lies on pillows” creates a sympathetic, passive image of summer in reaction to the coming of Autumn, contrasting her failures to sustain “old tunes.” According to this, it is understood that the speaker recognizes the foolishness of attempting to prevent what is to come, but her wishfulness to counter the natural progression of time.

Hyperbolic imagery displays the discrepancies between unrealistic, exaggerated perceptions of change and the reality of progress, continuing the perpetuation of Cary’s idea that change must be embraced rather than rejected. “Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips/The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd”, syntax and diction are used to literally separate different aspects of the progression of time. In an ironic parallel to the literal language, the action of twilight’s “clip” and the subject, “the days,” are cut off from each other into two different lines, emphasizing a sense of jarring and discomfort. Sunset, and Twilight are named, made into distinct entities from the day, dramatizing the shortening of night-time into fall. The dramatic, sudden implications for the change bring to mind the switch between summer and winter, rather than a transitional season like fall—emphasizing the Speaker’s perspective rather than a factual narration of the experience.

She says “the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head/Against the earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost”. Implying pride and defeat, and the word “witched,” the speaker brings a sense of conflict, morality, and even good versus evil into the transition between seasons. Rather than a smooth, welcome change, the speaker is practically against the coming of fall. The hyperbole present in the poem serves to illustrate the Speaker’s perspective and ideas on the coming of fall, which are characterized by reluctance and hostility to change from comfort.

The topic of this poem, Fall–a season characterized by change and the deconstruction of the spring and summer landscape—is juxtaposed with the final line which evokes the season of Spring. From this, it is clear that the speaker appreciates beautiful and blossoming change. However, they resent that which destroys familiar paradigms and norms. Fall, seen as the death of summer, is characterized as a regression, though the turning of seasons is a product of the literal passage of time. Utilizing romantic imagery and hyperbole to shape the Speaker’s perspective, Cary emphasizes the need to embrace change though it is difficult, because growth is not possible without hardship or discomfort.

Scoring Criteria: Why did this essay do so well? 

When it comes to scoring well, there are some rather formulaic things that the judges are searching for. You might think that it’s important to “stand out” or “be creative” in your writing. However, aside from concerns about “sophistication,” which essentially means you know how to organize thoughts into sentences and you can use language that isn’t entirely elementary, you should really focus on sticking to a form. This will show the scorers that you know how to follow that inductive/deductive reasoning process that we mentioned earlier, and it will help to present your ideas in the most clear, coherent way possible to someone who is reading and scoring hundreds of essays.

So, how did this essay succeed? And how can you do the same thing?

First: The Thesis 

On the exam, you can either get one point or zero points for your thesis statement. The scorers said, “The essay responds to the prompt with a defensible thesis located in the introductory paragraph,” which you can read as the first sentence in the essay. This is important to note: you don’t need a flowery hook to seduce your reader; you can just start this brief essay with some strong, simple, declarative sentences—or go right into your thesis.

What makes a good thesis? A good thesis statement does the following things:

• Makes a claim that will be supported by evidence
• Is specific and precise in its use of language
• Argues for an original thought that goes beyond a simple restating of the facts

If you’re sitting here scratching your head wondering how you come up with a thesis statement off the top of your head, let me give you one piece of advice: don’t.

The AP Lit scoring criteria gives you only one point for the thesis for a reason: they’re just looking for the presence of a defensible claim that can be proven by evidence in the rest of the essay.

Second: Write your essay from the inside out 

While the thesis is given one point, the form and content of the essay can receive anywhere from zero to four points. This is where you should place the bulk of your focus.

My best advice goes like this:

• Choose your evidence first
• Develop your commentary about the evidence
• Then draft your thesis statement based on the evidence that you find and the commentary you can create.

It will seem a little counterintuitive: like you’re writing your essay from the inside out. But this is a fundamental skill that will help you in college and beyond. Don’t come up with an argument out of thin air and then try to find evidence to support your claim. Look for the evidence that exists and then ask yourself what it all means. This will also keep you from feeling stuck or blocked at the beginning of the essay. If you prepare for the exam by reviewing the literary devices that you learned in the course and practice locating them in a text, you can quickly and efficiently read a literary passage and choose two or three literary devices that you can analyze.

