words to use in an ap lit essay

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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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Expert's Guide to the AP Literature Exam

Advanced Placement (AP)

If you're planning to take the AP English Literature and Composition exam, you'll need to get familiar with what to expect on the test. Whether the 2023 test date of Wednesday, May 3, is near or far, I'm here to help you get serious about preparing for the exam.

In this guide, I'll go over the test's format and question types, how it's graded, best practices for preparation, and test-day tips. You'll be on your way to AP English Lit success in no time!

AP English Literature: Exam Format and Question Types

The AP Literature Exam is a three-hour exam that contains two sections in this order:

• An hour-long, 55-question multiple-choice section
• A two-hour, three-question free-response section

The exam tests your ability to analyze works and excerpts of literature and cogently communicate that analysis in essay form.

Read on for a breakdown of the two different sections and their question types.

Section I: Multiple Choice

The multiple-choice section, or Section I of the AP Literature exam, is 60 minutes long and has 55 questions. It counts for 45% of your overall exam grade .

You can expect to see five excerpts of prose and poetry. You will always get at least two prose passages (fiction or drama) and two poetry passages. In general, you will not be given the author, date, or title for these works, though occasionally the title of a poem will be given. Unusual words are also sometimes defined for you.

The date ranges of these works could fall from the 16th to the 21st century. Most works will be originally written in English, but you might occasionally see a passage in translation.

There are, generally speaking, eight kinds of questions you can expect to see on the AP English Literature and Composition exam. I'll break each of them down here and give you tips on how to identify and approach them.

"Pretty flowers carried by ladies" is not one of the question types.

The 8 Multiple-Choice Question Types on the AP Literature Exam

Without further delay, here are the eight question types you can expect to see on the AP Lit exam. All questions are taken from the sample questions on the AP Course and Exam Description .

#1: Reading Comprehension

These questions test your ability to understand what the passage is saying on a pretty basic level . They don't require you to do a lot of interpretation—you just need to know what's going on.

You can identify this question type from words and phrases such as "according to," "mentioned," "asserting," and so on. You'll succeed on these questions as long as you carefully read the text . Note that you might have to go back and reread parts to make sure you understand what the passage is saying.

#2: Inference

These questions ask you to infer something—a character or narrator's opinion, an author's intention, etc.—based on what is said in the passage . It will be something that isn't stated directly or concretely but that you can assume based on what's clearly written in the passage. You can identify these questions from words such as "infer" and "imply."

The key to these questions is to not get tripped up by the fact that you are making an inference—there will be a best answer, and it will be the choice that is best supported by what is actually found in the passage .

In many ways, inference questions are like second-level reading comprehension questions: you need to know not just what a passage says, but also what it means.

#3: Identifying and Interpreting Figurative Language

These are questions for which you have to either identify what word or phrase is figurative language or provide the meaning of a figurative phrase . You can identify these as they will either explicitly mention figurative language (or a figurative device, such as a simile or metaphor ) or include a figurative phrase in the question itself.

The meaning of figurative phrases can normally be determined by that phrase's context in the passage—what is said around it? What is the phrase referring to?

Example 1: Identifying

Example 2: Interpreting

#4: Literary Technique

These questions involve identifying why an author does what they do , from using a particular phrase to repeating certain words. Basically, what techniques is the author using to construct the passage/poem, and to what effect?

You can identify these questions by words/phrases such as "serves chiefly to," "effect," "evoke," and "in order to." A good way to approach these questions is to ask yourself: so what? Why did the author use these particular words or this particular structure?

#5: Character Analysis

These questions ask you to describe something about a character . You can spot them because they will refer directly to characters' attitudes, opinions, beliefs, or relationships with other characters .

This is, in many ways, a special kind of inference question , since you are inferring the broader personality of the character based on the evidence in a passage. Also, these crop up much more commonly for prose passages than they do for poetry ones.

#6: Overall Passage Questions

Some questions ask you to identify or describe something about the passage or poem as a whole : its purpose, tone, genre, etc. You can identify these by phrases such as "in the passage" and "as a whole."

To answer these questions, you need to think about the excerpt with a bird's-eye view . What is the overall picture created by all the tiny details?

#7: Structure

Some AP Lit questions will ask you about specific structural elements of the passage: a shift in tone, a digression, the specific form of a poem, etc . Often these questions will specify a part of the passage/poem and ask you to identify what that part is accomplishing.

Being able to identify and understand the significance of any shifts —structural, tonal, in genre, and so on—will be of key importance for these questions.

#8: Grammar/Nuts & Bolts

Very occasionally you will be asked a specific grammar question , such as what word an adjective is modifying. I'd also include in this category super-specific questions such as those that ask about the meter of a poem (e.g., iambic pentameter).

These questions are less about literary artistry and more about the fairly dry technique involved in having a fluent command of the English language .

That covers the eight question types on the multiple-choice section. Now, let's take a look at the free-response section of the AP Literature exam.

Keep track of the nuts and bolts of grammar.

Section II: Free Response

The AP Literature Free Response section is two hours long and involves three free-response essay questions , so you'll have about 40 minutes per essay. That's not a lot of time considering this section of the test counts for 55% of your overall exam grade !

Note, though, that no one will prompt you to move from essay to essay, so you can theoretically divide up the time however you want. Just be sure to leave enough time for each essay! Skipping an essay, or running out of time so you have to rush through one, can really impact your final test score.

The first two essays are literary analysis essays of specific passages, with one poem and one prose excerpt. The final essay is an analysis of a given theme in a work selected by you , the student.

Essays 1 & 2: Literary Passage Analysis

For the first two essays, you'll be presented with an excerpt and directed to analyze the excerpt for a given theme, device, or development . One of the passages will be poetry, and one will be 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).

Below are some sample questions from the 2022 Free Response Questions .

Essay 3: Thematic Analysis

For the third and final essay, you'll be asked to discuss a particular theme in a work that you select . You will be 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."

So while you do have the power to choose which work you wish to write an essay about , the key words here are "literary merit." That means no genre fiction! Stick to safe bets like authors in the list on pages 10-11 of the old 2014 AP Lit Course Description .

(I know, I know—lots of genre fiction works do have literary merit and Shakespeare actually began as low culture, and so on and so forth. Indeed, you might find academic designations of "literary merit" elitist and problematic, but the time to rage against the literary establishment is not your AP Lit test! Save it for a really, really good college admissions essay instead .)

Here's a sample question from 2022:

As you can see, the list of works provided spans many time periods and countries : there are ancient Greek plays ( Antigone ), modern literary works (such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale ), Shakespeare plays ( The Tempest ), 19th-century English plays ( The Importance of Being Earnest ), etc. So you have a lot to work with!

Also note that you can choose a work of "comparable literary merit." That means you can select a work not on this list as long as it's as difficult and meaningful as the example titles you've been given. So for example, Jane Eyre or East of Eden would be great choices, but Twilight or The Hunger Games would not.

Our advice? If you're not sure what a work of "comparable literary merit" is, stick to the titles on the provided list .

You might even see something by this guy.

How Is the AP Literature Test Graded?

The multiple-choice section of the exam comprises 45% of your total exam score; the three essays, or free-response section, comprise the other 55%. Each essay, then, is worth about 18% of your grade.

As on other AP exams, your raw score will be converted to a score from 1-5 . You don't have to get every point possible to get a 5 by any means. In 2022, 16.9% of students received 5s on the AP English Literature test, the 14th highest 5 score out of the 38 different AP exams.

So, how do you calculate your raw scores?

Multiple-Choice Scoring

For the multiple-choice section, you receive 1 point for each question you answer correctly . There's no guessing penalty, so you should answer every question—but guess only after you're able to eliminate any answer you know is wrong to up your chances of choosing the right one.

Free-Response Scoring

Scoring for multiple choice is pretty straightforward; however, essay scoring is a little more complicated.

Each of your essays will receive a score from 0 to 6 based on the College Board rubric , which also includes question-specific rubrics. All the rubrics are very similar, with only minor differences between them.

Each essay rubric has three elements you'll be graded on:

• Thesis (0-1 points)
• Evidence and Commentary (0-4 points)
• Sophistication (0-1 points)

We'll be looking at the current rubric for the AP Lit exam , which was released in September 2019, and what every score means for each of the three elements above:

To get a high-scoring essay in the 5-6 point range, you'll need to not only come up with an original and intriguing argument that you thoroughly support with textual evidence, but you’ll also need to stay focused, organized, and clear. And all in just 40 minutes per essay!

If getting a high score on this section sounds like a tall order, that's because it is.

Practice makes perfect!

Skill-Building for Success on the AP Literature Exam

There are several things you can do to hone your skills and best prepare for the AP Lit exam.

Read Some Books, Maybe More Than Once

One of the most important steps you can take to prepare for the AP Literature and Composition exam is to read a lot and read well . You'll be reading a wide variety of notable literary works in your AP English Literature course, but additional reading will help you further develop your analytical reading skills .

I suggest checking out this list of notable authors in the 2014 AP Lit Course Description (pages 10-11).

In addition to reading broadly, you'll want to become especially familiar with the details of four to five books with different themes so you'll be prepared to write a strong student-choice essay. You should know the plot, themes, characters, and structural details of these books inside and out.

See my AP English Literature Reading List for more guidance.

Read (and Interpret) Poetry

One thing students might not do very much on their own time but that will help a lot with AP Lit exam prep is to read poetry. Try to read poems from a lot of eras and authors to get familiar with the language.

We know that poetry can be intimidating. That's why we've put together a bunch of guides to help you crack the poetry code (so to speak). You can learn more about poetic devices —like imagery and i ambic pentameter —in our comprehensive guide. Then you can see those analytical skills in action in our expert analysis of " Do not go gentle into that good night " by Dylan Thomas.

When you think you have a grip on basic comprehension, you can then move on to close reading (see below).

Hone Your Close Reading and Analysis Skills

Your AP class will likely focus heavily on close reading and analysis of prose and poetry, but extra practice won't hurt you. Close reading is the ability to identify which techniques the author is using and why. You'll need to be able to do this both to gather evidence for original arguments on the free-response questions and to answer analytical multiple-choice questions.

Here are some helpful close reading resources for prose :

• University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center's guide to close reading
• Harvard College Writing Center's close reading guide
• Purdue OWL's article on steering clear of close reading "pitfalls"

And here are some for poetry :

• University of Wisconsin-Madison's poetry-reading guide
• This guide to reading poetry at Poets.org (complete with two poetry close readings)
• Our own expert analyses of famous poems, such as " Ozymandias ", and the 10 famous sonnets you should know

Learn Literary and Poetic Devices

You'll want to be familiar with literary terms so that any test questions that ask about them will make sense to you. Again, you'll probably learn most of these in class, but it doesn't hurt to brush up on them.

Here are some comprehensive lists of literary terms with definitions :

• The 31 Literary Devices You Must Know
• The 20 Poetic Devices You Must Know
• The 9 Literary Elements You'll Find In Every Story
• What Is Imagery?
• Understanding Assonance
• What Is Iambic Pentameter in Poetry?
• Simile vs Metaphor: The 1 Big Difference
• 10 Personification Examples in Poetry, Literature, and More

Practice Writing Essays

The majority of your grade on the AP English Lit exam comes from essays, so it's critical that you practice your timed essay-writing skills . You of course should use the College Board's released free-response questions to practice writing complete timed essays of each type, but you can also practice quickly outlining thorough essays that are well supported with textual evidence.

Take Practice Tests

Taking practice tests is a great way to prepare for the exam. It will help you get familiar with the exam format and overall experience . You can get sample questions from the Course and Exam Description , the College Board website , and our guide to AP English Lit practice test resources .

Be aware that the released exams don't have complete slates of free-response questions, so you might need to supplement these with released free-response questions .

Since there are three complete released exams, you can take one toward the beginning of your prep time to get familiar with the exam and set a benchmark, and one toward the end to make sure the experience is fresh in your mind and to check your progress.

Don't wander like a lonely cloud through your AP Lit prep.

