How to Pass the AP Lang Exam | Tips from an AP Teacher | Coach Hall Writes

Summary

In this video, Coach Hall, an experienced AP Lang teacher, provides essential tips and strategies to succeed in the AP Lang exam. The video is structured around understanding the scoring system and then dives deeply into each section of the exam: multiple-choice questions, synthesis essay, rhetorical analysis, and argumentative essay. Coach Hall emphasizes the significance of pacing, understanding each section's requirements, and practicing thoroughly to enhance writing speed and efficiency. Key strategies include familiarizing oneself with the structure of the test, using three sources in the synthesis essay, and ensuring a clear argumentative stance. The aim is to empower students to maximize their scores by understanding the test mechanics and honing their analytical skills.

Highlights

• 45% of your exam score comes from multiple-choice questions, and 55% from essays. 📝
• Each essay is scored from 1 to 9, with an emphasis on scoring 5 or higher. 🏆
• Understanding the purpose behind rhetorical analysis is crucial for scoring well. 🧠
• Familiarize yourself with release questions from past exams to understand what scorers are looking for. 📖
• Writing three essays back-to-back requires stamina—practice to build your endurance. 💪

Key Takeaways

• Understanding the AP Lang exam's scoring system helps plan your study strategy. 🎯
• Multiple-choice questions make up 45% of the score; aim to practice and improve efficiency. 📚
• Essays are crucial as they account for 55% of the score; focus on strong writing skills. ✍️
• Practice makes perfect—pace yourself and simulate exam conditions. ⏱️
• Choosing the right evidence is key for the argumentative essay; make your arguments relatable. ⚖️

Overview

The video by Coach Hall is a comprehensive guide for students aiming to pass the AP Lang exam with high scores. It begins with an explanation of how the scores are calculated and moves into strategic advice for tackling each section of the test. He's focused on empowering students with insider tips that only a seasoned AP teacher can provide, ensuring this guidance is both practical and geared towards success.

Coach Hall emphasizes the critical role of preparation, especially regarding pacing oneself during the test. This involves practicing writing essays under timed conditions and understanding the structure and demands of the multiple-choice questions, which significantly influence the final scores. The advice is practical—focus on your strengths and work consistently to improve areas of weakness.

The detailed guidance provided for the essays—synthesis, rhetorical analysis, and argumentative—is invaluable. Coach Hall advocates for a strong argumentative stance, efficient use of evidence, and a deep understanding of rhetorical techniques. His enthusiasm and expertise shine through, making it clear that success in the AP Lang exam is achievable with the right approach and determination.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Overview In this chapter titled "Introduction and Overview," Coach Hall, an AP Language teacher, welcomes viewers to the channel. The focus of the video is to explain the AP Language exam, including how the test is calculated to achieve scores of 3, 4, or 5. It provides an overview of the test sections starting with multiple-choice questions followed by three essay questions. The chapter aims to equip viewers with insider tips from an AP teacher to prepare effectively for the exam and achieve the best possible score.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Understanding the AP Lang Exam Score Calculation This chapter discusses the composition of the AP Lang Exam score, emphasizing that approximately 45% of the total score comes from the multiple-choice section, which consists of 52 to 55 questions. To calculate a practice exam sub-score, the correct answers should be multiplied by 1.25. The chapter also alludes to upcoming segments that will cover tips for writing essays, which are also crucial for the overall composite score. Each essay is scored on a standard scale.
• 03:00 - 06:00: Pacing Strategies for Multiple-Choice and Essays In this chapter, the focus is on utilizing pacing strategies for both multiple-choice questions and essay writing in examinations. It emphasizes the importance of achieving at least a score of 5, which is considered adequate. Reflecting on the value of essays, the chapter explains that essays have a higher multiplier when calculating scores; specifically, they are multiplied by 3.0556. Importantly, essays constitute 55% of the total score, indicating that strong writing skills can significantly impact overall performance. The chapter suggests leveraging strong writing abilities to maximize exam scores.