Third: Use scratch paper to quickly outline your evidence and commentary 

Once you’ve located two or three literary devices at work in the given passage, use scratch paper to draw up a quick outline. Give each literary device a major bullet point. Then, briefly point to the quotes/evidence you’ll use in the essay. Finally, start to think about what the literary device and evidence are doing together. Try to answer the question: what meaning does this bring to the passage?

A sample outline for one paragraph of the above essay might look like this:

Romantic imagery

Portrayal of summer

• Woman who “from her golden collar… moans aloud”
• Summer as bounty

Contrast with Autumn

• Autumn dismantles Summer
• “Stray through stubble fields”
• Autumn is change; it has the power to dethrone the romance of Summer/make summer a bit meaningless

Recognition of change in a positive light

• Summer “lies on pillows / yellow leaves / tries old tunes”
• Bright imagery/fallen leaves
• Attempt to maintain old practices fails: “old tunes”
• But! There is sympathy: “lies on pillows”

Speaker recognizes: she can’t prevent what is to come; wishes to embrace natural passage of time

By the time the writer gets to the end of the outline for their paragraph, they can easily start to draw conclusions about the paragraph based on the evidence they have pulled out. You can see how that thinking might develop over the course of the outline.

Then, the speaker would take the conclusions they’ve drawn and write a “mini claim” that will start each paragraph. The final bullet point of this outline isn’t the same as the mini claim that comes at the top of the second paragraph of the essay, however, it is the conclusion of the paragraph. You would do well to use the concluding thoughts from your outline as the mini claim to start your body paragraph. This will make your paragraphs clear, concise, and help you to construct a coherent argument.

Repeat this process for the other one or two literary devices that you’ve chosen to analyze, and then: take a step back.

Fourth: Draft your thesis 

Once you quickly sketch out your outline, take a moment to “stand back” and see what you’ve drafted. You’ll be able to see that, among your two or three literary devices, you can draw some commonality. You might be able to say, as the writer did here, that romantic and hyperbolic imagery “illustrate the speaker’s unenthusiastic opinion of the coming of autumn,” ultimately illuminating the poet’s idea “that change is difficult to accept but necessary for growth.”

This is an original argument built on the evidence accumulated by the student. It directly answers the prompt by discussing literary techniques that “convey the speaker’s complex response to the changing seasons.” Remember to go back to the prompt and see what direction they want you to head with your thesis, and craft an argument that directly speaks to that prompt.

Then, move ahead to finish your body paragraphs and conclusion.

Fifth: Give each literary device its own body paragraph 

In this essay, the writer examines the use of two literary devices that are supported by multiple pieces of evidence. The first is “romantic imagery” and the second is “hyperbolic imagery.” The writer dedicates one paragraph to each idea. You should do this, too.

This is why it’s important to choose just two or three literary devices. You really don’t have time to dig into more. Plus, more ideas will simply cloud the essay and confuse your reader.

Using your outline, start each body paragraph with a “mini claim” that makes an argument about what it is you’ll be saying in your paragraph. Lay out your pieces of evidence, then provide commentary for why your evidence proves your point about that literary device.

Move onto the next literary device, rinse, and repeat.

Sixth: Commentary and Conclusion 

Finally, you’ll want to end this brief essay with a concluding paragraph that restates your thesis, briefly touches on your most important points from each body paragraph, and includes a development of the argument that you laid out in the essay.

In this particular example essay, the writer concludes by saying, “Utilizing romantic imagery and hyperbole to shape the Speaker’s perspective, Cary emphasizes the need to embrace change though it is difficult, because growth is not possible without hardship or discomfort.” This is a direct restatement of the thesis. At this point, you’ll have reached the end of your essay. Great work!

Seventh: Sophistication 

A final note on scoring criteria: there is one point awarded to what the scoring criteria calls “sophistication.” This is evidenced by the sophistication of thought and providing a nuanced literary analysis, which we’ve already covered in the steps above.