AP Literature: 6 Critical Test-Day Tips

Before we wrap up, here are my six top tips for AP Lit test day:

• #1: On the multiple-choice section, it's to your advantage to answer every question. If you eliminate all the answers you know are wrong before guessing, you'll raise your chances of guessing the correct one.
• #2: Don't rely on your memory of the passage when answering multiple-choice questions (or when writing essays, for that matter). Look back at the passage!
• #3: Interact with the text : circle, mark, underline, make notes—whatever floats your boat. This will help you retain information and actively engage with the passage.
• #4: This was mentioned above, but it's critical that you know four to five books well for the student-choice essay . You'll want to know all the characters, the plot, the themes, and any major devices or motifs the author uses throughout.
• #5: Be sure to plan out your essays! Organization and focus are critical for high-scoring AP Literature essays. An outline will take you a few minutes, but it will help your writing process go much faster.
• #6: Manage your time on essays closely. One strategy is to start with the essay you think will be the easiest to write. This way you'll be able to get through it while thinking about the other two essays.

And don't forget to eat breakfast! Apron optional.

AP Literature Exam: Key Takeaways

The AP Literature exam is a three-hour test that includes an hour-long multiple-choice section based on five prose and poetry passages and with 55 questions, and a two-hour free-response section with three essays : one analyzing a poetry passage, one analyzing a prose passage, and one analyzing a work chosen by you, the student.

The multiple-choice section is worth 45% of your total score , and the free-response section is worth 55% . The three essays are each scored on a rubric of 0-6, and raw scores are converted to a final scaled score from 1 to 5.

Here are some things you can do to prepare for the exam:

• Read books and be particularly familiar with four to five works for the student-choice essays
• Read poetry
• Work on your close reading and analysis skills
• Learn common literary devices
• Practice writing essays
• Take practice tests!

On test day, be sure to really look closely at all the passages and really interact with them by marking the text in a way that makes sense to you. This will help on both multiple-choice questions and the free-response essays. You should also outline your essays before you write them.

With all this in mind, you're well on your way to AP Lit success!

What's Next?

If you're taking other AP exams this year, you might be interested in our other AP resources: from the Ultimate Guide to the US History Exam , to the Ultimate AP Chemistry Study Guide , to the Best AP Psychology Study Guide , we have tons of articles on AP courses and exams for you !

Looking for practice exams? Here are some tips on how to find the best AP practice tests . We've also got comprehensive lists of practice tests for AP Psychology , AP Biology , AP Chemistry , and AP US History .

Deciding which APs to take? Take a look through the complete list of AP courses and tests , read our analysis of which AP classes are the hardest and easiest , and learn how many AP classes you should take .

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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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5 Tips for Writing a Great AP Lit Essay

Nervous about the 'free response prompt' on AP Lit? Don't be. We broke it down into manageable steps!

This year, if you’re taking the AP English Literature exam, you’ll be responsible for responding to three questions, which the College Board calls “free response prompts.” First , you’ll write a literary analysis of a poem. Second, you’ll write a literary analysis of a piece of fiction, which could be an excerpt from a play. Third , you’ll analyze a major literary aspect—a theme or a literary device, for example—of a literary work of your choosing.

The last of these prompts attracts perhaps the most attention and, by extension, produces the most anxiety among students. Anyone would admit that such a capacious (‘open, roomy’) question is challenging, especially when a year of AP Lit has taught you to focus on the details of the book you’re reading. And it certainly doesn’t help that this question comes at the very end of the essay, and you and your fingers are about as tired as they could possibly be!

But if you approach the prompt with enthusiasm, it can be the cherry on top of your exam, not the straw that breaks the camel’s back (getting creative with metaphors is always important in AP Lit!).

Here are five tips to help you write a great essay response to the third prompt on the AP Lit exam.

1. Select the perfect work.

Wait a minute—you can write about anything under the sun, as long as the College Board defines it as “a work of literary merit?” How is that even possible? In truth, your evaluators are using this prompt as a way to gauge your analytical abilities no matter the text. You’re not going to be judged for the work you select, as long as it’s substantial enough to ensure your analysis can be rich and meaningful. A good rule to live by: if a work pops into your head and you don’t immediately have at least a few different ideas for how to answer the prompt with it, toss it out of your brainstorming process. You want to find a work that is challenging and complex in order to show that you’re capable of effectively analyzing such works.

You have two main options for selecting the perfect work, both equally effective. The first is probably the most common: choose a book, play, or other literary work you read in AP Lit. Because you read it in class, you will almost surely be familiar with its themes and literary devices. Your second option is to pick a work you’ve read on your own, which could be anything from a novel you adored over summer break or the Shakespeare play you starred in at school. We recommend creating a short list of works you’d like to write about before you take your AP Lit exam, just to have your options at hand. As you’ve learned to do in class, consider each work’s rhetorical situation. This way, if you’re on the fence about whether a work is really “of literary merit,” you can ask your teacher or someone else in the know for an expert second opinion!

2. Practice really does make perfect.

You don’t know what the third free-response prompt will be, but you know that it will be! The College Board’s AP Lit exam page is only one of a gazillion easily accessible resources online that compile prompts from past years and devise hypothetical ones, too. These are great places to look. In the weeks leading up to the exam, we recommend selecting three to seven prompts—the more diverse in content, the better—and practicing with your list of works of literary merit. We recommend practicing with a work no more than two or three times—it’s great to know a text inside and out, but you don’t want to be a one-trick pony in case the prompt on the exam doesn’t lend itself to an essay about that text.

3. Outline, outline, outline!

Whether for AP exams , the SAT , or the ACT , you’ve heard the dictum a million times—outlines make better essays, even when your time feels extremely limited! When it’s time for the test, this can feel a little bit trite, but we challenge you to find one soul in the grand history of the AP English Literature exam who hasn’t benefited from creating even a rough outline. This is the place where your reasoning and organization come alive. We recommend devoting 5-7 minutes to your outline—the lower end if you’re confident you know the text inside and out and just need to nail down your claims and evidence, and the higher end if you need to jog your memory and give your thesis a bit more time to gestate.

What should your outline include? Keep it clear and concise. You definitely want to write your thesis; plan the topics of your body paragraphs, including potential topic sentences; and—a helpful, oft-forgotten third part—remind yourself why the work you’ve chosen is the best for the prompt. This last part won’t be formally integrated into your essay, but it’s extremely helpful as you try to stay focused and pointed while writing what can feel like an impossible broad essay.

4. Each paragraph is a new opportunity to be creative

The third free-response prompt, and the AP Lit exam in general, is extremely structured. It can feel downright constricting. The little-known truth about the last essay is that it’s the most creative part of the whole exam. You not only get to choose the prompt, but within the roughly five-paragraph structure of the essay you’re penning, you get to be quite creative with what you say in each paragraph. There are so many ways to explain to your readers how, say, a symbol illuminates an important theme in a text. We find this knowledge incredibly liberating; paired wisely with the organization that the outline and the essay require, this creative approach can lead to a top-notch essay.

5. Proofread, but not just for the sake of proofreading.

We’ve all been there—time is nearly up, you’ve put the period at the end of your conclusion, and now it’s time to make sure you haven’t written an incoherent jumble of nothingness. This is the last, crucial step before handing in your AP Lit exam and never reading again (just kidding!)

Because you’re so exhausted from hours of test-taking, proofreading your third free-response essay can feel like a chore—a hurdle you have to jump to reach the finish line. But it can also be an opportunity to make sure your argument, your analysis, and your claims and evidence are coherent . We don’t mean that you should restructure your thesis—there isn’t time for that, and we’re sure it’s great, anyway!—but we encourage you to make sure that every sentence is as clear, concise, and (reasonably) creative as possible. Proofreading is the time to read every sentence with a fundamental question in the back of your head: What is this sentence doing, and what are the words that form it doing? If something feels like it’s not pulling its weight, don’t hesitate—change or delete it. Now that you’ve nailed the bigger picture, you must demand only the best from the details.

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Seeking sophistication (in an ap lit essay).

Susan’s note: This post is written by  Adrian Nester   who put some thoughts on paper after the pilot reading. I have added a few ideas which are in italics and a teaching point for each path. Before launching into this, I want this sophisticated point (haha) to guide your approach to Row C in the classroom:  Do not worry   about the sophistication point.  Whether they get it or not is a non-issue to me. Of course I want them to do well on the exam and want to prepare them as best as I can, but I will not let myself stress out about it. Nor should you. Teach your students to write essays that explore tensions and complexities within a text, interpret a text within broader contexts, accounts for alternative interpretations, and uses a vivid and persuasive style. If we are teaching these things, our students will not only be prepared for the exam but will more importantly be prepared for future academic writing. My apologies – this was more than one point ;  this is pretty much like a day in my class.

(This post was originally published on APLitHelp.com in February of 2020).

The sophistication point…ah, the pesky sophistication point…do teachers even need to worry about it? Are only the best writers going to get this point? Is trying to teach sophisticated writing a futile effort? Well, honestly, who knows how many sophistication points will be earned on the exam in May, but there do seem to be several entry points to understanding the sophistication point a little more. 

One thing is for sure, to receive the sophistication point, the students have to fully do the work for the reader. It would be hard to get the sophistication point if a writer starts with one thesis and then has a shift in focus to another thesis/claim. This could be an example of the 1-4-0 type of score.

There are four enumerated ways to earn the sophistication point. 

1.  Identifying and exploring complexities or tensions within the poem/passage. 

Paradox, juxtaposition, and irony all seem to be possible vehicles to seeing complexities and tensions in a work. If a student is able to find one of the tensions in a work and fully unpack it they could be on their way to the sophistication point. 

Teachers may want to scaffold students to seeing more complexities and tensions in a work by asking: How does the title/epigraph/last line/shift/etc. complicate the meaning of the text?

This path is the one I struggle with on the sophistication point because a prompt typically asks students to address the complexities within the text. So if students are fully doing this to answer the prompt, does that not fulfill the complexity point? I’ve really got nothing on this path to sophistication and am eager to see more examples of this path at the reading this summer. (I may be wrong because the pilot reading was so fast, but I don’t think I saw any samples for sophistication for this path but am very likely wrong about this). 

Even though we were REPEATEDLY told to go back to the rubric to justify our decisions which we were all very committed to doing, I think this is the type of analysis that when I read it, I want to tell that student, “Just keep doing this and I’m going to stay out of your way.” Or maybe I should say, “ Would you like to teach me how to write?”

My advice may be frustrating for you: look at the samples on  the exam page . that were awarded the sophistication point for exploring complexities and tensions.

• Question 1 – Sample J
• Question 2 – Sample E maybe (wording on this is unclear)
• Question 3 – Sample I
• Question 1 – Sample HH, Sample OO
• Question 2 – Sample GG
• Question 3 – Sample DD, Sample J

Teaching Point: Encourage students to use transitions such as: however, even though, consequently, at the same time, nevertheless, alternatively, in contrast, etc. These words position students to explore complexities and tensions within a passion.

2.  Illuminating the student’s interpretation by situating it within a broader content.

A broad sweeping cliche dropped in at the beginning of a response, such as “since the beginning of time,” is not going to do it here. Random historical references also go in this category. Just because a poem was published in (insert significant historical year) does not necessarily mean that placing it in this historical broader context will work. The context has to “fit”. 

The context must work “in service to” the student’s argument that is developed and sustained throughout. 

The main point about the next three pathways (all of the pathways really) is the additional note at the bottom of the rubric. It reads: “This point should be awarded only if the sophistication of thought or complex understanding is part of the student’s argument, not merely a phrase or reference.” The broader context, alternative interpretations, and vivid and persuasive writing is  part of the student’s argument  (emphasis mine) and not two or three sentences sprinkled throughout or do not advance the argument. 

My students recently wrote on  Under the Feet of Jesus, and I awarded the sophistication point to Sample CC  below. I’ve highlighted the parts of the essay which I thought aided this student getting the point. 