• 06:00 - 09:00: Multiple-Choice Tips and Strategies The chapter titled 'Multiple-Choice Tips and Strategies' explains the scoring system for a particular test, focusing on multiple-choice and essay sections. It discusses how points are calculated through multipliers for each section, along with how these scores are combined. The goal score for achieving a grade of three is around 80 points, though this can vary slightly based on the exam's curve and other factors.
• 09:00 - 13:00: Synthesis Essay Tips The chapter 'Synthesis Essay Tips' focuses on understanding the scoring system for synthesis essays. It explains that 80 points are typically required to be on track for a score of three, while around 98 points are needed for a score of four. There is some variability in the exact points needed for each score, and these numbers may vary slightly. A potential frustration for students is that the exact number of points earned is not disclosed, as they only receive their composite scores.
• 13:00 - 18:00: Rhetorical Analysis Essay Tips This chapter focuses on strategies and tips for scoring well on a rhetorical analysis essay, particularly in mock exams or practice tests. It outlines the point goals for receiving scores of 4 or 5, emphasizing the importance of reaching specific point cutoffs (98 points for a 4, 112 points for a 5). The chapter suggests that students should identify areas for improvement, especially if they are near the bottom of a cutoff range (e.g., 80 or 98 points). Additionally, it acknowledges that some students have maximized their potential in essay writing, so their focus might need to shift to other sections of the assessment.
• 18:00 - 25:00: Argumentative Essay Tips The chapter on 'Argumentative Essay Tips' emphasizes the importance of focusing on multiple-choice sections to earn extra points and avoid being on the borderline of a composite score. It highlights the significance of practicing pacing for exams, advocating that students should consistently practice throughout the year. Specifically, for multiple-choice sections, the chapter advises that the number of questions per passage should not determine the time spent on that passage. Instead, a standard time allocation, such as 15 minutes, should be adhered to regardless of the number of questions.
• 25:00 - 30:00: Advice on Evidence and Topic Choices The chapter provides advice on how to manage time effectively during exams with multiple passages and questions. It suggests that longer passages with more questions may contain easier questions than shorter, denser passages with fewer questions. The recommendation is to practice pacing using a watch, starting practice as far out as two months before the exam or even two weeks before, aiming to eventually manage 18 minutes per passage.
• 30:00 - 35:00: Cautions on Using Literary Examples The chapter titled "Cautions on Using Literary Examples" discusses strategies for efficiently managing time during reading passages and essay writing in exams. It emphasizes the goal of completing each passage analysis in 15 minutes and suggests that students have the flexibility to approach essay writing in any order that suits their strengths. For example, if a student excels at rhetorical analysis, they can choose to tackle that essay first. The chapter provides advice on leveraging the initial reading period to annotate and strategize, particularly for synthesis questions. This strategy of playing to one's strengths and the strategic use of time aims to optimize performance in exam settings.
• 35:00 - 38:00: Conclusion and Encouragement for Students The chapter emphasizes exam procedures, pointing out that before assigning a zero to a missing essay, examiners thoroughly review the test booklet. Students are encouraged to manage their time wisely when writing essays, aiming for 40 minutes per essay. However, they can adjust the time spent on each essay as long as the total time remains 80 minutes. Practicing these time allocations is recommended to improve efficiency and confidence in completing essays within the required timeframe.