There are some things to avoid, however:

• Sweeping generalizations, such as, “From the beginning of human history, people have always searched for love,” or “Everyone goes through periods of darkness in their lives, much like the writer of this poem.”
• Only hinting at possible interpretations instead of developing your argument
• Oversimplifying your interpretation
• Or, by contrast, using overly flowery or complex language that does not meet your level of preparation or the context of the essay.

Remember to develop your argument with nuance and complexity and to write in a style that is academic but appropriate for the task at hand.

If you want more practice or to check out other exams from the past, go to the College Board’s website .

Brittany Borghi

After earning a BA in Journalism and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa, Brittany spent five years as a full-time lecturer in the Rhetoric Department at the University of Iowa. Additionally, she’s held previous roles as a researcher, full-time daily journalist, and book editor. Brittany’s work has been featured in The Iowa Review, The Hopkins Review, and the Pittsburgh City Paper, among others, and she was also a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee.

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Score Higher on AP Literature 2024: Tips for FRQ 3 (Literary Argument)

1 min read • april 1, 2024

This guide organizes advice from past students who got 4s and 5s on their exams. We hope it gives you some new ideas and tools for your study sessions. But remember, everyone's different—what works for one student might not work for you. If you've got a study method that's doing the trick, stick with it. Think of this as extra help, not a must-do overhaul.

📌  Overview

• Students are asked to write an essay that explains how a literary concept relates or contributes to a literary work. The work discussed is chosen by the student.
• 18.3% of Exam Score
• Spend about 40 min
• Presents thesis (1)
• Provides evidence and commentary (4)
• Demonstrates sophistication (1)

💭  General Advice

Tips on mindset, strategy, structure, time management, and any other high level things to know

• Don’t stop writing! Remind yourself about the time you have left and avoid wasting any. Even though you want to deliver a well-written essay with strong use of evidence and diction, you need to be aware of the time you have. Let the ideas flow without interruptions and once you have a completed essay (if time allows), then you can go back and revise it to make sure you have all the elements needed.
• Once you have a book in mind, stick with it! You might be tempted to start writing and then part way through think of a different book and question your original choice, but you need to trust your instincts on this one or it will cost you some valuable time.
• The AP Exam will give you a list of suggested books to choose from. Do not look at them! Cover up the list and first read the prompt, underlining the main question that you need to answer. Then, before looking at the list, think of books you already know that you can use for this topic. Afterwards, if you are still stuck, then you can look at the list. Looking at the list from the beginning tends to deter students from choosing a book they would much rather write about. Also, your book does not have to be on the list to be used!
• Come with a plan of how to approach this essay! You’ll want to be able to just go at it, especially after the other essays.
• Write in your voice. Don’t try to write super fancy or formal if that’s not how it naturally comes to you. Do what you are confident in, you’ve got this!
• It’s going to be super helpful if you come into the exam with 2-3 books that you know and love! The more you care about what you’re writing about, the more you’ll enjoy writing the essay and be able to recall important details about the plot, character motivations, and other details!

🕑  Before You Write

What should a student do in the first few minutes, before they start writing?

• It can help to brain dump everything you remember about your book that relates to the prompt to give yourself plenty of material to work with. From there, you can draw connections between related ideas and refine your interpretation.
• Make sure you understand the prompt in its entirety! So many people get tripped up because they misinterpret the prompt.
• Go in and think about which book you know will be the most effective in helping you fully dissect the topic! This means not only supporting your own argument, but being able to take a step back and see other arguments. Think about what counterarguments you can highlight in your essay to show your depth of understanding!