Under the Feet of Jesus  sample –  sophistication with broader context

Teaching Point: Applying different lens from literary criticism is a good way for students to begin to explore works within a broader context.

3 . Accounting for alternative interpretations of the poem. 

Not staking a claim (“The poem could mean this…or maybe that…”) is not the same as accounting for alternative interpretations. 

Well done alternative interpretations will often use conditional language that acknowledges other interpretations while continuing to make a stand. This could sound something like “Some people may see The Landlady as _____________; however, ____________.” or “Perhaps the unnamed landlady __________________.”

There are many rooms in the house of right, but there are some definite wrongs. If an interpretation can be defended with multiple examples throughout the text, it’s most likely valid. If an interpretation is based on a “feeling” that can’t be supported in the text or an interpretation based on one phrase in the text, it’s most likely  garbage  not valid.

Teaching Point: Silent discussions are a great way for students to explore other students’ thoughts and interpretations of a text.

4. Employing a style that is consistently vivid and persuasive. 

Well, you are on your own teaching this…but I think I know for sure that just using the word “titular” one time in the opening paragraph is not going to do it. (Please don’t take this off your SAT prep list, but readers grew amused at just how many students used this on “The Landlady” as well as so many Q3 responses.)

‘Consistently’ really seems to be a keyword in this point.

These essays are few and far between, and when I read them, I am always amazed at what a student can do on a cold read in 40 minutes. See Sample AA from Under the Feet of Jesus below where I awarded the sophistication point for vivid and persuasive writing.  

Teaching Point: Have students experiment with using figurative language in their writing; this when used consistently – in my humble opinion – makes for vivid writing.

Under the Feet of Jesus  sample –  sophistication through vivid and persuasive writing

At six-years-old  Adrian Nester’s  oldest son was asked to describe what she likes to do for a Mother’s Day project. His response: drink water and grade papers and both of these things are true. Adrian has just completed her 16th year as an educator, but instead of doing the “same-old-thing”, she is ready to throw out the playbook. While Adrian is not drinking water and grading papers, she enjoys traveling, spending time with her family, reading, and playing sports. Read more about Adrian’s journey on her blog  The Learning Curve.

Susan Barber  teaches at Grady High School in Atlanta, Georgia. In addition to reading, writing, and investing in the next generation, she loves watching college football with her family especially when Alabama is playing.

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Ultimate Guide to the AP English Literature and Composition Exam

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The English Literature and Composition exam is one of the most popular AP exams among self-studiers and enrolled students alike. In 2019, a total of 380,136 students took the AP Literature exam, making it the third most favored AP exam, trailing only English Language and U.S. History in popularity. If you are interested in taking the AP Literature exam—and are taking a class or self-studying—read on for a breakdown of the test and CollegeVine’s advice for how to best prepare for it.

When is the AP Literature Exam?

2020’s AP English Literature and Composition exam day is Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 8 AM. Check out our blog 2020 AP Exam Schedule: Everything You Need to Know to learn more about this year’s AP exam dates and times. 

What Does the AP Literature Exam Cover?

The AP Literature course engages students in careful reading and critical analysis of fictional literature, leading to a deeper understanding of the ways in which writers provide both meaning and pleasure to their readers—considering structure, style, theme, and smaller-scale elements such as figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone. 

Although there is no required reading list, the College Board formerly provided a list of prospective authors in its past AP Literature course description. Regardless of which specific titles are read in preparation for the exam, students should be familiar with works from both British and American authors written from the 16th century to the present. Ten of the commonly studied works in AP Literature courses are:

• Great Expectations , Charles Dickens 
• Invisible Man , Ralph Ellison
• Beloved , Toni Morrison 
• King Lear , William Shakespeare 
• Heart of Darkness , Joseph Conrad 
• The Portrait of a Lady , Henry James 
• Wuthering Heights , Emily Bronte 
• Their Eyes Were Watching God , Zora Neale Hurston 
• To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee 
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , James Joyce 

How Long is the AP Literature Exam? What is the Format?

The AP Literature exam is one of the longer AP exams, clocking in at 3 hours. It is comprised of two sections. 

Section 1: Multiple Choice

1 hour | 45 Questions | 45% of Score

The first section of the AP Literature exam is one hour long and consists of 45 multiple-choice questions—23-25 Reading questions and 20-22 Writing questions. The multiple-choice questions are grouped in five sets of questions, with each set linked to a passage of prose fiction or poetry that contains between 8 and 13 questions. Students receive two sets of questions about both prose fiction and poetry, with the fifth set varying between prose fiction and poetry. The function of the multiple choice section is to assess a student’s ability to: 

1. Understand and interpret word choice, comparisons, and figurative language

This is one of the most common questions types on the AP Lit exam. Students are frequently asked to infer the meaning of certain words and phrases, and how they impact the rest of the passage. You will also be asked to identify and interpret figurative language.

Source: The College Board

2. Understand the theme of the poem or passage

You should be able to summarize and articulate what the excerpt is about and what sort of message it conveys.

3. Paraphrase or reformulate selected lines from the passage

Students are tested on their reading comprehension by being asked to select the reformulated response that most closely aligns with the original excerpt.

4. Explain the function of…

• The narrator or speaker: Know how a narrator’s or speaker’s perspective controls the details and emphases that affect how readers experience and interpret a text.

• Characters : Grasp how characters allow the reader to explore values, beliefs, assumptions, biases, and cultural norms.

• The plot and structure : Understand what the author conveys by the arrangement of the sections of text, their relationship to each other, and sequence, along with how the reader’s interpretation of the text is affected by these choices.

• Symbols and motifs : Describe the purpose of symbols and motifs and how they contribute to the meaning of the passage.

5. Identify parts of speech, verse forms, and meters

You’ll occasionally need more technical knowledge of parts of speech (adjective, adverb, etc.) and verse forms (blank verse, free verse, sonnet, etc.). You should also have a basic knowledge of poetic meter (iambic pentameter, trochaic tetrameter, etc).

Section 2: Free Response

2 hours 15 minutes | 3 questions | 55% of Score

The second section of the AP Literature exam is two hours (plus a 15-minute reading period) and contains three free response questions. These prompts test three core abilities:

• A literary analysis of a poem
• A literary analysis of a piece of prose fiction (this may include drama) 
• An analysis that examines a specific concept, issue, or element in a meritorious literary work selected by the student. 

The free response essays are graded by college and AP Lit teachers following a standardized rubric.

Below are 3 example free response questions from 2019’s AP Literature Exam: 

1. “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.”

2. “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.”

AP Literature Exam Score Distribution, Average Score, and Passing Rate

The AP Literature exam is extremely challenging, with less than half (49.7%) of students achieving a passing score of 3 or higher. The average student score is 2.62—only Physics (2.51) and Human Geography (2.55) have lower average scores. If you’re curious about other score distributions, see our post Easiest and Hardest AP Exams .

Best Ways to Study for the AP Literature Exam

One of the first steps you should take when preparing for the AP Literature exam is to look at its full course description . This will help guide your studying and understanding of the knowledge required for the AP Literature exam. Below are a few more steps you can take to ace the AP Literature exam. 

Step 1: Assess Your Skills

Practice Questions and Tests: Take a practice test to assess your initial knowledge. The College Board’s AP English Literature Course and Exam Description offers some sample multiple-choice questions, and the College Board also provides six sample AP Lit free-response questions with scoring commentaries . Older versions of the AP English Literature exam are also available; you can find a copy of the 2012 AP Lit exam and the 1999 AP Lit exam . Search around the web and you’ll likely turn up even more practice exams with answers keys —some will even have explanations of the questions. You’ll also find practice tests in many of the official study guides, and some even include a diagnostic test to act as your initial assessment.

Identify Areas in Need of Improvement: Once you have taken some kind of formative assessment, score it to identify your areas of strength and areas in need of improvement. It can be helpful to have a friend (or even better, a teacher) score your free-response essays, since they are more subjective than the multiple-choice section. With an accurate formative assessment, you’ll have a better idea of where to focus your studying efforts.

Step 2: Know Your Material

In the case of the AP Literature exam, this means focusing on your reading and writing skills.

Become an Active Reader: When reading, take care to go slowly and reread important or complex sections. Pause often to consider meaning, context, and intent. Become an active reader, underlining and taking notes as you go. Remember that the importance of the text comes not only from the author, but also from how the text affects you, the reader. Pay attention to how you feel and why you feel that way. Visit the College Board’s Reading Study Skills for more information.         

Write Frequently: Prepare for the writing section of your exam by writing frequently. According to the College Board, the goal is to become a “practiced, logical, clear, and honest” writer through the writing process. This means that you will plan, draft, review, redraft, edit, and polish your writing again and again. To be a successful writer on your exam, you will need to organize your ideas ahead of time, use your text wisely to support a clearly stated thesis, and provide a logical argument. Finally, you should pay close attention to your use of grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure. Visit the College Board’s Writing Study Skills for more information. 

Get Expert Advice: For more specific guidance about test preparation, consider using a formal study guide. One good choice is Barron’s AP English Literature and Composition, 6th Edition . This study guide contains a review of test topics covering details test takers need to know about poetry, fiction, and drama, and includes five full-length practice tests. Some users do criticize it for providing few examples of scored student essays, but plenty of those are available on the College Board scoring examples page . 

The Princeton Review’s Cracking the AP English Language & Composition Exam, 2020 Edition: Proven Techniques to Help You Score a 5 is another solid choice containing a summary of test strategies and a focused review of course content. 

Alternatively, there are many online study resources available. Some AP teachers have even published their own study guides or review sheets online. You can find one such guide here .

Consider using an app to study: A convenient way to study is to use one of the recently-developed apps for AP exams. These can be free or cost a small fee, and they provide an easy way to quiz yourself on-the-go. Make sure you read reviews before choosing one—their quality varies widely. One that does receive good reviews is the McGraw Hill 5 which also saves you some money by covering 14 different AP subjects.      

Step 3: Practice Multiple-Choice Questions

Once you have your theory down, test it out by practicing multiple-choice questions. You can find these in most study guides or through online searches. There are some available in the College Board’s course description.

Try to keep track of which concept areas are still tripping you up, and go back over this theory again. Keep in mind that the key to answering questions correctly is understanding the passage, so practice active reading skills as you’re tackling the multiple-choice questions. This includes underlining, mouthing words, and circling key points. Remember, the answer will always be found in the text, and often the question will tell you exactly where in the text to look for it.

Step 4: Practice Free-Response Essays

Focus on Writing Skills: Use a rich vocabulary, varied sentence structure, and logical progression of ideas. Make sure that your words flow easily from one to the next. According to the College Board’s scoring criteria , writing that suffers from grammatical and/or mechanical errors that interfere with communication cannot earn a the maximum score of a 6, no matter how strong your thesis, compelling your argument, or convincing your evidence is.  

Cultivate Cohesive Writing: You should also strive to write a thoughtful and persuasive analysis of the literature. Begin by writing a quick outline to structure your piece. Make sure that your introduction leads to a clearly stated thesis and use supporting paragraphs to build this argument. Use quotes judiciously in your answers and focus on writing with sophistication and clarity.

Practice, Practice, Practice: The best way to prepare for these free-response questions is through repeated exercises analyzing short prose passages and poems, and through practicing with open analytical questions. 

Understand Scoring: As you prepare for the writing portion of your exam, be sure to review how your free responses will be scored. Each free-response essay is graded on a scale from 0 to 6 with points awarded for three elements: Thesis (0-1 point), Evidence and Commentary (0-4 points), and Sophistication (0-1 point). A comprehensive explanation of the College Board’s scoring rubric is found on their website.  

Study the free-response questions and scored student responses with written explanations provided by the College Board . The most effective way to use these is to read and respond to the prompts first, then review the student samples and scoring explanations. Use this feedback to practice another prompt and repeat the cycle until you are confident that your responses are as strong as the top scorers’. 

Step 5: Take Another Practice Test

As you did at the beginning of your studying, take a practice test to see which areas you’ve improved in and which still require practice.

If you have time, repeat each of the steps above to incrementally increase your score.