How to Pass the AP Lang Exam | Tips from an AP Teacher | Coach Hall Writes Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hey guys welcome to the channel my name is coach hall and i'm an AP lang teacher in this video we're going to be talking about first of all the test and how everything is calculated to get to a 3 a 4 or a 5 composite and then we're going to look at each of the sections of the exam starting with the multiple-choice and then going through all three essay questions that way you know insider tips from an AP teacher about what you should be doing in order to prepare for the exam in order to get your best score possible before we get to the tips for each section of the test it's important to know how the test works so
• 00:30 - 01:00 approximately 45 percent of your test score comes from the multiple-choice section and so there's gonna be anywhere from 52 to 55 questions on the multiple-choice portion in order to figure out your sub score for this if you're taking a practice exam take the number that you answered correctly and multiply it by 1.25 later on in the video we're going to be talking about tips for each of the specific essays however in order to understand how everything is scored in relation to your composite you need to understand that each essay is scored on a scale of 1 to
• 01:00 - 01:30 9 we want to shoot for at least a 5 or higher because 5 is kind of considered adequate like we want to shoot for at least a 5 now you're gonna take that number so let's say you make a 5 you're gonna multiply it by 3 point 0 5 5 6 so the essays have a higher multiplier the essays are actually combined to make up 55 percent of your score so if you are a strong writer you want to play to those strengths on the exam once you
• 01:30 - 02:00 have determined how many points you earned with the multiple choice and multiplied it by the multiplier and then take in each of your three essay scores and multiplied it by the essay multiplier then you're gonna add those two scores together and so generally speaking it depends on like what the curve is that year and how many multiple-choice questions there were and so forth but you want to be shooting for about 80 points in order to get a three it could be as high as 82 I've seen it as low as 78 on some different resources
• 02:00 - 02:30 that I have but basically 80 is kind of like that middle ground so you want 80 points to be on track for a three now if you want a four you're gonna be looking at approximately 98 again I've seen it kind of range and so it could be 96 it just depends and so they don't actually tell you how many points you earned they just give you your composite when you actually get your scores and I think that's kind of a point of frustration for some students is they want to know where they fell in that range but basically if you're doing
• 02:30 - 03:00 a mock exam or a practice test and you're trying for a four you want to get approximately 98 points and then for a 5 you want to be shooting for approximately 112 points so obviously if you're close to the bottom of the cutoff like 80 points or 98 points then you want to look at where you can improve usually honestly if you go up one point on an essay that gives you a bigger cushion but for some students their essays are as good as they're gonna get
• 03:00 - 03:30 so to speak and they really need to focus on the multiple choice so think about where you can earn a few extra points just so that you're not on that border of like the lower end of a certain composite score pacing for the exam is something that I highly recommend students practice in fact my own students practice this throughout the entire year so let's talk about multiple choice pacing first each passage is gonna have a different number of questions and so the more questions there are for a passage does not actually mean that you should spend more time on that passage you should spend 15
• 03:30 - 04:00 minutes per passage maximum if you're working to pace to finish so what this means is that sometimes the passages with more questions actually have easier questions and so it should not take you any longer than a passage that has fewer questions and is shorter but is more dense so I would recommend that you get a watch and you practice if you're far out from the exam maybe at least a month or two or even I would say maybe even two weeks you can start at maybe 18
• 04:00 - 04:30 minutes of passage and try to work your way down to improve your speed but the goal is 15 minutes of passage because there are four passages and you have 60 minutes now for the essays you're going to get a 15-minute reading period where you can annotate and a lot of students spend their time looking at the different sources for the synthesis question and a lot of students write the synthesis first now as a point of clarification you do not need to write the essays in order so if you are strong at let's say rhetorical this and you want to get that out of the way then go ahead get it out of the way
• 04:30 - 05:00 they will look through your test booklet and before they can give you a zero - people have to look and make sure your essay is definitely not in there so you don't have to do one two three another point of clarification for the essays is that the recommendation is 40 minutes now some students want to spend maybe 45 minutes on one essay and 35 on another and so that's something you want to practice is writing for 40 minutes it's okay to spend 45 on one if you know you're gonna be able to do the other in 35 but the way you know that you can do
