@thetex It kind of felt that way, but it was honestly up to the test-takers whether or not to write about Trump or any other politician. You could have made a remark about fake news in the second essay, but I talked more about yellow journalism as it was more of a rhetorical analysis. I’m pretty sure with the third one, everyone saw the words “political leaders” and “narratives” and instantly knew they were going to write about the past election. I did the same but, however, did take into account the political affiliations of my potential grader, so I just decided to negatively talk about Trump, Hillary, and even Bernie and how artificial characters and narratives in politics is truly, unfortunately, needed to get voters’ attention. Because I guess it’s better to just offend everyone, that and I’m more of a centrist anyway. I know people who wrote about Hitler and even people who decided to not even write about politics out of fear of their test grader’s political bias and instead wrote about consumer culture (false advertising and social media), so there’s that. And either way, you shouldn’t have to fear test grader bias anyway. Our AP Lang teacher told us the graders are supposed to grade without bias. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t allow graders who were going to let their bias control their grading the ability to grade. There will probably still be bias, but it shouldn’t affect your paper too bad. If you feel that bias was included in your score, then you would have to report it to CB.
I wrote about demagoguery and populism.
Trump certainly fits within the scope of what the prompt is asking for, although you could say the same about prominent figures on the left. As a classical liberal, I chose not to vomit my political positioning onto this exam.
Lol I wrote about Big Brother from 1984, Hitler, and Nixon and his Checkers the dog speech for the third essay. I only thought about writing about Trump for a split second, but that’s it. And yeah kind of like someone already said, I’m pretty sure they make these exams a year or two before they give them out, so I feel like it was just a major coincidence. But I’m pretty happy I didn’t write about Trump cause since I know a lot of people did, I feel like my essay will stand out a tiny bit more than others.
I wrote about Bismarck, Martin O’ Malley and his inability to overshadow Hillary and Bernie bc he didnt have a narrative, school student council elections, and job interviews. What do you guys think about this? I thought about writing about Trump for a second, but I didn’t want my reader to be biased against my paper
I’m kinda late to this thread but… I felt that the multiple choice was pretty difficult; however, it’s still possible to get around a 4 or 5 if you get 30/55- you’d just have to get 8’s on your essays. I really liked the prompts for the essays this year. They were set up to be easy to pick a side and argue. The more that I read the comments, the more I wish I had strayed away from talking about our current administration for the 3rd prompt. I was probably being really general/too generic. I just hope that my argument stands out more against the other Trump arguments due to me mentioning different point of views. I also didn’t even know what the word mean for that last prompt and I guessed based on the passage given. I wrongfully included Brock Turner into my 3rd essay. I hope the reader can understand how it sort of applies to the prompt… even though I didn’t relate it back to the word much. Oh well, it is what it is. Hopefully I can get a 4 or more. We’ll see. Wish all you luck!
What did everyone get? I live in California so my scores don’t come out until July 9th.
@LazyRay I got a 5!! I’m so suprized and thankful that I wasn’t penalized for writing about our current government on the last essay. If you’re anxious about scores you can use “early scores”. I’m from California and vacationing out of country right now; worked for me!
I used the early score access too… I was kind of surprised I got a 3 because I ended the AP lang class with an solid A and got a high 4 on my final in a pretty competitive school. Maybe it is because I wrote about Trump, maybe it’s not but I am pretty devastated.
I got a 5 and used one of the early vpm websites… I have a question though- does college board release info about your mc and essay scores or just the main 1-5 score?
@ughfuture28 They only display the 1-5 score. I find that EXTREMELY annoying especially since we pay around $100 per exam and wait 2 months for results, but such is life!
@sewin2music that’s so annoying!! Hopefully one of my essays will be a sample so I can know my score
5!!! we really did it folks!!! watch me walk in AP lit next year and opt out 2nd semester l m f a o
@macktheknife I feel the same way! I believe one of the essays is a poetry analysis. RIP
I got a big fat 3. I thought that I did better with a 4. Maybe it was a high 3? It doesn’t matter, a 3’s a 3. Collegeboard should really change it so that we can see the range we were in rather than just a number- for example, maybe telling us if we got a high or low on that number? Maybe it’s too much to ask but we did pay $90 for one exam. Anyways (sorry about the rant), congratulations to everyone who got a good score!
I got a 5! I also wrote about Trump in my 3rd Argumentative essay… and it was not in a positive light. Right after the test I felt discouraged by others who told me that such a position would place me at a disadvantage in front of the readers. However, the College Board graders view these tests in the most objective way possible–something that seems contradictory in a subject like English. Glad that I could express my true opinion without being bashed for once!
I did as well… read my post above^
@leafartaffy2 I wrote pretty much the same thing and got a 5 too LOL. I feel like they set us up for that one!!!