Step 6: Exam Day Specifics

If you’re taking the AP course associated with this exam, your teacher will walk you through how to register. If you’re self-studying, check out CollegeVine’s How to Self-Register for AP Exams .

For information about what to bring to the exam, see CollegeVine’s What Should I Bring to My AP Exam (And What Should I Definitely Leave at Home)?

CollegeVine can’t predict how you’ll score on your AP Literature exam, but we can help take the guesswork out of college admissions. Our free chancing engine uses a data-driven algorithm taking into consideration criteria such as GPA, standardized test scores, and extracurricular activities to tell you your odds of acceptance at over 500 colleges and universities.

Check out these other Collegevine articles for more information about AP exams. 

• 2020 AP Exam Schedule
• How Long is Each AP Exam?

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I want to check out some high-scoring essay examples to review for my upcoming AP Lit Exam. Where can I find these, and what should I focus on when analyzing them? Thanks!

You can find high-scoring essay examples for the AP Lit Exam on the College Board website. They provide samples of student responses along with the corresponding scores and commentary. Navigate to the year you want, and you'll find samples with detailed explanations. Here's the link to their resources: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition/exam/past-exam-questions

When analyzing these essays, focus on the following:

1. Thesis statement: Pay attention to how successful essays present a clear and concise thesis statement. The thesis should concisely answer the prompt and give a roadmap for the essay.

2. Organization: Study how the essay is organized and how the writer effectively uses transitions to guide the reader through their analysis. A well-structured essay should have a logical flow and strong topic sentences.

3. Textual evidence: Notice how high-scoring essays incorporate relevant textual evidence to support their arguments. Look for instances where the writer provides a direct quote or paraphrases the text and clearly connects it back to their main argument.

4. Commentary: Analyze how the writer provides thoughtful and thorough commentary. The commentary should interpret the textual evidence and demonstrate its relevance to the argument. It should also address any potential counterarguments or alternate interpretations.

5. Style and language: Finally, consider the writer's use of language, tone, and rhetorical devices. A strong essay will have varied sentence structure, formal diction, and demonstrate a command of literary terms and techniques.

By closely examining these elements in high-scoring essays, you can gain insight into what makes an effective response and how to approach the AP Lit Exam. Practice writing your own essays using similar techniques, and don't forget to have a peer or mentor review them to provide feedback. Good luck!

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Expert's Guide to the AP Literature Exam

AP English Literature: Exam Format and Question Types

The AP English Literature and Composition exam is designed to test students' understanding and analysis of literary works. It consists of two main sections: multiple-choice and free-response. Understanding the exam format and question types is crucial for success. 

1. Multiple-Choice Section:

   - Format: 55 questions with four or five answer choices.

   - Time: 60 minutes.

   - Content: Passage-based questions that assess comprehension, interpretation, and analysis of literary texts.

   - Question Types: These include identifying literary devices, analyzing the author's tone, understanding the meaning of words in context, and interpreting the overall purpose and structure of a passage.

2. Free-Response Section:

   - Format: Three essay prompts.

   - Time: 120 minutes.

   - Question Types:

     a. Poetry Analysis Essay: Students analyze a poem and discuss its poetic techniques, theme, and meaning.

     b. Prose Analysis Essay: Students analyze a prose passage, focusing on its style, tone, and literary devices.

     c. Open-Ended Essay: Students choose a novel or play and respond to a prompt by developing a thesis and supporting it with evidence and analysis.

Key Tips for Success:

1. Read and annotate the texts carefully to understand the nuances and literary devices used.

2. Practice close reading to develop a deep understanding of the passages.

3. Review literary terms and techniques commonly used in literature.

4. Develop strong essay writing skills by structuring your responses with clear introductions, well-supported arguments, and insightful analysis.

5. Manage your time effectively during the exam to allocate enough time for each question.

6. Practice with past exams and sample questions to become familiar with the exam format and timing.

By understanding the exam format and question types, and employing effective strategies, students can confidently approach the AP English Literature exam and demonstrate their analytical skills and understanding of literary works.

How Is the AP Literature Test Graded?

The AP Literature and Composition exam is graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest score. The scoring process involves multiple steps to ensure fairness and consistency in evaluating students' performance. Here's an overview of how the AP Literature test is graded:

   - Raw Score: The number of correct answers is counted, and there is no penalty for incorrect responses.

   - Conversion to Scaled Score: The raw score is converted to a scaled score ranging from 1 to 45. This score is then weighted and combined with the free-response section score to determine the overall exam score.

   - Essay Scores: Each essay is scored on a 0 to 6 scale by trained AP readers. These readers are experienced English teachers and college professors who follow a detailed rubric provided by the College Board.

   - Scoring Rubric: The rubric assesses students' ability to understand the prompt, analyze the text, develop a thesis, provide supporting evidence, and demonstrate strong writing skills.

   - Holistic Approach: AP readers consider the overall quality of the essay, including its coherence, organization, use of evidence, and insightfulness.

   - Final Scores: The scores from the three essays are added together to give a total essay score ranging from 0 to 18.

3. Composite Score:

   - Weighting: The multiple-choice section and the essay section are weighted to calculate the final composite score.

   - Composite Score Calculation: The multiple-choice score is converted to a scaled score on a 1 to 45 scale. This score is combined with the essay score on a 0 to 18 scale, with the essay score weighted more heavily.

   - Conversion to AP Grade: The composite score is converted to the final AP grade on a scale of 1 to 5.

The exact cutoffs for each AP grade may vary from year to year, depending on the performance of students across the country. Generally, a score of 3 is considered a passing grade, while scores of 4 and 5 indicate higher levels of mastery and may result in college credit or advanced placement.

It's important to note that the grading process for the AP Literature exam is rigorous and aims to maintain consistency and fairness. The College Board takes several measures to ensure accurate and reliable scoring, including extensive training for AP readers and a robust quality assurance process.

Understanding how the AP Literature test is graded can help students prepare effectively and focus on developing the necessary skills to excel in both the multiple-choice and free-response sections.

Skill-Building for Success on the AP Literature Exam

To achieve success on the AP Literature exam, it is crucial to develop and refine certain skills that will enhance your ability to analyze and interpret literary texts effectively. Here are some key skill-building strategies to help you prepare for the AP Literature exam:

1. Close Reading: Practice close reading of literary texts to develop a deep understanding of the author's purpose, themes, and literary techniques. Pay attention to details, symbolism, imagery, and figurative language. Take notes and annotate the text to capture your observations and interpretations.

2. Literary Analysis: Enhance your ability to analyze and interpret literary works. Focus on identifying and discussing literary elements such as plot, character development, setting, point of view, symbolism, and themes. Practice analyzing how these elements contribute to the overall meaning and impact of the text.

3. Essay Writing: Master the art of writing strong, well-structured essays. Familiarize yourself with the three essay prompts in the free-response section: the poetry analysis essay, the prose analysis essay, and the open-ended essay. Practice developing clear and concise thesis statements, providing textual evidence to support your arguments, and organizing your essay effectively.

4. Time Management: Develop effective time management skills to ensure you can complete all sections of the exam within the allocated time. Practice timed essay writing to improve your ability to plan, write, and revise your essays under time constraints. Use practice exams to simulate the actual testing conditions and become comfortable with the time limits.

5. Vocabulary Expansion: Build a strong vocabulary to enhance your comprehension and analysis of complex texts. Read widely, including classic literature and contemporary works, to expose yourself to various writing styles, themes, and vocabulary. Learn new words, their meanings, and how to use them appropriately in your writing.

6. Exam Strategies: Familiarize yourself with the exam format, question types, and scoring rubrics. Review sample questions and essay prompts from past exams to understand the expectations and requirements. Practice answering multiple-choice questions strategically by eliminating incorrect options and making educated guesses when necessary.

7. Practice and Review: Regularly practice with sample questions, timed exams, and essay prompts. Seek feedback from teachers or peers on your essays to identify areas for improvement. Review your mistakes and focus on strengthening your weak areas. Use study guides, review books, and online resources to reinforce your understanding of key literary concepts.

8. Reading Widely: Read a diverse range of literature, including novels, plays, poetry, and non-fiction. Engage with different genres, time periods, and cultural perspectives. This will expand your literary knowledge, expose you to various writing styles, and help you make connections across texts.

Remember, consistent practice and focused skill-building are essential for success on the AP Literature exam. Develop a study plan that incorporates these strategies, and dedicate regular time to practice, review, and refine your skills. With preparation and a solid foundation in literary analysis, you can approach the exam with confidence and achieve a strong performance.

AP Literature: 6 Critical Test-Day Tips

Preparing for the AP Literature exam is essential, but it's equally important to have effective strategies for test day. Here are six critical tips to help you perform your best on the AP Literature exam:

1. Read the Instructions Carefully: Before diving into the exam, take a moment to read and understand the instructions for each section. Pay attention to any specific guidelines or requirements, such as the number of questions to answer or the time allotted for each section. Familiarize yourself with the scoring rubrics to know how your responses will be evaluated.

2. Pace Yourself: Time management is crucial during the exam. Allocate your time wisely to ensure you have enough time to answer all the questions. Plan your approach for each section and stick to your allocated time. For example, in the multiple-choice section, aim to answer each question within one minute to allow time for review.

3. Analyze Prompts and Questions: Take the time to carefully analyze the prompts and questions before answering. Understand what each question is asking for and how it relates to the given texts. Highlight keywords and key phrases to ensure you stay focused on addressing the specific requirements of each question. Pay attention to directive words like "analyze," "compare," or "evaluate" to guide your response.

4. Organize Your Essay: In the essay sections, it's crucial to have a clear and well-organized structure. Start with a concise and strong thesis statement that directly addresses the prompt. Use topic sentences to introduce each paragraph and ensure a logical flow of ideas. Support your arguments with evidence from the texts, and provide insightful analysis to demonstrate your understanding.

5. Engage with Texts: Show a deep engagement with the literary texts in your responses. Use specific examples and quotations from the texts to support your analysis. Referencing key scenes, dialogues, or literary devices demonstrates a thorough understanding of the texts and enhances the strength of your arguments. Avoid vague or general statements and focus on precise textual evidence.

6. Review and Revise: Before submitting your responses, take a few minutes to review and revise your work. Check for any grammatical or spelling errors and ensure your writing is clear and concise. Verify that you have addressed all parts of the question and that your arguments are well-supported. If time allows, read your essays aloud to catch any awkward phrasing or unclear ideas.

Remember, practice is key to success on the AP Literature exam. Familiarize yourself with the exam format, practice with sample questions and essays, and seek feedback on your writing. Develop a study schedule that allows you to build your skills and knowledge over time. By following these critical test-day tips and remaining calm and focused, you can approach the AP Literature exam with confidence and maximize your chances of achieving a high score.

In conclusion, the AP Literature exam requires a combination of critical reading skills, strong analytical thinking, and effective writing abilities. By understanding the exam format and question types, knowing how the test is graded, and building essential skills, you can set yourself up for success. Additionally, following critical test-day tips, such as managing your time, carefully analyzing prompts, organizing your essays, engaging with the texts, and reviewing your work, will help you perform your best on the exam. With diligent preparation and practice, you can approach the AP Literature exam with confidence and increase your likelihood of achieving a favorable score.

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October 4, 2020 ·

Discussing Complexity in AP Lit

Prose Analysis Lessons & Resources

One of the most common words in AP* Lit essay prompts is “complex,” usually paired with the word “relationship.” When we prepare for writing our first FRQs, I tell my students that the word “complex” is the most important word in the prompt. But when asked what complexity means, my students are often confused. Some interpret complex writing to simply be advanced or “fancy-sounding.” Others think it has to do with the inclusion of literary elements. However, there’s one simple way to help your students understand complexity and score high on an essay.

Complexity simply means pairing two things in your analysis.

* AP® is a trademark registered by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, this website .

How it Looks in Writing

For example, take a look at the first paragraph from this released essay from the 2020 exam, which scored a 1-4-1 (a perfect score).