• 05:00 - 05:30 that is by practicing so I would recommend looking at the release questions on the College Board website looking at the student samples to figure out what they're looking for I would read the ones that are a 5 or higher and I would try to emulate those because that's gonna be what gets you to pass the exam so it does take practice and I would even recommend practicing writing two or even three essays back-to-back because you're gonna be writing them all three one right after the other during
• 05:30 - 06:00 the exam and writing for 40 minutes can be really strenuous but writing three essays 40 minutes each is gonna honestly it's gonna make your hand cramp it's okay so you need to practice that now I'm not saying that if you practice at a ton your hand is magically going to be muscular and you're not gonna feel anything on test day like that's not what I'm saying but you need to practice that like mental and physical stamina of writing three essays back-to-back so those are my tips as far as pacing I think pacing is really important I think
• 06:00 - 06:30 pacing is a learned skill so I would practice before the exam either in class or on your own in order to achieve the appropriate pace because if you miss pace and you are too slow then it could really hurt your score ok let's get into specific tips for each of the sections so for multiple-choice the first thing you need to remember is that you need to answer all of the questions there is no penalty for guessing and there is no penalty for wrong answers so you only gain points for right answers and because of that I think it's really important to realize
• 06:30 - 07:00 that you need to answer all the questions so let's talk about a couple different scenarios what do you do if you don't paste a finish and therefore you have 10 or more questions at the end of the test that you just will not have time to read and answer choose one letter and just bubble it in now if you are done and you have looked at all 55 questions and answered it but you have maybe 10 that are kind of sporadic that you skipped and you maybe have a few minutes you're like I don't know what to do one thing to consider and this is
• 07:00 - 07:30 going to take practice and like a little bit of understanding is to remember that each of the five answer choices because the AP test goes from A to E is going to be offered approximately 20% of the time is it exactly 20% of the time no but if you can keep a tally very quickly as you're answering questions if you have like just like somewhere you can write on your exam if you can keep track of how many times you've used a as an
• 07:30 - 08:00 answer or B or C or D or E and you notice that let's say you've done B 13 times but you've only done a 7 times then I would go back into those missing questions the ones that you skipped and I would bubble in a so I've looked at a few different secure tests these are things that teachers have access to and in the big picture there have been a few times where it's like one answer choice just sort of stops and it's only used once maybe twice in a in a series of 17
• 08:00 - 08:30 questions and so if you notice that you haven't used a certain answer the same amount of times as the others then if you have zero clue like if you have no time to read it and you just have to bubble something in before time is called then look for the answers that have sort of been like underused as opposed to the ones you're frequently using also it's totally myth that is the right answer so only do that if you can tell that you haven't been using
• 08:30 - 09:00 see a lot another thing to think about is that the questions are done in isolation and what I mean by that is that you can have the same answer like you can have be four times in a row and a lot of students are like wait a minute like I've already used it three times it can't be be the fourth time or they're like maybe I need to go back and look at these because if I have B this time and it's the fourth B then maybe one of the first three are wrong that's not true so it can be the same letter like b b b b
• 09:00 - 09:30 a hey like it's okay so don't look for patterns don't overthink patterns they're not patterns each question is viewed individually so it's okay if you have the same letter choice back-to-back don't like spend time trying to talk yourself out of an answer that you've already convinced yourself of because that's just wasting your time on the test one thing to keep in mind with the question one synthesis essay is that you don't want to be trapped by easy sources so students often look at photos cartoons tables charts graphs those
• 09:30 - 10:00 kinds of things and like oh this is easy because I want to read anything well sometimes these are actually really difficult to interpret or they're difficult to make work for your actual argument so don't spend time trying to interpret a graph that you really don't understand or just simply can't use take the time to read the passages instead so don't go for a source just because it looks easy that's probably going to be to your detriment in the end so really think about which sources will support your argument and maybe one that you can
• 10:00 - 10:30 argue with I recommend to that support your claim and one that you can contradict or refute so don't go for something that looks easy because you're not actually gonna save yourself time so it's okay to read passages like don't look at a passage and go oh it's too long I don't have time and then spend five minutes trying to figure out how you're supposed to interpret a cartoon one of the things that scorers are looking for in the synthesis is your voice they don't want a summary of the sources they want your opinion and your
• 10:30 - 11:00 voice to come through so in order to make an argument that is not driven by the sources but rather supplemented by the sort you want to figure out your opinion before you actually read the documents that are attached and so there's going to be times perhaps when you know nothing about the topic at hand in which case they do give you a little bit of history or context within the actual prompt itself but those are the times where like for instance with eminent domain I had a lot of students who wrote
