1. The Advanced Placement Exam English Literature and Composition
Rachael Gerber
Your Sherpa Through this Mountainous Journey Called AP Lit.

2. What is the AP?
The Advanced Placement Program (AP) enables willing and academically prepared students to pursue college-level studies while still in high school.
The program consists of college-level courses developed by the AP Program that high schools can choose to offer, and corresponding exams that are administered once a year.
Fast Facts
There are 38 AP courses in seven subject categories.
Each AP course is modeled on a comparable introductory college course in the subject. Each course culminates in a standardized college-level assessment, or AP Exam.
AP Exams are given in May each year at testing locations all over the world.
Schools must be authorized by the AP Course Audit to offer approved AP courses and use the AP designation.

3. Advantages of Taking AP Classes
Gain the Edge in College Preparation
Get a head start on college-level work.
Improve your writing skills and sharpen your problem-solving techniques.
Develop the study habits necessary for tackling rigorous course work.
Stand Out in the College Admissions Process
Demonstrate your maturity and readiness for college.
Show your willingness to push yourself to the limit.
Emphasize your commitment to academic excellence.
Broaden Your Intellectual Horizons
Explore the world from a variety of perspectives, most importantly your own.
Study subjects in greater depth and detail.
Assume the responsibility of reasoning, analyzing, and understanding for yourself
Save Time and Money
Research shows that students who take AP courses and exams are much more likely than their peers to complete a college degree on time
which means they avoid paying for, for example, a fifth year of tuition.
Most colleges and universities nationwide offer college credit, advanced placement, or both for qualifying AP Exam scores. This can mean:
Fulfilling graduation requirements early
Ability to skip introductory courses or required general-education courses

4. Advantages of Taking THIS AP Class
The reading and writing skills you will review, practice, and master will give you the best chance to succeed on this exam. You will have the opportunity to learn, practice, and master the critical thinking processes that can empower you to achieve your highest score.
But beyond the test, you will cultivate LIVING PROPERTY. In the process of preparing for this rigorous test, you will develop invaluable skills and enduring understandings. You will cultivate individual truths and tap into Universal Being. These will evolve you into not only outstanding scholars, but also spectacular human beings (I’m not even kidding).

5. The AP Literature Course
Goals
Engages students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. genres and periods, concentrating on works of recognized literary merit.
The works chosen invite and reward rereading and do not, like ephemeral works in such popular genres as detective or romance fiction, yield all (or nearly all) of their pleasures of thought and feeling the first time through.

6. The AP Literature Course
Reading
Concentration on:
the experience of literature
the interpretation of literature
the evaluation of literature
You will read deliberately and thoroughly, taking time to understand a work’s complexity, to absorb its richness of meaning, and to analyze how that meaning is embodied in literary form.
In addition to considering a work’s literary artistry, you will reflect on the social and historical values it reflects and embodies.
Reading builds upon and complements the reading from previous English courses
By the time you complete the AP course, you will have read works from several genres and periods — from the 16th to the 21st century.
You will have gotten to know a few works well.

7. The AP Literature Course
Writing
Writing assignments focus on the critical analysis of literature and include expository, analytical, and argumentative essays.
Although critical analysis makes up the bulk of our writing, well-constructed creative writing assignments will help you see from the inside how literature is written
Writing assignments increase your ability to explain clearly, cogently, even elegantly what you understand about literary works and why you interpret them as you do.
Emphasis is placed on helping you develop stylistic maturity, which includes:
wide-ranging vocabulary
variety of sentence structures
logical organization
balance of generalization with specific illustrative detail
effective use of rhetoric

8. Framework: Big Ideas and Understandings
The Big Ideas are the foundation of the AP English Literature and Composition course and enable students to create meaningful connections among course concepts. They are threads that run throughout the course. Revisiting them and applying them in a variety of contexts helps you develop deeper conceptual understanding. These are:
Character
Setting
Structure
Narration
Figurative Language
Literary Argumentation

9. Framework: Areas of Focus
Short Fiction
About 42-49% of exam weighting
Poetry
36-45% of exam weighting
Drama and Long Fiction
15 to 18% of exam weighting

10. Course Outcomes By the end of this course, you:
Will read critically, think clearly, and write concisely.
Will have cultivated a rich understanding of literary works and acquired a set of analytical skills you will use throughout your life, especially in college.
Should feel comfortable analyzing the structure of a poem or story, the themes of a drama, or the style of an essay.
Be able to identify various literary devices, such as figurative language or imagery, and to explain how those devices help to create meaning in a particular text (the How)
Love life cause you got this!
Nail the AP (fingers crossed)

11. Are You in the Right Place?
Consider your decision:
AP Lit is not an easy course (if done right)
Pass rate (3+) for the test was 50.1% in AP Lit ranked 35 out of 38 on the list of Most Passed AP Exams.
For other AP exams, it is typical for between 10% to 20% of students to earn a 5; for the AP Lit test, that percentage is 6.2% (2019).
AP Lit is the third most popular AP exam, which may account for the higher failure rate.