In this paragraph, we see the student’s claim. He or she says that the narrator, Philip Hutton, is experiencing anger and resentment as well as peace and reconciliation. This is a complex argument! This blending of different emotions makes it unique and complicated, thus the complex attitude that College Board is looking for.

So How Do I Teach Complexity To My Students?

Once you’ve grasped the concept of complexity, your students will probably still need practice in making complex claims. I recently attempted this with my AP ® class in our discussion of Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing.”

First, I asked students to analyze the narrator’s attitude towards motherhood. After a lengthy discussion, I asked them to shout out any word they could use to describe or associate with the mother from “I Stand Here Ironing.” Then, we talked about how a complex argument would say the mother felt a sense of both guilt and pride. Or we could talk about how she shows feelings of inadequacy but also a lack of regret for her daughter’s trauma. Another wanted to talk about she seems helpless and defensive at times, but proud and assertive at others. What complex arguments!

Other Ideas for Complexity

If you’re looking for more ways to discuss complexity with your students, consider analyzing non-literary texts, such as music, movies, or art. Here are some ideas I came up with, but I’m sure there are plenty of other and better options out there too!

One of my favorite songs of the moment is “If the World Was Ending” by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels. As a mother of three kids, I don’t get to drive alone very often. However, when I do, this is one I love to jam out to.

The lyrics of this song are very relatable and easy for teenagers to understand. Essentially, both singers in the song express understanding that the other isn’t a good fit for a relationship. However, a physical desire remains. The chorus of the song is, “If the world was ending you’d come over, right?” The singers end almost every question like this with the word, “right,” showing their hesitancy and fear of looking vulnerable. I love the complexity in these lyrics. They capture the mixed emotions of desire and fear of looking vulnerable, which is one of the most relatable complex feelings.

Another example of complexity, and possibly interpretation, comes from both an art piece and a movie. One of my favorite movies is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off . In one scene from that movie, Cameron looks into this famous painting while Ferris and his girlfriend make out. The message is clearly on introspection and peace, until the camera begins a gradual zoom-in on Cameron and a figure in the painting.

As the camera zooms closer into Cameron, it also zooms closer into the child in the center of the painting. If you get extremely close, it looks as though the child is screaming, presenting a new perspective to the painting. Is it simply a trick of the pointillism used in the art? Or is it a complex perspective behind the painting, that a peaceful afternoon in the park cannot be interrupted by the distraction of your screaming child? Cameron’s backstory in the movie adds to this complexity, as Cameron, too, is silently screaming throughout his whole existence.

I had a hard time picking a clip to show complexity from movies. In the end, I like this one from Jordan Peele’s Get Out , a brilliant thriller. In this scene, Chris has traveled to his girlfriend’s parents’ house for the first time. Upon meeting his girlfriends’s parents and their friends, race becomes an uncomfortable barrier between Chris and almost every other character. Things move from awkward to spooky when the few other African American characters behave strangely towards Chris, almost as if they’re struggling to say something they cannot.

In this clip, Chris depicts his complex feelings of both fear and intrigue when he talks to the housekeeper. For context, the housekeeper is inhabited by another person’s brain, which has taken over her entire personality. She gravitates towards Chris because her original body, or host, is trying to find a way to warn him that his girlfriend’s family wants to lobotomize him and do the same thing to him. Chris is completely creeped out by this woman’s strange behavior, but her eerie desperation seeps out through her fake smile. Her depiction is complex, as is Chris’ curiosity and revulsion.

More on Teaching Complexity in AP Lit

Looking for more lesson plans and strategies for teaching complexity? Check out these other web pages for more information! You can also learn more about complexity, making claims, and the elusive sophistication point in my AP ® Lit Test Prep materials , available for purchase from Teachers Pay Teachers.

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AP® English Literature

15 must know rhetorical terms for ap® english literature.

• The Albert Team
• Last Updated On: March 1, 2022

Conquering the multiple-choice section of the English Literature AP® exam depends in part on being able to identify and understand certain essential literary concepts, known in this article as rhetorical terms. The AP® English Literature rhetorical terms defined and described below are only a sampling of the many concepts that could appear on the test. However, these 15 terms are some of the must-know concepts necessary for success in the English Literature exam.

Studying These Terms

I personally found writing the words and their definitions over and over again, an approach known as inculcation, to be the best way for me to master this vocabulary before I took the AP® English Literature exam. When facing a large vocabulary list such as this one, it’s easy to look at and consider it as a whole, a practice that creates a lot of unnecessary stress.

Compartmentalization is a very useful study skill we can employ in exploring AP® English Literature rhetorical terms. Try not to consider the list as a whole. Try to think of these terms as independent parts that must be placed in different compartments so that they can be easily called up when they’re needed. You’ll know exactly where to find them when you need them if you study them in parts. Consider the 15 rhetorical terms below the first set of words for you to study.

AP® English Literature Rhetorical Terms

1. alliteration.

The repetition of the same initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables in any sequence of neighboring words

Purpose: Alliteration highlights a particular part of a piece through the repetition of initial consonants. The repetition of certain sounds creates emphasizes not only the words in the passage themselves but on the pattern, creating a musical effect.

Example: American Airlines, Best Buy, Coca-Cola

2. Allusion

An indirect or passing reference to an event, person, place, or artistic work

Purpose: Allusion allows the audience to connect the characteristics of one object/concept to another. More often than not, an allusion in a literary work refers to some feature of another, previous literary work.

Example: One everyday example of an allusion is “This place is a Garden of Eden.” Literally, the place probably isn’t evocative of the biblical Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis, but the intended meaning is that the setting is a paradise.

Comparing two things or instances in time often based on their structure and used to explain a complex idea in simpler terms

Purpose: Analogies are typically used to clarify or explain an author’s idea to the reader by likening a new idea to an older, better known one. They typically appear as similes that allow the reader to more easily understand the author’s meaning. It’s important for the reader to be able to understand or able to infer using context clues the meaning of the comparison.

Example: An everyday example of an analogy that appears as a simile is “nails on a chalkboard.” Readers understand the assaulting sound of nails on a chalkboard and are encouraged to liken it to some new occurrence that is assaulting or annoying.

4. Antithesis

A device used to create contrast by placing two parallel but opposite ideas in a sentence

Purpose: Antithesis literally means opposite, but the rhetorical definition calls for parallel structures of contrasting words or clauses. These opposing words or clauses are placed in close proximity within a sentence in order to create a focal point for the reader.

Example: A well-known example of antithesis is “Speech is silver, but silence is gold.” The two opposites, speech and silence, are compared to one another by using the stratified value of silver and gold.

5. Consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds two or more times in short succession within a sentence or phrase

Purpose: Consonance is, again, a device used by writers in order to create focus on a particular part of a piece. In many cases, consonance appears in poetry as a device used to create slant rhymes.

Example: An easy way to think of consonance is to remember tongue twisters like “She sells sea shells down by the sea shore.”

Refers to the author’s word choice

Purpose: Diction is the umbrella term used to identify an author’s choice of words. This is important to define because understanding diction allows the reader to identify other concepts like the tone of a piece, the intended audience, or even the era in which the piece was written.

Example: Examples of diction are present throughout whatever piece you’re reading. Notice repetitive words, phrases, and thoughts. Consider the lofty or lowly word choice such as the formal “ye” versus the informal “you.”

7. Ellipsis

When one or more words are omitted from a sentence

Purpose: Often, ellipsis is used to omit some parts of a sentence or even an entire story, forcing the reader to figuratively fill in the gaps. This heavily depends on the reader being not only invested but also immersed in the story enough to care about what happens during those gaps.

Example: A good example of ellipsis is “I went to the park, and she went too.” The reader can infer that she also went to the park, though “to the park” is omitted from the second clause.

A characteristic spirit of a given culture, era, or community or its beliefs; Ethos, in purely rhetorical terms, is a label used to identify an appeal to the ethics of a culture or individual

Purpose: The purpose of an appeal to ethos, an ethical appeal, is to establish the speaker’s credibility through exposition of that speaker’s character. Identifying an ethical appeal will be of particular use to readers when analyzing the work of the ancients.

Example: Consider the overlap between diction and appeal. The author’s word choice can tip the reader off that an ethical appeal is being made.

9. Hyperbole

An intentionally exaggerated statement or claim not meant to be taken literally but creating a desired humorous effect

Purpose: A hyperbole involves exaggeration in order to create emphasis. Unlike other figurative language devices, hyperbole creates emphasis through the humorous effect that is created by the author’s overstatement.

Example: One of the best examples is the phrase “I’m dying to…” One is literally not dying to see someone or do something, but the exaggeration intends to show affection or intense longing while maintaining a humorous tone.

10. Imagery

Visually descriptive or figurative language

Purpose: Imagery is used to characterize objects, actions, and ideas in a way that appeals to our physical senses. The true purpose of imagery is to create a visual imagination of the scenarios or things being described.

Example: Again, consider the diction of the piece. Imagery is created by the writer’s choice of words. Evocative words that arouse the senses—touch, sight, smell, etc.—are indicators of imagery at work.

The expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite of what the writer intends to achieve a humorous effect or to add emphasis.

Purpose: A writer utilizes irony to show that the words they use do not necessarily represent their intended meaning. Further, irony can be manifest as a situation that does not pan out the way that the audience, speaker, or characters believe it will.

Example: A common example of irony is the nickname “Tiny” for a large man. We know and see that a large man is not, in fact, tiny, yet we employ the nickname ironically.

12. Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction

Purpose: An oxymoron is a juxtaposition of two opposing words with the intended effect of creating emphasis through the nonsensical nature of this device. Oxymoron is used to characterize conflicting emotions, thoughts, or occurrences.

Example: An easy example of oxymoron is a two-word, adjective and noun construction such as original copy

A quality that evokes pity or sadness

Purpose: Pathos is a term used to identify an appeal to the pathetic. A writer may want a reader to sympathize with a character and employ a pathetic appeal to inspire feelings of pity, sympathy, or sadness.

Example: Examples of pathetic appeals are, once more, bound to diction. Look for clues in word choice that indicate an appeal to the emotions of an individual. A good, though sometimes sad, example of pathos is a call for donations to cancer research which features the stories or pictures of survivors and sufferers.

14. Personification

The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristic to a nonhuman or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

Purpose: A writer might employ personification in order to apply human characteristics to something nonhuman, thus furthering the writer’s use of imagery and figurative language

Example: “The wind whispers” is a fitting example of personification. The wind doesn’t actually whisper, but the human action of whispering characterizes well the sounds that the wind can make.

15. Symbol/Symbolism

A thing that represents or stands for another thing like an object that represents an abstract idea

Purpose: Employing symbolism is a way for a writer to attach meaning to an object or action, some symbol within the piece, that goes beyond the face-value of the symbol itself. Symbols represent something more than their literal meanings.

Example: Consider the phrase “a new dawn.” It literally refers to the beginning of a new day. However, figuratively speaking, the beginning of a new day signifies a new start.

Now that you’ve explored a few of the necessary rhetorical terms and gained a possible strategy for studying the rest of the terms , you’re well on your way to conquering the multiple-choice section of the AP® English Literature exam. Continue studying using repetition and compartmentalizing, and you’ll be able to easily recall these definitions and examples when you’re taking the test.

Looking for AP® English Literature practice?

Kickstart your AP® English Literature prep with Albert. Start your AP® exam prep today .

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AP English Literature and Composition

Learn all about the course and exam. Already enrolled? Join your class in My AP.

Not a Student?

Go to AP Central for resources for teachers, administrators, and coordinators.

About the Course

What makes a work of literature great? In AP English Literature and Composition, you’ll examine how authors and poets create meaning through their rich, purposeful use of language. As you write and refine essays about literature, you’ll develop the skills of analysis and composition that will allow you to communicate your interpretation effectively.

New for 2024-25: MCQs Will Have Four Answer Choices

Starting in the 2024-25 school year, AP English Literature and Composition multiple-choice questions (MCQs) will have four answer choices instead of five. This change will take effect with the 2025 exam. All resources have been updated to reflect this change. 

