Rising senior taking AP Lit next year! Anyone else? Is it similar to AP Lang? What’s the difficulty level?
Sorry for all the questions 
Similar to Lang, but of course poetry and fiction, and no synthesis or argument essays. Lang skills will serve you well on Lit, though you’ll need to learn the lit terms (esp. for poetry) quite thoroughly and familiarize yourself with the kind of poetry that comes out on the exam.
@marvin100 thank you! is there more writing or reading? i feel like we did so much writing in lang, more than in previous years!
Well, I don’t know about the class at your school, but the exam is like lang: one hour of MCQs, two hours for three essays. A good Lit class should cover a lot of poems and assign many, many essays for practice, but there are a lot of teachers out there who aren’t super stoked about teaching poetry and an even larger number of teachers who are loath to grade big stacks of essays (and return them in time to help kids on their next ones). @thecolourist
@marvin100 I got a 4 on AP lang, felt like my MC sucked but essays were pretty good. In my school, we did a bunch of MC practice, but nothing like the actual test, and wrote timed essays sporadically (probably 5/6 times throughout the whole year). If there is one thing or things you would recommend I focus on, what would u recommend? (Trying to get a 5 btw)
I’d definitely solve and analyze all the released exams, but more importantly I’d focus on the essays, which are more than half of the total score and, imo, the easiest way to make a jump.
I took Lang and Lit at the same time - so I used Lang for a lot of essay prep. I think a big skill to build though is close reading and annotation because it’s going to help you pick up on important subtext much quicker. I started by really going overboard in annotation and then scaling it back as finding the best stuff became easier. I think poetry is the perfect practice ground because there are layers of meaning and every word was selected carefully by the author
Being well-read helps a lot and I’m sure you’ll encounter a lot of great works in your class, but if you can take charge and continue challenging yourself with different sophisticated materials that definitely helps. Here’s a reading list that I might pick a few extra books to choose from: https://www.albert.io/blog/ultimate-ap-english-literature-reading-list/
I have to give a special shout out to lord of the flies too - definitely helped me get my 5.
hope this helps
We have to do an in-class essay on Frankenstein on Tuesday. I’m really nervous; it is a lot of points and my teacher kinda scares me. I hope this year goes well!
I am a rising senior too and I will be taking AP Lit. I took AP Lang as a Junior and I did horrible on the exam. :(( And the worst part is I don’t know what I am wrong. For this year’s summer reading we had to read The awakening by Kate Chopin and it was a pretty good book. But I still don’t know what to expect for the school year. :-?
I don’t even know why I’m taking Lit; I’m so bad at analyzing literature lol
@Soccer1235 Your college self will thank you. I don’t think there’s another class that got me as ready for discussion sections at Northwestern as AP Lit. Definitely something you can practice and get better at.
And in regards to in class essays - just set aside a few minutes to jot down your main ideas in a quick web. Make topic sentences maybe and then dive into writing. As tough as your teacher is I’m sure a little organization will go a long way in their eyes and maybe gradebook, especially early in the year. This one has passed and I’m sure you did fine, but it’s a highly practice-able thing.
I think it’s also very, very helpful to examine others’ essays–the CB has a ton of samples online for past FRQs. In my AP Lit class I make extensive use of my students’ past essays as they demonstrate the methods I teach–my students often say they’re one of the most helpful parts of the course.
@Readinger_101 I think AP Lit can be different this year. I think these two topics are strange in that you can feel pretty confident on your multiple choice but still end up getting many wrong because they are so analytical and you need to hone specific answer choosing skills. best way to address this is practice. Some sites with great questions:
http://www.appracticeexams.com/ap-english-literature - lots of options here some paid some not
https://www.albert.io/ap-english-literature/questions (if you click into their humanities tab there are also questions for like 30 common books that are very solid for ap lit practice
I was a multiple choice specialist and my teacher really emphasized how much that can mean when it’s time for grading - to get better you need to find really good questions to practice and review.
@StiocCyclops thank you for the links.
Anyone ready for this year’s exam? I can’t believe it’s only sixteen days away.
^^^ Yeah not at all
Does anyone know know if the international exams that have been released to teachers (like the 2016 ones) are the same difficulty as the real exam? I took a few released international ones and did really well but the 2012 one that was a form O in the US in 2012 seemed more difficult to me when I took it today so I’m freaking out a little
Exam is tomorrow! Haven’t written an essay or done multiple choice practice in a few weeks, as my english class ended a while back. Not too worried though, as I did well on english language last year.
Good luck to everyone!
Just finished! Some of the MCs were really weird but overall I think it went well!
I ran out of time at the end and forgot to label the last sheet (w like 2 sentences on it) in the FRQ packet…do you think this will still be counted?
The MC was ok, but what really threw me off were the vocab questions.
I.e. how does she feel about [insert here]?
A) word I’ve never seen in my life
B) word I’ve never seen in my life
C) word I don’t know the meaning of
D) word I know the meaning of
E) word I’ve never seen in my life
Also, I only had 10 minutes on the last passage (each passage is supposed to be given an average of 12 minutes) so I had to rush through it a bit.
Poetry essay was meh, probably gonna get a 4 on it. Prose essay, maybe a 5 or 6. Reading essay, I really don’t know if I’d say 4, 5 or 6.
I think I got either a 2 or 3. I’m really hoping for a 3 though.