📚  Choosing a Book

• This may seem obvious, but choose a book that you feel confident in recalling! This will help you avoid misremembering themes, characters, etc. that could degrade the validity and strength of your analysis if incorrectly described. Review summaries and old class notes for the books you read for AP Lit to help jog your memory in preparation for the exam.
• A really helpful way to see if you actually know a book or not is to make a study guide for that book! List out the characters, settings, themes, symbols, and important aspects of the plot. Then, note three specific events in the book that are memorable or hold literary importance. You should make about four of these study guides, and each book you choose should have a different genre from the rest (ex: American Literature, Victorian Era, Play, Modern Works) so you have a wide variety to choose from come test day.
• Don’t second guess your choice. If there’s a book that stands out to you from the moment you read the prompt, just roll with it.
• This may sound obvious, but use a book you read in your AP Lit class! If you read it for class, you are likely already very familiar with and have done some in depth analysis, which will make it much easier to pull out ideas and evidence!

💯  Tips for Earning Each Point

Thesis and claim.

• Make sure your thesis is easy to tell apart from the rest of your writing. Your proctors are humans, and putting your thesis at the end of a paragraph so it's easy to see does help.
• Make sure to include a line of reasoning in the thesis that will guide your body paragraphs. Keep this line of reasoning broad—you can almost never go wrong by creating categories chronologically through your book. Don’t use specific devices/scenes/ideas as categories in the thesis. It runs the risk of limiting you too much. Save that as specific evidence in the body paragraphs!
• Keep it short! A good, concise thesis statement can earn you the point if done correctly. While you are always able to expand on it, it’s best to start with a thesis that is defendable, chronological and relevant to the topic in about 2-3 sentences. Go straight to the point if you need to, remember that the examiner will not take into account word count so you can deliver a thesis (preferably at the beginning of your essay) that is only a couple sentences.
• Imagine you only have only one sentence, maybe two, to explain your entire argument . What do you feel is important to highlight? What is most important for the reader to follow your claims?
• Before you begin writing, always think about the order of your paragraphs and that should be shown in your thesis. If you’re going to talk about the impact of [topic], the effect of [topic] on [group], and the [important aspect] that [topic] made apparent in [time period], then all three should be listed in the best order for chronology and establishing a line of reasoning.

Evidence and Commentary

• Be specific! You should not comment on the entirety of the book, but only 2-3 significant symbols or events. Make sure to describe these events or symbols with detail to show that you know the book!
• Your commentary should not simply summarize the evidence you’ve picked out. It needs to connect and support your thesis. Explain why this supports your thesis. If you can’t answer that in your head about your commentary, you’d need to add that!
• Do not assume themes/ideas are obvious. Make sure you walk your reading through your thinking so they understand your interpretation. No interpretation is wrong, but it must be defended!
• Evidence is not supposed to talk for you, you are talking for it and using it as a reference. It is a way to prove what you are saying to further your explanation and justification. Also make sure to cite your sources by page number or line number if necessary! Think of evidence like a bridge between your claims and your justifications.

Complexity and Sophistication

• Don’t worry too much about getting this point. You can earn a 5 without getting it, and the criteria for earning it are quite vague. However, that being said, thinking in a complex manner shouldn’t be ignored! It makes your commentary more detailed and interesting. Always be thinking about the layers to the prompt, different angles to what you’re discussing in your commentary, etc. It makes for a better essay overall, even if it doesn’t reward you with the point.
• With skill, this point will come. Do not cater your writing to this, but work on honing your skills for evidence and commentary, and sophistication will some naturally.
• This is not an easy point to get, and, as you’re writing, you should not simply be writing to get this point. Instead, when you are planning out your essay, consider what can help make your essay multidimensional. Why are you focusing on the argument you chose, and what might other people consider?
• Something people try to do to achieve this point is to write with needless complexity and completely out of their natural element—don’t do that! The point is not scored on how fancy your writing sounds, rather a complex, thorough understanding the text. Focus on your analysis and addressing multiple perspectives while writing in your own voice , and this point will come.

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AP® English Literature

How to approach ap® english literature free-response questions.

• The Albert Team
• Last Updated On: February 28, 2023

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What is the Format of AP® English Literature?

What content is covered in the free-response section of ap® english literature.

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Focus on critical reading, utilize your syllabus, take notes as you read, carefully consider principal ideas, explore the context, read out loud, reread when necessary, consult your dictionary, thesaurus or encyclopedia, write, review, and rewrite regularly, how to answer ap® english literature free-response questions.