Skills You'll Learn

Read a text closely and draw conclusions from details

Identify the techniques used by an author and their effects

Develop an interpretation of a text

Present your interpretation and make an argument for it in writing

Equivalency and Prerequisites

College course equivalent.

An introductory college-level literature course

Recommended Prerequisites

Wed, May 7, 2025

AP English Literature and Composition Exam

This is the regularly scheduled date for the AP English Literature and Composition Exam.

About the Units

The course content outlined below is organized into commonly taught units of study that provide one possible sequence for the course. Your teacher may choose to organize the course content differently based on local priorities and preferences.

Course Content

Unit 1: short fiction i.

You’ll learn critical reading skills to help you critically read, interpret, and analyze prose.

Topics may include:

• Interpreting the role of character in fiction
• Identifying and interpreting setting
• Understanding how a story’s structure affects interpretations
• Understanding and interpreting a narrator’s perspective
• Reading texts literally and figuratively
• The basics of literary analysis

Unit 2: Poetry I

You’ll continue your critical reading exploration in poetry and learn to analyze similar elements within a wide variety of poems.

• Identifying characters in poetry
• Understanding and interpreting meaning in poetic structure
• Analyzing word choice to find meaning
• Identifying techniques like contrast, simile, metaphor, and alliteration

Unit 3: Longer Fiction or Drama I

You’ll observe how the literary techniques you’ve explored in prior units unfold over the course of longer works and analyze how characters develop and interact over the course of a narrative.

• Interpreting character description and perspective
• Character evolution throughout a narrative
• Conflict and plot development
• Interpreting symbolism
• Identifying evidence and supporting literary arguments

Unit 4: Short Fiction II

You’ll delve deeper into the roles of character and conflict in fiction and explore how a narrator’s perspective can color storytelling.

• Protagonists, antagonists, character relationships, and conflict
• Character interactions with setting and its significance
• Archetypes in literature
• Types of narration like stream of consciousness
• Narrative distance, tone, and perspective

Unit 5: Poetry II

You’ll study different forms of poetry and examine how structure and figurative language can create and impact meaning.

• Traits of closed and open structures in poetry
• Use of techniques like imagery and hyperbole
• Types of comparisons in poetry including personification and allusion
• Identifying and interpreting extended metaphors

Unit 6: Longer Fiction or Drama II

You’ll analyze how various literary techniques play out and shift over the course of longer works, charting how characters change (or don’t) as they’re affected by developments in the plot.

• Interpreting foil characters
• Understanding and interpreting character motives
• Understanding nonlinear narrative structures like flashbacks and foreshadowing
• The effect of narrative tone and bias on reading
• Characters as symbols, metaphors, and archetypes
• Developing literary arguments within a broader context of works

Unit 7: Short Fiction III

You’ll examine how works of fiction interact with and comment on the world around them and the society their authors live or lived in.

• Sudden and more gradual change in characters
• Epiphany as a driver of plot
• Relationships between characters and groups
• Character interactions with settings
• The significance of the pacing of a narrative
• Setting as a symbol
• Interpreting texts in their historical and societal contexts

Unit 8: Poetry III

You’ll develop your interpretation of poetry further by examining how contrasts, ambiguous language, and various other techniques can add layers of meaning to a poetic work.

• Looking at punctuation and structural patterns
• Interpreting juxtaposition, paradox, and irony
• How ambiguity can allow for various interpretations
• Identifying symbols, conceits, and allusions
• Learning proper attribution and citation in literary analysis

Unit 9: Longer Fiction or Drama III

You’ll consider longer narratives in the context of the various techniques and interpretations you’ve learned in prior units and build a nuanced analysis of each complex work as a whole.

• Looking at a character’s response to the resolution of a narrative
• Suspense, resolution, and plot development
• Narrative inconsistencies and contrasting perspectives

Credit and Placement

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Course Resources

Ap classroom resources.

Once you join your AP class section online, you’ll be able to access AP Daily videos, any assignments from your teacher, and your assignment results in AP Classroom. Sign in to access them.

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AP English Literature and Composition Reading Study Skills

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AP English Literature and Composition Writing Study Skills

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AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description

This is the core document for the course. It clearly lays out the course content and describes the exam and AP Program in general.

The Difference Between AP English Language and Composition and AP English Literature and Composition

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Additional Information

20 Short Short Stories for AP Lit

• August 2, 2021
• Short Stories

I love to start the school year with a Flash Fiction Unit.  The brevity of these short stories make them a perfect way to begin the year.  They allow you to do a diagnostic of student skills very quickly and force kids to rely on their own skills rather than Mr. Google.  You can tailor a unit to any length, even just a day or two or have them these short stories for high school English on hand for emergency sub plans. This list of 20 Short Short Stories for AP Lit covers my favorite Flash Fiction short stories for AP Literature and beyond.

What is a Flash Fiction ?

“What is flash fiction?” you ask. Flash Fiction is sometimes called sudden fiction, mircro fiction and micro stories. To put it very simply flash fiction a very short short story.  They range in length from 6 words to about 1500 words and often have a twist ending.  Flash Fiction are stories that you read in 10 minutes or less. I tend to use this term interchangeably with short short stories. All of these factors make them perfect for the high school English classroom.

Just a few reasons that a very short stories for AP Lit are a perfect way to start the year

Flash fiction are stories that you read in under 10 minutes..

This means you can study a story a day. My opening unit allows students to read 8 stories in 10 class periods, answering questions and responding with short writing along the way.

You can focus on one skill per story. 

This means you can really target a skill. At the beginning of the year, I do an AP Boot Camp with my students to refresh they analysis skills and definitions of certain terms I want to make sure they know. The terms and analysis skills include many of the AP Lit Essentials Skills for Unit 1 like characterization, setting, imagery and close reading skills like diction and syntax.

They only take a few minutes to read.

If a story only takes 6 minutes to read, even if you kids hate it, they know you will be moving on soon, so they don’t complain (too much). But if you stick the ones on my list, you won’t have this problem because these stories have been tests by many students over the years.

Flash Fiction often have twist endings.

Many flash fiction stories have a twist ending which makes them ideal for stories for high school students because they love when the ending seemingly comes out of left field. And because you can reread with them, you can take the time to show them how the author was setting them up for that ending all along. My favorite story for this is “A Country Cottage” by Anton Chekhov, just check out that jealous moon.

No homework.

Short short stores are quick and self-contained. As a result, you and your students can complete a whole story in just 40 or 50 minutes.

Quick writing assignment can follow quick stories.

Since the story only takes a few minutes to read, students don’t mind doing a quick written assignment. In our fast passed world students appreciate things that are quick.

Five Ideas for Flash Fiction at the Beginning of the Year

Doesn’t using Flash Fiction sound like the perfect way to start the year no matter what level you teach? 

Short short stories for AP Lit are perfect for teaching diction. With so few words, it’s easy to focus on that word choice and the impact of the words. Your students discuss specific words and how changing them would change the meaning of the story. Hemingway’s “Six Word Story” is perfect for this.

Use Flash Fiction to teach characterization. Most short short stories focus only on one or two characters which makes it easy to focus on character development. Julia Alvarez’s “Snow” is great for characterization.

Teach close reading skills. The brevity allows you to have students focus on rereading. You can direct them toward imagery and figurative language. I love “A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf for imagery. There is a description of the rain that just sings.

F ocus on Central Idea. I love to use short short stories to teach students how to write central ideas statements. With only a few characters and one basic conflict it is easy for students to pick out the central idea/theme. There is so much going on in “Sleeping” by Katharine Weber that it is perfect for discussing theme or central idea.

And one last idea for flash fiction, you can teach very focused writing skills like thesis writing or paragraph development.

Favorite Flash Fiction for High School

20 of my favorite short short stories for ap lit and english 11 are:, under 1000 words:.

• “Six Word Story” (attributed to Earnest Hemingway):  a story of baby shoes and loss in 6 words.**
• “Sirens” (Franz Kafka):  The seductive voices of the night, but do they choose to seduce?**
• “The Continuity of Parks” (Julio Cortázar): a man reading a novel become wrapped up in it.
• “Birthday Party”  (Katharine Brush): A couple “celebrates” a birthday at a restaurant. **
• “Snow”  (Julia Alvarez): A young immigrant girl sees snow for the first time. (Get my lesson  here . Included in  Short Fiction Unit II Bundle. )
• “An Idle Fellow”  (Kate Chopin): Two friends discuss what it means to the idle.**
• “A Haunted House”  (Virginia Woolf): A couple go through their house noting how it used to be.**
• “Popular Mechanics”  (Raymond Carver): A couple has a dramtic fight as the husband packs to leave.  (Get my lesson  here . Included in  Short Story Unit Bundle III .)
• “I Used to Live Here Once”  (Jean Rhys): A woman visits the house she used to live in.
• “ There Was Once”  (Margaret Atwood): A satirical look at fairy tales.
• “Maud Martha Spares the Mouse” (Gwendolyn Brooks): Maud Martha chooses to let a mouse in her kitchen go.
• “My Name”  (Sandra Cisneros): Esperanza considers her name. Read about one way that I use this story at the beginning of the school year .
• “Sleeping” (Katharine Weber): Harriet, a novice babysitter, stays with a baby who sleeps the whole time.

Under 1500 Words

• “The Story of an Hour”  (Kate Chopin): Mrs. Mallard learns that her husband has died in an accident. (Get my lesson  here . Included in  Short Fiction Unit II Bundle. )
• “A Wireless Message”  (Ambrose Bierce): Mr. William Holt gets an unusual telegram.**
• “ A Country Cottage”  (Anton Chekhov): A young couple enjoys a walk on during an evening of their honeymoon only to be interrupted. **
• “ The Open Window”  (Saki):  While a woman waits for her husband to return from hunting, her niece tells a visitor of the husband’s passing.
• “Roselily”  (Alice Walker): A woman ponders her life during her wedding.
• “Eleven”  (Sandra Cisneros):  Rachel gets a sweater for her birthday.
• “The Other Wife”  (Collette): A couple has a meal at the same restaurant as his ex-wife. (Get my lesson  here .  Included in  Short Fiction Unit II Bundle. )

** The starred stories appear are available for purchase through my TPT store as part of my Flash Fiction Boot Camp for AP Literature.

Great Resources for Finding More Short Short Stories

My favorite place to find short short stories for AP Lit is the list of 75 Short Short Stories on the AmericanLiterature.com website. This list is by genre and includes a quick summary for each.

Another great list is You can additional lists on Very Short Stories for Middle and High School Students to Read Online on Owlcation. This list not only includes links to most of the stories, but gives the word count as well. Oh and just because it is listed in the middle school sections doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider these short stories for AP Lit or other upper high school course.

Additionally you can find more lists at Reedsy.com and Book Riot .

Make Teaching Flash Fiction Easy

If you are looking for ready to use lessons for short short stories for AP Lit check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store. And let me know what your favorite flash fictions stories are in the comments below.

And, if you are looking for other ideas that relate to brevity, how about The Power of One Word: The One Word Project.

Related Resources: Short Stories for AP Literature

How to Teach Literary Elements in a Short Story in an Engaging Way (The Teacher Rewrite)

More on Short Story Boot Camp AP Literature Style: 5 Amazing Reasons to Teach Short Story Analysis at the Start of the Year

Use AP Short Stories to Encourage Students to Master the AP Lit Thesis

Something a little longer? Try The Three Best Short Stories for High School

For the Fall or anytime: Eleven Scary Stories of Gothic in Literature for High School English

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Flash Fiction Short Story Bootcamp: AP Literature

Sandra Cisneros’s “Snow”

My students’ favorite: “The Other Wife” by Colette

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6 Responses

Thank for this great list! Could you tell me what book you got “Popular Mechanics” from? I would like to get that book.

It’s in Raymond Carver’s collection called What We Talk About When We Talk about Love . (The title story is also a great one for HS students.)

