***AP English Literature and Composition Thread 2015-2016***

@TotallyTrudy I’m actually enjoying it right now lol. Makes me realize what things I have been missing whenever I read. I like how the chapters aren’t super long too. Definitely gonna be more conscious about whatever the author said when I read books for the class now hah.

Has anyone taken AP lit online and if so, explain your experiences with it?

I’m taking this exam but I’m in IB HL English year 1. Anybody else in IB?

True… well… maybe I did not see the name “AP Lit” as I am so panicked about Lang.

I am struggling to find Multiple Choice to practice. Went through Cliffs, and Princeton Review’s questions suck, and am panicked over being unable to do anything.

Ohh well… I guess I will try another forum.

What Study Guides do you guys recommend for AP English Literature? (Barrons, PR, Cliff Notes?)

McGraw-Hill is the best one I’ve seen, @Optimyst

The thing that intimidates me the most about the AP Literature exam is the sheer number of pretentious and archaic texts that the College Board loves to stuff in its English exams. Honestly, I’m great at writing and expressing my ideas, but when it comes to reading poetry from the 1500s-1700s, I find myself completely tangled in the author’s words. Did the writers from that time period collectively swear to confuse their readers with winding thoughts? Why can’t poetry be complicated and yet still comprehensible and beautiful?

And on one hand, the College Board advises students to avoid pretentious or overly ornate writing in the essay portion because the AP readers are familiar with it, but on the other hand it inundates us with pretentious writing on the multiple choice section. Smh.

I don’t think you have much of a case if you’re accusing writers like Donne, Yeats, and Shakespeare of being “pretentious,” @Aleksandr7

@marvin100 Why are you putting words into my mouth? When did I reference such writers? Shakespeare and Yeats (I’m not familiar with Donne) are at least comprehensible and beautiful writers, but the kind of garbage I’ve seen on these practice exams is barely worth reading, let alone analyzing.

@Aleksandr7 They will have a range of poetry/writings from different time periods; this was the case when I took the exam. There were wonderfully written works of recent poetry last year in the MC and FRQ that I can recall, so you will not be necessarily inundated with older texts.

And you do have to consider that a language and the people who speak it can change a great deal over the span of several hundred years- what may seem pretentious to you may not have been pretentious in the time that those works were written, and I certainly think it’s valid for a literature exam to test your ability to read literature of different genres and styles, even if you don’t like a particular style (which is fine).

As for the essays, you have roughly 40 min each, it’s for your and the grader’s benefits that you don’t attempt to embellish your writing in such a time crunch.

@Aleksandr7 - which writers/poems are you so contemptuous of? I’m quite sure I can provide some clarity if you’d like.

@marvin100 So as an example, take a look at question 2 from the 2013 AP Lit frq, the excerpt from “Paradise”. I honestly have no idea what the writer is talking about. There’s some sort of contrast between the Brangwen men and some other men, but I genuinely have no clue what that contrast is about. It all seems to me like a blurred collage of random thoughts pieced together sentence by sentence. This is the exact kind of writing I’m contemptuous of – the kind of writing that doesn’t make any meaningful point, but instead affects profundity

*Edit: “The Rainbow”, not Paradise

Okay…so you’re saying D.H. Lawrence is pretentious, then. Hm. Anyway, here’s a quick gloss of the passage:

P1
The men lead lives of labor and work, and don’t have time or inclination to look backwards or perform any particular introspection. Their farming lifestyle doesn’t really allow for it and definitely doesn’t encourage that sort of thinking beyond the day-to-day requirements of life and sustenance. They interact with nature and while that way of living is unmediated and direct, it doesn’t lead to deep thought or larger ambitions or desires.

P2
The woman wants something else, and her house (symbol alert!) faces outward, towards the cities. The graf suggests that those cities and the lifestyles they encourage may not be so great (“having turned…creation”), but the important thing is that this woman is an exception and isn’t satisfied with the farming lifestyle, the cycles of nature, or the men in her town.

P3
She wants to be part of the world of ideas and intellectual/philosophical (political?) life. Her husband, though, isn’t like her. He’s like the rest of the men. Again, her desire is emphasized, and the world beyond the farming village seems to her to be able to satisfy that desire, but again, the passage has a few hints that such an outcome is unlikely.

P4
We’re introduced to the vicar, a direct contrast with the other men and her husband (now identified as Brangwen) in particular. She’s extremely curious about him, because although he’s small (her husband’s a big dude), he clearly has a power over much larger men. His way of speaking and thinking is also different–and she can’t really fully understand him. He’s an embodiment of her larger desire. She wants what he has, or, if she can’t get that, she wants her children to have it–and “it” seems to be some sort of intellectual power.

I’m not a huge Lawrence fan, but the writing seems excellent to me, @Aleksandr7

[Here’s a decent essay & reflection](Dissecting AP English and Literature : #19: Reflection on The Rainbow Writing) by a high school student.

@marvin100 I would never have been able to understand the passage like you did in your paragraph summaries…I don’t know what to do, honestly. I feel hopeless for both the MC and essay sections. I got a 5 on my AP Lang exam, but the passages weren’t too difficult. I don’t know, Literature seems much more difficult to me.

Also, I’m great at writing, but I suck at interpreting literature. The thing about traditional literature classes is that anything is open for interpretation and you can pretty much get away with expressing your own, personal opinions so long as you support them with evidence from the text(s). But on the AP Exam, you don’t get that level of freedom. I’ve realized that the problem probably stems from my lack of understanding of literature (mostly older works) rather than pretentiousness on the authors’ parts, and I’ve heard that the only way to improve this skill is to actively read…a lot. But I don’t have time to read literature, let alone to actively analyze it, aside from whatever is assigned to me in school. If you have any tips for succeeding, as the AP exam is just around the corner, I’d really appreciate them.

Then again (and sorry for the flood of posts), I’m not sure if this pattern of failure is because of me or because of the review book I’ve been using. I bought Barron’s, but I’ve been consistently doing poorly on it. In contrast, I did quite well on the College Board’s released exam practice.

Barron’s is pretty bad (as are all the other third-party AP Lit prep books, to be honest).

That said, you really only have a couple options: (1) cross your fingers and hope you don’t get the kind of passages and poems that you can’t understand/interpret or (2) take a different test–maybe AP Lit isn’t for you.

Best of luck, @Aleksandr7

@marvin100 Thanks! I purchased McGraw Hill’s 5 steps to a 5. Hope it’s not nearly as bad as Barron’s.