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Outline your essay, write clearly and eloquently, what are ap® english literature free-response questions like.

How Can I practice AP® English Literature Free-Response?

Looking for ap® english literature practice, interested in a school license​, 2 thoughts on “how to approach ap® english literature free-response questions”.

Are you expected to have read the actual work previously for free response question #1 and #2? (For instance, would the test writers expect you have read Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) for 2016 essay?)

Can you still pull out score 5, even if you haven’t read the work before and write your response solely based on the given passage?

Hi Jen, you would not have had to have read the passage before. You’d be expected to be able to interpret from the passage provided — this is how they assess you on your analysis skills.

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Book Review: ‘When the Sea Came Alive’ expands understanding of D-Day invasion

This cover image released by Avid Reader shows “When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day” by Garrett M. Graff. (Avid Reader via AP)

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Writing about the Allied invasion of Normandy , Garrett M. Graff is treading onto familiar history with his latest book.

From books by historian Stephen Ambrose to films like Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” there’s ample works chronicling the June 6, 1944, landing during World War II that ultimately led to the downfall of Nazi Germany.

But in “When The Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day,” Graff weaves together hundreds of eyewitness accounts to create a history that stands alongside those works, expanding readers’ understanding of D-Day and offering a new, complete portrait in time for the 80th anniversary commemorations .

The oral history begins with a look at the planning of the operation, going back to 1943, and the buildup of personnel and equipment in the months leading up to the operation.

Graff uses a wide array and diversity of voices that give a fuller picture of the lead-up to the invasion, as well as the fighting itself. The book excels in highlighting the experiences of Black soldiers who landed on D-Day beaches and women who were part of the story, such as correspondent Martha Gellhorn.

But it should come as no surprise that the most harrowing portions of the book remain the landing and the battles that occurred on D-Day itself, with vivid first-hand account. Graff skills at sifting through the accounts and documents propel the action throughout the book.

Graff’s book is a testimony to the value in preserving memories from grand historical events, demonstrating how much can be unearthed from even the most familiar stories.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

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Guest Essay

A Chill Has Fallen Over Jews in Publishing

By James Kirchick

Mr. Kirchick is a contributing writer to Tablet magazine, a writer at large for Air Mail and the author of “Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington.”

This month, an account on X with the handle @moyurireads and 360 followers published a link to a color-coded spreadsheet classifying nearly 200 writers according to their views on the “genocide” in Gaza. Titled “Is Your Fav Author a Zionist?,” it reads like a cross between Tiger Beat and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

The novelist Emily St. John Mandel, the author of “Station Eleven” and “Sea of Tranquility,” earned a red “pro-Israel/Zionist” classification because, according to the list’s creator, she “travels to Israel frequently talks favorably about it.” Simply for posting a link to the Israeli chapter of the Red Cross, the novelist Kristin Hannah was deemed a “Zionist,” as was the author Gabrielle Zevin for delivering a book talk to Hadassah, a Jewish women’s organization. Needless to say, the creator of the list — whose post on X announcing it garnered over a million views within a few days — encourages readers to boycott any works produced by “Zionists.”

The spreadsheet is but the crudest example of the virulently anti-Israel — and increasingly antisemitic — sentiment that has been coursing through the literary world since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7. Much of it revolves around the charge of genocide and seeks to punish Zionists and anyone else who refuses to explicitly denounce the Jewish state for allegedly committing said crime. Since a large majority of American Jews (80 percent of whom, according to a 2020 poll , said that caring about Israel is an important or essential part of their Judaism) are Zionists, to accuse all Zionists of complicity in genocide is to anathematize a core component of Jewish identity.

Over the past several months, a litmus test has emerged across wide swaths of the literary world effectively excluding Jews from full participation unless they denounce Israel. This phenomenon has been unfolding in progressive spaces (academia, politics, cultural organizations) for quite some time. That it has now hit the rarefied, highbrow realm of publishing — where Jewish Americans have made enormous contributions and the vitality of which depends on intellectual pluralism and free expression — is particularly alarming.