• 11:00 - 11:30 really good essays about eminent domain but they didn't know what it was before they actually had to write it on their mock exam this year and so that was a time where it was more appropriate to go to the sources because that was how they were going to be most successful and they made their opinion after reading the sources but for the most part like things like public libraries or the penny or monuments or honor codes or other topics that have been used in the past that are a bit more approachable you can have an opinion on those before reading the documents and in that case I
• 11:30 - 12:00 recommend that you choose two sources that support the stance you intend to take and then one that is against it that you can basically refute so that ratio will get you three sources which is my next tip it's super super important to use three sources in fact it's basically mandatory because if you cannot use three sources and cite them clearly in your essay then you're not in contention for a 5 out of 9 or higher so you can either use the author's last
• 12:00 - 12:30 name which will be provided for you or you can refer to it as source a source be whatever scorers are not supposed to have a preference personally as a teacher I prefer to read it as source a because I remember them by their letter but if we're talking about like a research paper in class I want the author's last name so it's not supposed to matter but you must cite it and so some students like to integrate it into their topic sentence like as you can see in source a that's not necessarily the strongest way to do it because then
• 12:30 - 13:00 you're driving your paper by sources so instead make the claim like paraphrase what we're supposed to find out or interpret it for for us make your claim however you're gonna do it and put the source in parentheses at the end of your sentence that makes it less distracting but you're still citing it correctly for question two rhetorical analysis it's very important to understand the author's purpose so it depends on which prompt you're given but I recommend that students take a second to just kind of
• 13:00 - 13:30 brainstorm what I call power verbs so here's an example let's say we're talking about the prompt that was Margaret Thatcher's eulogy for Ronald Reagan well we know a eulogy is a funeral speech and so funeral speeches are meant to honor the dead so if I was trying to prepare for this exam as I was taking it I would say okay pays tribute honors him pays her respects remembers him fondly I would just list as many
• 13:30 - 14:00 things as I could think of that would appeal to purpose memorialized any of those kinds of words or phrases this will help for a couple of reasons one it's helping you figure out the purpose which sometimes the occasion dictates what the purpose is so another example of this would be a commencement speech which is a graduation speech so you need to think about why they are writing the speech or writing the letter or writing the essay whatever it is figure out why
• 14:00 - 14:30 that's the purpose and so I would brainstorm some power verbs before I started writing my essay because a lot of students don't vary their word choice they latch on to one word usually one of the words in the prompt and they go with that and they write it like seven times in four paragraphs and it gets really redundant so if you take a second to give yourself a list and you really think about purpose like why is the author doing this then it will help you avoid a strategy driven essay so it's okay to mention strategies and choices however most of your paragraph and your
• 14:30 - 15:00 analysis needs to be why they're using that strategy and so another thing to think about is actually what the relationship is between the speaker and the audience so let's take the commencement speech for example this was on the 2018 exam so commencement speech is a graduation speech when a person's graduating they're expecting to hear a speech about like life advice and you know the kind of cliche like one chapters closing and now we're starting a new chapter kind of stuff so in this
• 15:00 - 15:30 particular the students were given it was a female speaker Madeleine Albright speaking to a female audience because it was a women's college on their graduation day and in that speech she was actually referencing other women and her message she said it multiple times was to persevere so I actually did a previous video on this if you're curious I will link it below if you want to know how to interpret that speech a little bit more clearly but the thing is is you have to think about the audience cuz twice recently cut the
• 15:30 - 16:00 college board has given a female speaker female audience scenario the other one was Clare Boothe Luce speaking to a group of female journalists so keep that in mind because audience matters and so audience will also sometimes dictate the purpose so for margaret thatcher's she was actually giving a eulogy so obviously the people present heard her but eulogies for presidents are typically televised so in a way she was also speaking to the American public now she worked closely with Ronald
• 16:00 - 16:30 Reagan but she was from Great Britain so there were certain strategies that she had to use to establish her relationship with Ronald Reagan and therefore appeal to credibility as to why she was fit to give this speech and how she wanted the American people to remember him because obviously she knew them sorry she knew him differently than they did another thing to consider is letters letters have an audience of one okay so unless it was somehow written to a group of people letters have an audience of one