12. The AP Student
While some schools limit admission to AP classes, I recognize the power of an AP class to challenge a wide range of students.
I embrace an open admission policy that requires only a strong motivation and the desire to work hard.
All students who want to strengthen their analytical thinking, reading, and writing skills belong in my AP English Literature.
You do not have to be “An English Person” or LOVE to read, or even be a Class 5 writer, but you do have to be remain open to the experience of literature and the goals of the class. That means you:
Respect the work
Challenge your beliefs
Embrace ambiguity
Persevere
Follow habits of mind
Regularly and actively demonstrate curiosity
Formulate your own perspective
Take academic risks
Embrace failure

13. The Exam Exam date: May 6, 8 a.m. Fee: $94 Structure Three hours
Two parts:
Multiple Choice
Free Response
2 hours
3 essay questions (about 40 minutes per essay)
55% of the total exam

14. Multiple Choice 1 hour 55 questions 45% of the total exam
Includes 5 sets of questions with 8–13 questions per set.
Each set is preceded by a passage of prose fiction, drama, or poetry of varying difficulty.
The multiple-choice section will always include at least 2 prose fiction passages (this may include drama) and at least 2 poetry passages.

15. Multiple Choice
Expect eight kinds of questions the multiple choice section:
Reading Comprehension
Inference
Identifying and Interpreting Figurative Language
Literary Technique
Character Analysis
Overall Passage Questions
Structure
Grammar/Nuts & Bolts

16. Free Response 2 hours 3 essay questions (about 40 minutes per essay)
55% of the total exam (18% each essay)
Students write essays that respond to 3 free-response prompts from the following categories:
A literary analysis of a given poem or poems
A literary analysis of a given passage of prose fiction (this may include drama) 
An analysis that examines a specific concept, issue, or element in a work of literary merit selected by the student

17. Free Response: Essays One and Two
A note about time: No one will prompt you to move from essay to essay, so you can theoretically divide up the time how you want.
Essay 1 and 2. For the first two essays, you are presented with an excerpt and directed to analyze the excerpt for a given theme, device, or development.
One of the passages focuses on poetry
One focuses on prose. 
You will be provided with the author of the work, the approximate date, and some orienting information (i.e. the plot context of an excerpt from a novel).
Free Response examples from 2019 exam:
Carefully read P. K. Page’s 1943 poem “The Landlady.” Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the speaker’s complex portrayal of the landlady. You may wish to consider such elements as imagery, selection of detail, and tone.
Carefully read the following excerpt from William Dean Howells’ novel The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885). Then, in a well-constructed essay, analyze how the author portrays the complex experience of two sisters, Penelope and Irene, within their family and society. You may wish to consider such literary elements as style, tone, and selection of detail.

18. Free Response: Essay Three
For the third and final essay, you will discuss a particular theme in a work you select. You are provided with a list of notable works that address the given theme below the prompt, but you can also choose to discuss any “work of literary merit” (no so-called genre or “low culture” fiction).
The provided list will span a variety of time periods and countries

19. Free Response: Selected Work
In his 2004 novel Magic Seeds, V. S. Naipaul writes: “It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That’s where the mischief starts. That’s where everything starts unravelling.” Select a novel, play, or epic poem in which a character holds an “ideal view of the world.” Then write an essay in which you analyze the character’s idealism and its positive or negative consequences. Explain how the author’s portrayal of this idealism illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.
You may choose a work from the list below or one of comparable literary merit. Do not merely summarize plot
Antigone
The Awakening
The Bluest Eye
Brave New World
Brideshead Revisited
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Candide
The Catcher in the Rye
Death of a Salesman
Don Quixote
A Gesture Life
Great Expectations
The Great Gatsby
The Handmaid’s Tale
The House of Mirth
The Importance of Being Earnest
Invisible Man
King Lear
Lolita
The Mill on the Floss
My Ántonia
Native Son
Odyssey
The Portrait of a Lady
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Sound and the Fury
The Sun Also Rises
The Tempest
To Kill a Mockingbird
When the Emperor Was Divine

20. Scoring
Each AP test is given a score from 1 to 5. According to the College Board (the group that administers AP tests), these numbers translate in the following ways:
5: Extremely Well Qualified
4: Well Qualified
3: Qualified
2: Possibly Qualified
1: No recommendation
Any score 3 or higher is considered a passing score, though some colleges only accept 4s and 5s for credit. (See AP’s college database for specific policies at each university.) 
A 5 is it puts you in the top 10-20% of scorers. 
Your 1-5 score is a scaled score, converted from a composite score. Your composite score is calculated from the total number of raw points you earned from your correct multiple-choice answers and your free response.

21. Scoring
The Multiple Choice section is graded by a computer. No deductions are taken for incorrect or blank answers, so your raw multiple-choice score is simply the number of questions you get correct.
Free-Response essays are scored as 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1, plus 0, with 9 the highest possible score.
Each free response is given a "holistic" score, meaning it's evaluated for its overall effectiveness or correctness. Typically, points are not deducted for the occasional small error, such as a spelling or grammar mistake. Your raw free-response score is the total of the scores you get for each response. (example 7/9)
The Free Response section is graded during the annual AP Reading held in June.
The AP Reading is basically a huge convention. Hordes of teachers and college professors gather to grade thousands and thousands of student-written responses for each exam.
This is why you have to wait until July to receive your scores, even though you took the test in May.

22. Final Scoring The total composite score for the AP Lit test is 150.
Of this score, 55% is the essay section; that equals 82.5 points.
Each of your three essays is graded on a 9-point scale
Each point is worth Divide the number of multiple-choice questions by 67.5, for instance, if there were 55 questions, each point of the raw score would be multiplied by
The multiple-choice section is 45% of the composite score, which equals 67.5 points.
If you add together the raw score of each of the two sections, you will have a composite score.
You can experiment with scores by visiting one of the many online AP score calculators.

23. And Finn-aly Here are some things you can do to prepare for the exam:
Read books, and be particularly familiar with 4-5 works for the student-choice essays
Read poetry
Work on your close-reading and analysis skills
Learn literary devices
Practice writing essays
Take practice tests!
With all this mind, you are well on your way to AP Lit success!