As is always and everywhere the case, this growing antisemitism is concomitant with a rising illiberalism. Rarely, if ever, do writers express unanimity on a contentious political issue. We’re a naturally argumentative bunch who — at least in theory — answer only to our own consciences.

To compel them to express support or disapproval for a cause is one of the cruelest things a society can do to writers, whose role is to tell society what they believe, regardless of how popular the message may be. The drawing up of lists, in particular, is a tactic with a long and ignominious history, employed by the enemies of literature — and liberty — on both the left and the right. But the problem goes much deeper than a tyro blacklist targeting “Zionists.”

One of the greatest mass delusions of the 21st century is the belief that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians. This grotesque moral inversion — in which a genocidal terrorist organization that instigated a war with Israel by committing the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is absolved of responsibility while the victim of Hamas’s attack is charged with perpetrating the worst crime known to man — began taking shape before Israel even launched its ground invasion of Gaza.

A charitable description of those imputing genocidal motivations to Israel is that they are ignorant, essentially believing the word to mean “large numbers of civilian casualties.” (Here it’s worth noting that the United Nations, to little notice, has significantly lowered its estimate of the number of women and children killed in Gaza.) For others, accusing Israel of genocide is an emotional outlet for expressing outrage at such a horrific loss of life. A third, more pessimistic, characterization of the ubiquitous genocide canard is that it is only the latest iteration of the ancient antisemitic blood libel, which held that Jews murdered gentile children in order to use their blood for religious rituals.

College students and professional activists using overheated and imprecise language to convey their strongly held beliefs is hardly uncommon, and much of the intemperate language being directed at Israel and its Zionist supporters can be attributed to the hyperbole that increasingly characterizes our political discourse. What should worry us more is when people who have dedicated their lives to the written word manipulate language for a political end, one that is stigmatizing Jews.

Nine days after the Oct. 7 attack, the popular website Literary Hub began publishing what has since become a near-daily torrent of agitprop invective against what it describes as the “rogue ethnostate” of Israel, which it routinely accuses of committing genocide. In March, after a mass resignation of its staff members , the literary magazine Guernica retracted a personal essay by a left-wing Israeli woman about her experience volunteering to drive Palestinian children to Israel for medical treatment. In her resignation letter, one of the magazine’s co-publishers denounced the piece as “a hand-wringing apologia for Zionism and the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

Whereas antisemitism in the literary world used to lurk in the shadows, according to the Jewish Book Council’s chief executive, Naomi Firestone-Teeter, since Oct. 7, it has become increasingly overt. “The fact that people have felt so proud and open about it is a different beast entirely,” she said. One of the most disturbing developments in this regard has been the frequency and contempt with which the word “Zionist” is now spit from people’s mouths in the United States.

Until relatively recently, the use of “Zionist” as a slur was most commonly confined to Soviet and Arab propagandists, who spent decades trying to render the word the moral equivalent of “Nazi.” Today many progressives use the word in similar fashion, making no distinction between a Zionist who supports a two-state solution (which, presumably, most Jews in the overwhelmingly liberal literary world do) and one who believes in a “Greater Israel” encompassing the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And while anyone can be a Zionist, I’ve found in my 20 years of reporting on antisemitism that many Jews essentially hear “Jew” when someone shouts “Zionist" at them.

The corruption of the words “genocide” and “Zionist” lies at the root of the controversy threatening to unravel PEN America, the storied writers’ organization. As with many a literary contretemps, it involves a cascade of open letters. In February a missive that gained almost 1,500 signatures was published demanding that PEN “wake up from its own silent, tepid, neither-here-nor-there, self-congratulatory middle of the road and take an actual stand against an actual genocide.” The dozens of statements PEN had issued by that time calling attention to the plight of writers in Gaza (who the letter, without citing evidence, claimed had been “targeted” by Israel for assassination) were insufficient. “We demand PEN America release an official statement” about the writers killed in Gaza the letter read, “and name their murderer: Israel, a Zionist colonial state funded by the U.S. government.”

