So many big test tips are generic. They include things like “get a good night of sleep the night before,” “read the questions before the passage,” and “eliminate wrong answers.” Rarely, does those tips provide a strategic plan to make a major jump in the days leading up to the exam.
Here are eight ways to maximize your score in the eight days leading up to the AP Literature and Composition exam.
- YOU CAN GET THE THESIS POINT
The thesis point is low-hanging fruit that is easy to reach on the exam. In 2021, 85% of students earned this point across all three essays, and that number would probably be higher if it were not for the hand turkeys, music lyrics, and College-Board-is-an-evil-monopoly letters written to AP Readers. Lots and lots of students get the thesis point and you can too.
Here’s the key — have an original and insightful idea about the prompt.
How do you do that?
Well, insight means to see into the nature of something or having a deep understanding. If you see what the poem or the prose passage is really about, your well on your way to the thesis point.
In 2017 with Q2’s prompt for Peregrine Pickle, if you saw how foolish the two men looked as their emotions escalated, you were well on your way to the thesis point.
Here’s are two examples that highlight this difference:
weak thesis: In the passage there is a complex interplay between emotions and social norms as Smollett uses a plethora of literary devices to point this out.
stronger thesis: As Godfrey Gauntlet intrudes on the relationship between Peregrine Pickle and his beloved Emilia, both men follow the social norms of the time to suppress their increasing rage, yet this suppression ultimately makes them look more like fools than gentleman.
2. THINK BIG TO SMALL
This strategy works for multiple choice as well as Q1 and Q2. Start with the biggest broadest idea that you can identify and refine your way to more specific and nuanced insights. These ideas will be your guiding principles when you tackle the multiple-choice questions and give you lots of things to write about for the essays.
What does it look like?
After reading and annotating a poem or passage, mentally say to yourself:
“This is really about ______.”
“But it also about __________.”
“And while it starts with _________, it ends with _____________.”
“And at this moment I see a subtle change when ___________ happens.”
There’s another subtle shift from _________ to _________ at this moment.”
If you do this over and over again, starting big and broad and refining your way to deeper understand, you will enter the multiple choice or the essay from a place of confidence.
3. UNDERLINE THE STRONG VERB ON PROSE PASSAGES
If you know the verbs, you know the action. Underlining the strong verbs keys your brain, it makes an impression on the mind, helping you understand what characters are doing, what is transpiring in the setting, or how things are being said.
4. STUDY SIX SCENES TO THEMES
My students complete Six Scenes to Themes for every major work we read during the year. There is an AP Literature mantra to “know few works well.” Reviewing key moment from the novels and plays that we read in the days leading up to the exam is their best preparation for Q3.
5. KNOW THE BIG 7
You can memorize a list of 55 literary terms, but these seven are the heart of the Q1 and Q2 on the exam. They will almost always be there in the passage or poem, which makes them wonderfully reliable. They are:
tone
diction
syntax
imagery
characterization
conflict
figurative language
6. CONJUNCTIONS = SOPHISTICATION
Ahh… the elusive sophistication point.
In 2021, 94 % of students DID NOT earn the sophistication point. It feels like the AP unicorn.
The most common way I’ve seen students earn the sophistication point is by “Identifying and exploring complexities or tensions within” the work. If something is complex, it is not one dimensional. There are layers to it. It is one thing and another. This happens but something else complicates it. While one moment a truth emerges, yet in another it is vanquished. These conjunctions show that things aren’t so simple. There are layers of meaning. The more a student can successfully incorporate conjunctions in their sentences without going overboard, the more they increase their chances of earning the sophistication point.
7. FIND YOUR FOOTHOLDS
In rock climbing, a foothold allows you to gain your security before you advance to a higher elevation. This is the analogy I use with my students for multiple-choice questions. Rather than focus on what you don’t know about a poem or passage, focus on what you do know by moving from big to small. Then use each multiple-choice question as a foothold. The questions on the exam typically move in chronological order, guiding you through an understanding. Each question should take you to a higher elevation of understanding.
8. GUSH YOUR INFERENCES
Body paragraphs (how you earn your evidence and commentary points) are really about making a case for the inferences you develop. Many students fall short of the total point value because they summarize what it literally said. To earn 3 or 4 points in evidence and commentary, you have to use your body paragraphs to discuss what is the author or poet implying, suggesting, hinting, or saying without actually saying in certain moments.
You have to convince AP Readers that those inference are valid based on the evidence that you present.
Look at each body paragraph as a opportunity to gush your inference. Make an effusive display of your idea and give all the evidence that exists to support it.