Jeanmarie, Thank you for replying. The PDF for that story has study questions at the end. It looks like it comes from a textbook. I would love to know the title so I can check out the whole book. Thank you for giving me the name of the collection. I will definitely check out that story about love.

Unfortunately, I just found the story on line after originally reading it in Carver’s anthology. I am not actually sure what the name of the text book it since I did not post it.

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Guide to the AP® English Literature and Composition Exam

Why take ap ® english literature.

AP ® English Literature and Composition is a fantastic way to improve your skills in writing and analysis—not to mention give you college credit before you even set foot on campus.

It seems like a no-brainer, but you might still be wondering if taking the course is really worth it.

In most cases, taking an AP ® class is absolutely worth the effort. The skills you develop in an AP ® English Literature and Composition class are ones that you’ll carry with you throughout your entire educational (and professional) career. Think of all the literary references you’ll be able to make before you even get to college!

Throughout the AP ® English Literature and Composition course, students will be exposed to a wide variety of literary works; novels, plays, poems, prose, and short stories. This broad literary exposure is a great opportunity for you to develop an appreciation of the ways that literature reflects and comments on a range of experiences, institutions, and social structures. Most of the works you study will be selected at the discretion of your AP ® English Literature teacher. Throughout the course, you may study an entire play, work of fiction, or series of poetry, or you may focus on one or two excerpts from any given literary work. The compositions you study will all be written in, or translated into English, giving you the chance to experience an even greater range of literary works, authors, and styles from all over the world.

How to sign up for AP ® English Literature

To register for the AP ® Lit exam, you need to contact your school’s AP ® coordinator, who can help facilitate your courses and exams.

Bear in mind you’ll likely need to complete requirements to be eligible to enroll in an AP ® course. In order to register for the AP ® English Literature Exam, you have to join your class section online, on College Board’s My AP ® portal. Some schools will automatically register you for the exam if you’re enrolled in an AP ® English Literature class, but others won’t, and you will have to register online through the portal. If you are unsure whether or not you are registered for the AP ® English Literature Exam, check with your AP ® Coordinator.

There is also a deadline for exam registration, so make sure you register through your AP ® Coordinator by then to avoid paying any late fees. The deadline to register for exams is in the fall, but specific deadlines may vary by school—be sure to check with your teacher or AP ® Coordinator.

How much does the AP ® Exam cost?

Each AP ® Exam costs a total of $96—if you’re in the mainland United States and its territories and commonwealths, Canada, or a U.S. Department of Defense Dependents School.

If you’re outside of those areas, the AP ® Exam will cost $126 per exam.

The College Board has a financial aid program that offers a $34 fee reduction in the exam. Read more about exam fees here .

You cannot use the My AP ® portal to pay fees—they will be collected by your AP ® Coordinator.

When you take into account the cost of a college course versus the cost of the exam, though, you’ll see that the AP ® Exam is actually a bargain. With a passing score, you may be able to earn college credit and save hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

When can I take the AP ® English Literature Exam?

The AP ® English Literature and Composition date in 2022 is Wednesday, May 4th. You can find more information about dates and late-testing schedules for the 2022 AP ® English Literature Exam in our 2022 AP ® Exam Dates article.

What’s on the AP ® English Literature Exam and course?

  A lot of colleges all over the U.S. require you to fulfill a writing course before you’re allowed to graduate. Students typically take this “expository writing” or “writing and composition” course during their freshman year of college. Taking the AP ® English Literature Exam could give you the opportunity to fulfill this requirement without taking a college writing course.

The AP ® English Literature course is comprehensive when it comes to English Literature, covering certain skill categories including your ability to:

• Explain the function of character
• Explain the function of setting
• Explain the function of plot and structure
• Explain the function of the narrator or speaker
• Explain the function of word choice, imagery, and symbols
• Explain the function of comparison
• Develop textually substantiated arguments about interpretations of part or all of a text

When it comes time to take the exam, you’ll have 3 hours and 15 minutes to complete it. There are two sections on the exam. The first consists of excerpts from non-fiction texts with multiple-choice questions. The second is a free-response section made up of three prompts you must answer in essay form.

Section I is a 55-question multiple-choice section which counts for 45% of your exam score. The multiple-choice section includes five sets of 8 to 13 questions per set, with each set of questions constructed around a preceding passage of prose fiction or poetry of varying difficulty. You should expect at least two prose fiction passages and at least two poetry passages in this section.

Section II of the AP ® English Literature Exam is the free-response section, and counts for 55% of your overall exam score. In this section, you will have two hours to answer three prompts as handwritten essays. Each of the free-response questions will address the following topics, always in the same order:

Question 1: Poetry Analysis

You will be presented with a passage of poetry of approximately 100 to 300 words, and given a prompt in connection with that passage. You are expected to demonstrate a well-written analysis of the passage by responding to the prompt with a thesis that presents your own interpretation, using appropriate evidence to develop and support your line of reasoning.

Question 2: Prose Fiction Analysis

You will be presented with a passage of prose fiction of approximately 500 to 700 words, and given a prompt in connection with that passage. You are expected to demonstrate a well-written analysis of the passage by responding to the prompt with a thesis that presents your own interpretation, using appropriate evidence to develop and support your line of reasoning.

Have a look at this YouTube playlist for an in-depth walkthrough of the Prose Fiction Analysis essay .

Question 3: Literary Argument

This is also called the thematic analysis. In this essay, you will write about a specific theme in reference to a work that you get to choose. We’ll say that again: the theme itself is given to you in the exam, but you can choose which work of fiction you want to write your essay about. For example, the exam might require you to discuss the topic of “unrequited love” and then suggest a list of different books and plays (around 40 different works) for you to analyze that theme. You can still choose a work from beyond that list, so you have a lot of control over this section.

What is the Test Format for the AP ® English Literature Exam?

Here’s what the structure of the exam looks like broken down by section and question type, along with how much each section impacts the ultimate score:

• 55 questions that cover excerpts from short fiction, poetry, and longer fiction or drama
• 45% of final exam score
• Three questions with prompts covering synthesis, rhetorical analysis, and argument
• Two hours and 15 minutes including a 15-minute reading time
• 55% of final exam score

How is the AP ® English Literature Exam Scored?

Each AP ® Exam is scored on a scale of one to five. The higher your score, the better it is for you.

Check out the table below for a breakdown of what each score means.

When it comes to AP ® English Literature and Composition, you’ll want to aim for a score of three or higher. Many colleges will give you college credit or placement out of a required course if you score within that range.

College credit for AP ® Exams varies from school to school though. So, if you want to know the score that a specific school will accept in exchange for credit, you’ll need to check with the school’s registrar’s office to find out information about AP ® credit for English Literature and Composition. Often, you can find this information on the school’s website. You can also check out the College Board’s search tool for AP ® credit policies.

NOTE: Colleges sometimes change their requirements for awarding college credit or offering placement out of required courses. Always check in with the college to make sure you have the most relevant and recent information.

The multiple-choice section is scored via computer. When the computer analyzes your answers, it does not deduct points if your answer is incorrect or unanswered. You read that right. You only stand to gain points when you answer questions. It is always in your best interest to answer every question and leave nothing blank.

The free-response section is a bit more complicated. Rather than using a computer, the free-response section is scored by actual humans. This occurs during an event called the AP ® Reading, an annual convention in June during which thousands of college professors and AP ® teachers nationwide convene to help judge and score AP ® essays.

The free-response essays are each scored on a scale of 0–6, with 6 being the best score you can get and 0 being the worst.

Combined, the raw points you get from both sections give you your composite score. It’s your composite score that determines your scaled score of 1–5.

Bottom line: Graders are looking for essays that showcase a strong command of literary texts, the ability to craft compelling and well-sourced arguments, and the ability to analyze text for its rhetorical structure.

What’s the Difference Between AP ® English Literature and AP ® English Language?

Ok, so there’s an AP ® English Literature and Composition Exam and an AP ® English Language and Composition Exam. What’s the difference between the two, and how do you know which one to take?

While the two share a lot of similarities, there are some crucial differences between the two courses. Knowing which one you want to take will determine the knowledge you’ll gain before going to college. In turn, this can help you decide:

• Whether you prefer fiction or nonfiction writing
• Which classes you take in college
• Your skills as a reader and writer

Here is a brief overview of both courses:

The AP ® English Literature and Composition course teaches the basics of college-level literary analysis and close reading. You will dive deep into texts and be challenged to think about literature deeply and critically. In the course, you will learn topics such as:

• Close reading
• Textual analysis
• Literary devices
• Language and vocabulary
• Stylistic maturity in writing
• Written organizational skills

In the AP ® English Language and Composition course, you will learn the rhetorical and writing skills necessary to interpret ALL kinds of texts.

The AP ® English Language exam course is comprehensive when it comes to rhetoric and writing, covering topics such as:

• Rhetorical analysis of prose
• Reading comprehension
• Written argumentation
• MLA, APA, and Chicago-style citation
• Reputable sourcing
• Synthesis of information from multiple texts

The AP ® English Literature course will give you an understanding and appreciation for reading and analyzing literature. This skill is important in order to understand the context of the world around you. The course will give you the tools to approach topics thoughtfully and deeply.

For a more in-depth look at the differences between the AP ® Lit and AP ® Lang courses, check out this article: AP ® English Literature vs  AP ® English Language.

What Can I Bring to My AP ® English Literature Exam?

Below is a list of all the things you can bring with you into the exam room. Note: It’s possible that not all of the items will apply to you (e.g., the Student Accommodations Letter).

• Two No. 2 pencils with erasers. These will be used on the multiple-choice portion of the exam.
• Two black or dark blue ink pens. These will be used for the free-response questions. Be sure to bring black or dark blue ink pens only. Leave your turquoise gel pens at home.
• A watch. This is a simple analog or digital watch with no internet access or alarms. Don’t even try to bring your smartwatch in the room.
• The AP ® Student Pack. This is given to you just before you take your exam and contains a label that you need to place on your exam. Follow the labeling instructions carefully.
• Government- or school-issued ID. If you don’t attend the school where you’re taking the AP ® English Literature Exam, you must also bring a government- or school-issued ID.
• College Board SSD Student Accommodation Letter. If you require accommodations beyond the regular exam, you’ll receive a letter that verifies this (e.g. you need extra time or a large-type exam).
• Remember, you won’t have to bring all these things—but it’s in your best interest to be as prepared as you can for the exam.

Take a look at our Test Day Checklist to make sure you are 100% prepared to take your AP ® English Literature and Composition Exam when the time comes!

How do I study for AP ® English Literature?

#1: Read, read, read!

But try to read with PURPOSE! The more time you spend devouring all kinds of literature and reflecting on what you’re reading, the better! This is a great way to prepare for the Poetry and Prose Fiction Analysis Essays in the free-response section of your AP ® Lit exam. Both of these questions will require you to make astute analyses of whatever texts you are given.

Don’t let yourself get caught off guard with a passage you are unfamiliar with; make sure your literary intake is broad enough that you feel just as comfortable analyzing a sonnet as a play. To answer the questions well, you should be able to read and annotate the given passages speedily. Where you can, try to practice annotating whatever you’re reading in the lead up to the AP ® English Literature Exam. This will be immensely helpful for formulating your answers!

#2: Take practice tests

Take some advice from the Boy Scouts and ‘Be Prepared’! You don’t want to take your first AP ® English Literature Exam on test day. To that end, take as many practice tests as you can before the big day. Take note of the areas you performed the weakest in and dedicate extra study time to those areas. Only by practicing over and over again can you expect to be better at any skill—including test-taking. If you don’t have much experience taking practice tests, check out John Moscatiello’s Step-by-Step Guide to taking a practice test like a pro .

#3: Write as much as you can

A lot of students tend to worry most about the free-response sections. With enough practice, these will get easier and easier to answer! For more tips, Marco Learning’s AP ® Literature teacher, Heather Garcia, has some excellent advice on How to Crush It on the AP ® English Literature Exam Essays .