• 16:30 - 17:00 so let's think about one that was used rather recently which is the Abigail Adams prompt now this that year had a really low scoring average because apparently a lot of students were like wait a minute like we've been practicing speeches like this is a letter we don't know how to do this yes you do it's the same thing you're going to analyze purpose and then the prompt it said how she advises her son so let's think of other words besides advises we've got mentors guides councils so already we've
• 17:00 - 17:30 got different word choice that we can use alright and then a lot of students probably know about Abigail Adams from like history classes and stuff so you you don't want to bring in a ton if any outside knowledge but it probably should have been apparent to you that she was writing to her son he was a child he was not the president of the US yet nor was her husband the president yet it referenced it in the prompt saying I believe that he was a diplomat so you wanted to think about okay if he's traveling abroad and she's giving him a metaphor of this river and
• 17:30 - 18:00 how the river gets stronger away from its source well it fits his current situation cuz his source is home or perhaps even her and he is going far away and so he's getting stronger so how is he getting stronger well he's gaining knowledge and he's gaining personal experience so that's her purpose yes she's trying to advise him but advise him of what all right so that's the things you guys think about for question two if you can nail purpose and connect it to like the speaker audience like the
• 18:00 - 18:30 rhetorical triangle then you've got a solid essay so yes you want to think about strategies and devices to an extent but those are a vehicle to get to the important part which is analysis and what do we analyze we analyze purpose and then we also analyze the speaker's relationship with his or her audience and how that impacts the choices that he or she has made to convey his or her message where question three the argumentative essay it's important that you assert a position you need to make a
• 18:30 - 19:00 claim that is arguable and it's important then to have a counterclaim in rebuttal so you don't want to try to take on both sides of the issue but instead make a clear stance and make an argument it needs to be something that people can debate something that people could agree or disagree with so you need to have a clear position a claim a stance we call it all different kinds of things but basically it needs to be clear what you're arguing for or against and why one of the things that you need to remember was question three is that
• 19:00 - 19:30 you need evidence and you need to remember that you need a voice you want your argument to be convincing and oftentimes the most convincing arguments are ones where the evidence is is basically in the speaker's wheelhouse so what do I mean by that maybe you're super good at history or at least you've had a really strong year and a push and you can pull in historical examples with a lot of authority you don't want to give a ton of historical context but maybe that's your evidence or maybe you're a musician and bring in an example from music or you're
• 19:30 - 20:00 an athlete and you can bring in a sports example or you're really interested in science a lot of these topics are broad enough that you can use examples from pretty much anything to prove your point and so stay true to what you know think about evidence that you can use to write well if you're reaching for something that you can barely talk about or barely have a conversation about then it probably doesn't belong in the paragraph of an argumentative essay because when students write about something that they
• 20:00 - 20:30 know well their argument is stronger you can just tell that they understand what they're writing about and so obviously connect it to the prompt to connect it to the issue at hand but choose evidence that you know well because it's not always about having the most sophisticated evidence if you have this really awesome example but you can't talk about it effectively then you have nothing whereas you might have this kind of cheesy kind of like mediocre example kind of like oh well that's not really sophisticated but if you can write about
• 20:30 - 21:00 it in a way that shows voice and you can assert a position and use that example to back up that position then you've done what the task has asked and that's really important so choose examples that you're actually able to write about and stop worrying about like is this good enough make sure that you're proving a point that's what they're looking for so this is just observation here and slight opinion it's not an official college board stance however at a lot of the trainings that I've been to the speakers and the readers that I've
• 21:00 - 21:30 spoken to have said that they prefer that students use historical evidence or current events when appropriate so this is building off of the previous point right about what you know well if you don't know history well and you can't think of a good example then choose something else however there is sort of a hierarchy of evidence so historical examples and current events because they're based in fact tend to be more convincing and more logical so if you can brush up on current events and you can brush up on certain aspects of
