<p>To apply for AP English next year we had to take a 40 minute prompt. Long story short I only wrote 3 paragraphs. I definitely feel like I wrote a solid essay, it just wasn't the 5 paragraph standard that is usually expected. Did I screw myself over? If there is one class I want to take next year it is AP English. I have the academic record and other essays to give me a boost, and I don't know why, but I am really fretting over the two paragraphs I didn't write.</p>
<p>No. The standard five paragraph essay is taught to us when we first learn to write a paper. Once you are a proficient writer, you have a lot more freedom to write the type of paper you wish to write. A three paragraph paper is perfectly fine.</p>
<p>^ completely agree. Traditional 5 paragraph essays are garbage cookie cutters designed to restrict the freedom of young writers because at that point they don't know how to write, so if they have too much freedom they are much more likely to mess it up than to put said freedom to good use. They are training wheels; they keep you from falling over but limit you severely once you know what you are doing. By the time you are in AP English, you should know what you are doing and adherence to that format should be unnecessary.</p>
<p>I don't really follow the 5 paragraph essay structure, and in fact eschew writing an introductory paragraph before my thesis, which I often state as a single, underlined sentence. Still got 4's in both AP Langauge and AP Literature.</p>