#4: Find resources that work

When it comes to studying for your exam, there is no “one size fits all”. Just because your older brother studied best by comparing and contrasting Shakespearean sonnets, doesn’t mean that’s right for you. (It probably isn’t too effective for most people, to be honest!) We encourage you to take some time to figure out what study methods you are most comfortable with; it could be a mixture of everything!

We know it can be overwhelming starting from scratch. If you feel stuck, we suggest downloading our free AP ® English Literature study guide as a jumping-off point and going from there.

If you’re looking for live video reviews before the  AP ® Exams, Marco Learning hosts live AP ® review sessions on our YouTube channel .

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The Ultimate Guide to Writing an AP Literature Poetry Essay + Examples [2025]

Aug 12, 2024 | 0 comments

Aug 12, 2024 | Blog | 0 comments

If you’re diving into AP English Literature and Composition, you probably feel excitement and trepidation. Don’t worry; I’ve been there too! The poetry essay portion of the AP Literature exam can be particularly challenging, but with the right approach, you’ll be crafting insightful analyses in no time. 

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the process on how to write an AP lit poetry essay, sharing tips and tricks I’ve learned from my experience as a student and a teacher. 

Let’s embark on this literary journey together!

Table of Contents

Decoding the Poem: Breaking Down the Elements

Before you can write an effective essay, you need to dissect the poem and identify its key components. This process begins with a careful reading of the poem. I recommend reading the poem at least three times: once for initial impressions, once for deeper understanding, and once for annotation.

As you read, pay close attention to the poet’s use of literary devices . Look for instances of imagery, metaphor, personification, and other figurative language. Don’t forget to examine the poem’s structure, including its rhyme scheme, stanza arrangement, and use of line breaks. These elements can often provide valuable insights into the poem’s meaning and the poet’s intentions.

Remember, annotation is your friend! Jot down your observations, questions, and initial interpretations in the margins. This will serve as a valuable resource when you start crafting your essay.

Now, let’s move on to the heart of your essay – the thesis statement .

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Formulating a Strong Thesis Statement

Now that you’ve analyzed the poem, it’s time to develop your thesis statement. This is the backbone of your essay, guiding your poetry analysis and providing a clear direction for your arguments. A strong thesis for an AP English literature poetry essay should do more than just state the obvious. It should present an arguable claim about the poem’s meaning, significance, or effectiveness.

For example, instead of writing, “This poem uses imagery to convey its message,” you might say, “ Through vivid natural imagery and somber diction, the poet creates a melancholic atmosphere that reflects the speaker’s sense of loss and longing.”

Remember, a good thesis statement should be specific to the poem you’re analyzing and should set up the main points you’ll discuss in your essay. It’s okay if your thesis evolves as you write – that’s part of the writing process!

With your thesis in place, it’s time to organize your thoughts coherently.

Structuring Your Essay for Maximum Impact

A well-organized essay makes your arguments clearer and demonstrates your ability to think critically about literature. In academic writing, structure is key. I recommend following the Five-Paragraph Structure (outline) for an AP Lit poetry essay.

While not mandatory, the five-paragraph structure provides a solid framework for effectively organizing your thoughts and arguments.

• Introduction (with thesis statement)
• Body paragraph 1: First main point
• Body paragraph 2: Second main point
• Body paragraph 3: Third main point (if time allows)

Each body paragraph should begin with a clear topic sentence related to your thesis. As you progress your essay, use transitional phrases to create smooth connections between ideas. This will help your writing flow naturally and keep your reader engaged.

Now that we have our roadmap, let’s start our journey with the introduction.

Writing the Introduction: Setting the Stage

Your introduction should grab the reader’s attention, provide context for the poem, and present your thesis statement . Begin with a hook – perhaps a thought-provoking question or an intriguing observation about the poem. Then, briefly introduce the poet and the poem, providing any relevant background information. Finally, end your introduction with your thesis statement. This paragraph sets the tone for your essay, so make it count!

With the stage set, it’s time to dive into the meat of your essay – the body paragraphs.

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Crafting Body Paragraphs: Supporting Your Argument

Each body paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of the poem that supports your thesis, using textual evidence and analysis. Start each paragraph with a clear topic sentence that relates to your thesis. Then, provide a specific example from the poem – a quote , a description of imagery , or a discussion of a literary device .

After presenting your evidence, explain how it supports your argument. This is where your critical thinking skills shine! Don’t just describe what the poet is doing; analyze why they’re doing it and how it contributes to the poem’s overall meaning.

As we near the end of our essay, it’s time to bring everything together in a powerful conclusion.

Constructing a Powerful Conclusion

Your conclusion should restate your thesis, summarize your main points, and give the reader a final thought on the significance of the poem. But don’t just repeat what you’ve already said! Instead, synthesize your arguments to show how they all work together to support your thesis. 

You might also consider the poem’s broader implications or how it relates to larger themes in literature . End with a thought-provoking statement that leaves your reader with something to ponder.

Although our essay has been drafted, we’re not quite done yet. The final step is crucial for polishing your work.

Revising and Polishing Your Essay

After completing your first draft, revise your essay for clarity, coherence, and persuasiveness. Read your essay aloud to catch awkward phrasing or unclear ideas. Check that each paragraph flows smoothly into the next, using  transition phrases to link your ideas.

Make sure your  evidence directly supports your thesis and that you’ve fully explained your reasoning. Pay attention to your writing style , aiming for a formal yet engaging tone. And, of course, don’t forget to proofread for grammar and spelling errors!

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Using Textual Evidence to Support Your Claims

Use specific examples from the poem to convince your reader of your interpretation. When you claim the poem’s meaning or the poet’s techniques, always back it up with a relevant quote or reference to the text.

For instance, if you’re discussing the poet’s use of imagery, you might write: “The poet’s vivid description of ‘sun-blanched bones scattered across the desert floor’ (line 12) creates a desolate atmosphere, emphasizing the theme of mortality.”

Remember to integrate quotes smoothly into your sentences and explain how the evidence supports your argument. This shows that you’re not just identifying literary devices but truly analyzing their effect on the poem.

As we craft these paragraphs, we’ll need to pay special attention to the poet’s use of literary devices.

Analyzing Poetic Devices and Their Effects

Identifying literary techniques is insufficient; you must explain how these devices contribute to the poem’s overall meaning or impact. This is where your critical thinking skills come into play.

For example, don’t just point out that the poet uses alliteration. Instead, consider how the repetition of sounds contributes to the poem’s mood or reinforces its themes. Does the soft repetition of ‘s’ sounds create a soothing effect, or does a harsh repetition of ‘k’ sounds contribute to a sense of conflict?

Look for examples of literal and figurative language, such as metaphors, similes, and personification. Consider how the poet uses rhyme, rhythm, and sound devices to create effects. Analyze the tone and mood of the poem and how they’re created through word choice and imagery.

Remember, the goal is to show how the poet’s choices in language, structure, and literary devices work together to create meaning. This level of analysis separates a good AP Lit essay from a great one.

Connecting the Poem to Broader Themes or Context

A stellar AP Lit essay goes beyond surface-level analysis to explore the poem’s relationship to larger literary or historical contexts. This doesn’t mean you need to be an expert in the poet’s entire body of work or the historical period, but if you can make relevant connections, it will enhance your analysis.

For instance, if you’re analyzing a poem about nature by Robert Frost, you might discuss how it fits into the broader tradition of American Romantic poetry. Or, if you’re examining a World War I poem, you could consider how its themes reflect the disillusionment of the post-war period.

These connections show the College Board that you’re not just analyzing in a vacuum but thinking critically about literature in a broader context.

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Perfecting Your Writing Style and Tone

Your essay should be informative and demonstrate your ability to write with clarity, sophistication, and engagement. While AP Lit essays are a form of academic writing, they don’t have to be dry or overly formal.

Aim for a balanced tone that’s neither too casual nor too stiff. Use varied sentence structures to keep your writing dynamic, and choose precise, vivid words to convey your ideas. Remember, AP readers are looking for essays that showcase your analytical skills and your command of written English.

Time Management: Balancing Analysis and Writing

With only 40 minutes to plan and write your essay, effective time management is crucial for success. I recommend spending about 10 minutes reading and annotating the poem, 5-7 minutes planning your essay, and the remaining time writing.

Don’t get bogged down trying to create a perfect first draft. Focus on getting your main ideas down on paper, and if you have time at the end, go back and refine your writing. Remember, a strong argument with a few grammatical errors is better than a weak argument with perfect grammar!

As we wrap up, let’s consider some common pitfalls to avoid in your AP Lit poetry essay.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Be aware of common mistakes that can weaken your AP Lit poetry analysis essay, such as:

• Summarizing instead of analyzing or neglecting to support your claims with evidence.
• Avoid vague generalizations – always be specific in your analysis.
• Don’t try to cover every aspect of the poem; focus on the elements that best support your thesis.
• While using literary terms is important, don’t overdo it. You aim to demonstrate your understanding, not show off your vocabulary.

AP Lit poetry Essay Examples

• An Analysis of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” | AP Lit Poetry Essay
• The Beat Generation’s Manifesto: An Analysis of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” | AP Lit Poetry Essay

Conclusion: Final Tips on How To Write An AP Lit Poetry Essay

As you prepare for the AP Lit exam, remember that writing about poetry is a skill that improves with practice and reflection. Don’t be discouraged if your first attempts don’t meet your expectations. Keep reading poetry, analyzing it, and writing about it.

Familiarize yourself with the AP Literature and Composition rubric to understand exactly what the readers want. And don’t forget to read widely – the more literature you’re exposed to, the better equipped you’ll be to handle whatever poem the exam throws your way.

Remember, the goal of the AP Lit poetry essay isn’t just to get a good score (although that’s nice, too!). It’s to develop your literary analysis and critical thinking skills – skills that will serve you well in college and beyond. So approach each poem with curiosity and enthusiasm, and let your love for literature shine through in your writing. Good luck!

I am dedicated to creating engaging blog posts that provide valuable insights and advice to help students excel in their studies. From study tips to time management strategies, my goal is to empower students to reach their full potential.

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In title case, major words are capitalized, and most minor words are lowercase. In sentence case, most major and minor words are lowercase ( proper nouns are an exception in that they are always capitalized).

• major words: Nouns, verbs (including linking verbs), adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and all words of four letters or more are considered major words.
• minor words: Short (i.e., three letters or fewer) conjunctions, short prepositions, and all articles are considered minor words.

Title case capitalization is covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Section 6.17 and the Concise Guide Section 5.7

How to implement title case

In title case, capitalize the following words in a title or heading:

• the first word of the title or heading, even if it is a minor word such as “The” or “A”
• the first word of a subtitle
• the first word after a colon, em dash, or end punctuation in a heading
• major words, including the second part of hyphenated major words (e.g., “Self-Report,” not “Self-report”)
• words of four letters or more (e.g., “With,” “Between,” “From”)

Lowercase only minor words that are three letters or fewer in a title or heading (except the first word in a title or subtitle or the first word after a colon, em dash, or end punctuation in a heading):

• short conjunctions (e.g., “and,” “as,” “but,” “for,” “if,” “nor,” “or,” “so,” “yet”)
• articles (“a,” “an,” “the”)
• short prepositions (e.g., “as,” “at,” “by,” “for,” “in,” “of,” “off,” “on,” “per,” “to,” “up,” “via”)

When to use title case

Use title case for the following:

• titles of articles, books, reports, and other works appearing in text

In the book Train Your Mind for Peak Performance: A Science-Based Approach for Achieving Your Goals

In the article “Turning Frowns (and Smiles) Upside Down: A Multilevel Examination of Surface Acting Positive and Negative Emotions on Well-Being”

• titles of tests or measures, including subscales

Beck Depression Inventory–II

• all headings within a work (Levels 1–5; these are also bold or bold italic)
• the title of your own paper and of named sections and subsections within it

the Results section

• titles of periodicals (these are also italicized)

Journal of Latinx Psychology

Chicago Tribune

• table titles (these are also italicized)
• figure titles (these are also italicized), axis labels, and legends