On March 20, PEN acceded to the ultimatum that it endorse the call for a cease-fire. But that did not satiate its critics.

Last month, in advance of PEN’s annual literary awards ceremony, nearly half of the nominated writers withdrew from the competition. A subset of those writers then released another open letter , declaring, “Among writers of conscience, there is no disagreement. There is fact and fiction. The fact is that Israel is leading a genocide of the Palestinian people.” They accused PEN of “normalizing genocide,” denounced PEN for its “platforming of Zionists” and, most shamefully, called for the resignation of its Jewish chief executive, Suzanne Nossel, on account of her “longstanding commitments to Zionism.”

Along with eight other past presidents of PEN, Salman Rushdie signed a letter in defense of the organization , an intervention that earned him an “unclear” rating on the anti-Zionist blacklist. (He has braved far worse from Islamist zealots and their Western apologists.) PEN ultimately canceled both the awards ceremony and subsequent World Voices Festival.

Dissatisfaction with PEN’s purported lack of indignation over the deaths of Palestinian writers is a fig leaf. Where were the efforts by those now decrying PEN to protest the complete absence of freedom of expression that has characterized the Gaza Strip under 17 years of Hamas rule?

The real objectives behind the cynical weaponization of the word “genocide” and the authoritarian insistence that anyone who disagrees with it is an enabler of one are to shut down debate, defame dissenters and impose a rigid orthodoxy throughout the publishing world. It is a naked attempt to impose an ideological litmus test on anyone hoping to join the republic of letters — a litmus test that the vast majority of Jews would fail.

A campaign of intimidation, the sort of thing that happens to the dissident writers in closed societies whom PEN regularly champions, is afoot to pressure writers into toeing this new party line. PEN’s current president, Jenny Finney Boylan, recently said that she had heard from “many, many authors who do not agree with those withdrawing from PEN events and who do not wish to withdraw from our events themselves but are afraid of the consequences if they speak up.”

Compelling speech — which is ultimately what PEN’s critics are demanding of it — is the tactic of commissars, not writers in a free society. Censorship, thought policing and bullying are antithetical to the spirit of literature, which is best understood as an intimate conversation between the author and individual readers.

PEN’s detractors aren’t helping the Palestinian people with their whitewashing of Hamas. They’re engaged in a hostile takeover of a noble organization committed to the defense of free expression in order to advance a sectarian and bigoted political agenda.

Neil Gaiman, Taylor Jenkins-Reid, Ms. Mandel and other hugely successful authors need not worry that being denounced as a Zionist will hurt their careers. But the blacklists and the boycotts do not really target them. The actual targets of this crusade are lesser-known authors, budding novelists, aspiring poets and creative writing students — largely but not exclusively Jewish — who can feel a change in the air.

“I do now definitely have concern as a Jewish author — two years working on a novel that has absolutely nothing to do with Jews in any way, just because it says ‘National Jewish Book Award winner’ in my bio — that it may change the way readers see the work,” said a Jewish creative writing professor and novelist who spoke to me on the condition of being quoted anonymously.

No longer is being on the receiving end of a review bomb the worst fate that can befall a Jewish writer exploring Jewish themes; even getting such a book published is becoming increasingly difficult. “It’s very clear you have to have real courage to acquire and publish proudly Jewish voices and books about being Jewish,” a prominent literary agent told me. “When you are seen as genocidal, a moral insult to humanity because you believe in Israel’s right to exist, you are now seen as deserving of being canceled.”

There’s a distasteful irony in a literary community that has gone to the barricades fighting book “bans” now rallying to boycott authors based on their ethnoreligious identity. For a growing set of writers, declaring one’s belief that the world’s only Jewish state is a genocidal entity whose dismantlement is necessary for the advancement of humankind is a political fashion statement, a bauble one parades around in order to signify being on the right team. As was Stalinism for an earlier generation of left-wing literary intellectuals, so is antisemitism becoming the avant-garde.

James Kirchick is a contributing writer to Tablet magazine, a writer at large for Air Mail and the author of “Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington.”

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