@Aleksandr7 I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic but as someone who is also literature-impared I have to admit that quote isn’t abstract. I hated that essay as much as the next person but the juggler was an allegory if anything. A complicated one, but still and allegory. Reminded me a bit of certain passages in Lord of the Flies
anyone have any idea what the cutoff for a 5 might be this year? the exam estimate from 2014 from ap pass is saying 110/150 or 73% for a 5
OK, some of you will never agree about The Juggler. Time to move on.
I’m really glad collegeboard chose a poem that caused so much controversy! The Juggler is such an interesting poem after a few reads.
A good rule of thumb is that 80% MCQ + 7/7/6 on essays is always a 5 (on every curve I’ve ever seen).
Hey guys, I had a question about FRQ #3, the one about deception. I wrote about Huckleberry Finn and said the deception was the Duke and the Dauper (essentially a single entity), who lied to commit crimes. I then went much deeper into how their deception shaped the meaning of the work as a whole.
Point 1 - The Duke and the Dauper lied to Huck and Jim and pretended to be of royal origins. Huck even saw through this, but basically shrugged it off. In effect, the deception of the Duke and the Dauper caused an ethical drift in Huck & Jim. The fact that the heroes of the novel aren’t morally perfect reflects Twain’s belief that there is no absolute morality in the world.
Point 2 - The Duke and the Dauper deceive townspeople into watching the Royal Nonesuch. Instead of calling them out on their fraud, the townspeople deceive their friends into watching it too in order to mask their own stupidity. This deception characterizes Twain’s belief that moral corruption had seeped into every nook and cranny of society because no one was willing to stand up to it.
Point 3 - Duke and Dauper deceive the Wilkses and their whole town into thinking that the duo were really relatives of the Wilkes. This occurs despite Dr. Robinson calling them out on their ploy. When the Duke and the Dauphin are later uncovered to be criminals, the Wilses daughters (especially Mary) are distraught and don’t know who they can trust. So in this case, deception broke down a family that should have been in mourning, reflecting once again Twain’s pessimistic outlook on humanity & its ability to fight against immorality.
My main concern with the essay is that I glossed over the motives for the deception and focused mostly on its impacts on the meaning of the work as a whole. What do you guys think?
*Dauphin
As for your question, well, it’s pretty hard to say–by “glossed over” do you mean “mentioned briefly” or “neglected”? If the former, you may be okay; if the latter, well, that’s part of the prompt.
The bigger issue to me, and one I’d be concerned about, is that the D & D aren’t central characters in the novel and all #3 prompts require you to write about central characters & events.@PSAT2014TAKER
Thanks for the reply marvin100.
As to your first question, it was more of the former.
By glossed over, I said that their motivation was to reinvent themselves as two figures of royalty in order to commit crimes. I then went on to talk about the impacts of their deception (those three points in my earlier post). I concluded by saying that their deception was not just about committing petty crimes but also revealed an ethical drift in the novel’s heroes, inspired deception in others, and tore apart a family that should have been mourning. This deception ultimately played into Twain’s belief that there was no morality in society.
As to the second concern, I agree that the D&D aren’t the biggest characters in the novel, but after Huck and Jim I would say that they play a pivotal role in the story.
Did anyone see what AP Trevor on Twitter said about this year’s exam? This is the worst test takers have done in 5 years 
“This year’s AP English Literature performance was the lowest in the past 5 years, resulting in a decrease in scores of 3+ by ~2 % pts.”
“AP English Literature students continue to find analyzing poetry more difficult than prose, in both the MC and FR sections of the exam.”
AP Score break down: 2016 AP English Literature scores: 5: 7.4%; 4: 17.7%; 3: 29.5%; 2: 33.4%; 1: 12%.
I walked out of there thinking that I had a solid chance at a 4. Now I’m not too sure. I got a 3 on AP Lang last year, but I predicted that. The test FELT difficult. This test felt fair, but I guess my intuition was wrong this year…
Also, "The most frequent score on all three of these AP English Lit essays was 4 out of 9 points possible: "
Which happened in previous years also, but in my English lit class, I never really got a 4/9 on anything, I guess the readers are strict?
I got a 4! It was more or less what I was expecting. Anyone get any surprises one way or the other?
I also got a 4. I’m surprised cause I felt like I didn’t write very well and my class was full of seniors who were infected with a bad case of senioritis.
I also got a 4, which is better than I did on Lang.
I got a 3. Kind of a bummer because I got a 5 on the mock exam we had. I also got a 3 on Lang last year though I was expecting to fail Lang.
I guess it is bc of my essays- my teacher graded too nicely / gave everyone 8s and 7s so we weren’t prepared.
What sort of credit can I get for 3s on both English exams?
I got a 5, despite completely BSing the Juggler essay.