• 21:30 - 22:00 history then this could help you and I'm not saying that you shouldn't write about literature or you shouldn't write about personal experience but if you can use something that is grounded in reality as at least one of your examples it tends to make a stronger essay but again it has to be well argued if it's really superficial then it doesn't matter and you need something that you can write about well but it's also important to try to at least base one of your pieces of evidence in something that has actually happened before I get into this next
• 22:00 - 22:30 piece of advice I want to be very clear here that this is just my opinion this is not what the college board has said but I think students should avoid writing about religion and politics specifically because even though it might be something that you know a lot about and I did say that you should write about what you know if you can have appropriate evidence a lot of times these types of examples can be very inflammatory and when students are very passionate about a religious example or a certain political example whether it's
• 22:30 - 23:00 a biblical example or whether they're passionate about Trump or Clinton or whatever often times students present things in a way that is very absolute and we want to try to avoid absolute isms and rioting and another thing is that students tend to forget to include a counterclaim in rebuttal when they write about religion and politics so I'm speaking generally here like obviously there are probably some exceptions and which students have done this successfully but just keeping in mind like the average student tends to perhaps stray from the prompt a little
• 23:00 - 23:30 bit when religion or politics get brought up and so at first the example might be really good evidence but then students sometimes tend to get on their their soapbox and get a little bit preachy or they operate under an assumed knowledge that basically assumes that the person reading the essay agrees with your line of thought and so that might not be the case and so the speaker are started the speaker the score is not supposed to bring in any bias but
• 23:30 - 24:00 oftentimes when you bring in religion and politics you open up some territory that that can be avoided and just by using a different example so I'm not saying that you shouldn't have political beliefs I am NOT saying you shouldn't have religious beliefs I'm just saying that these might not be the best things to include in argumentative writing just because they can be very polarizing and so my advice would be to stay away from those several scores that I have spoken to so
• 24:00 - 24:30 these are people who go to the National reading every year and they actually score the AP tests have said that they recommend that students be very careful when referencing literature in their argumentative essays now here's why with history and current events it's based in fact now it seems kind of odd since ap Lang is a form of AP English why would you not accept literary examples here's the reason it's not that they're unacceptable it's oftentimes they're not executed well because students tend to give a plot summary instead of actually
• 24:30 - 25:00 explaining how the certain scene or portion of the book that they're analyzing relates to and proves the argument that they're trying to make oftentimes when you're referencing a novel you have to contextualize it for your reader and you waste so much time and page space giving context that you don't actually get to your point now I have seen students use literature successfully for example for the Oscar Wilde disobedience prompt one of my own students wrote about anthem and did so very effectively but the reason that
• 25:00 - 25:30 that student did it like very well is because there wasn't a whole lot of plot summary the student connected the disobedience to the trajectory of the novel and explained why disobedience mattered and prior to this in a previous paragraph the student had to used a historical example and there was a connection between the two so it flowed very well on some relief samples that I have seen from the disobedience prompt there was a score of a four and a score of a six both of them referenced The Hunger Games the difference was is that
• 25:30 - 26:00 the six the student who wrote that he or she actually connected it to the larger meaning and really focused on the disobedience and didn't overly give too much context and I think the example of disobedience in the six was more sophisticated than the approach the student who wrote the four had and so it's okay to use literature but you want to be very careful not to offer a summary because you're trying to prove a point so sometimes with literary
• 26:00 - 26:30 examples students just lose sight of what the task actually is and you're not analyzing plot or theme here you are trying to prove your mint so just be a little bit careful with literary examples I'm not saying you can't do them in fact if you have no other ideas and you're taking the test and go for it but just try not to turn it into a book summary thank you guys so much for watching these are what I would consider to be my most useful tips as an AP teacher to give AP students in preparation for the exam so if you did
• 26:30 - 27:00 find this helpful please don't forget to like this video comment below what tips you think are useful to students if you've taken the AP Lang exam in the past or if you're taking it this year and you have tips that have worked for you please share those below because it might help other students and if you are a high school junior and you're going to be applying for colleges in the fall please don't forget to subscribe to the channel because throughout the summer and into next fall I will be posting several college application tips videos and you don't want to miss that kind of content either if you are taking the AP link test soon best of luck trust
• 27:00 - 27:30 yourself just go for it you've got this alright guys until next time happy writing