How is AP Spanish Literature?

Test Preparation AP Test Preparation
1

<p>My school doesn't offer AP Spanish Literature, but I find myself a very good student at foreign languages. I'm at the top of my class in Spanish, and definitely plan on taking AP Spanish Language. I asked my teacher about Literature, and she said that it was extremely difficult, and that's why they don't bother trying to teach it. But I want a general idea just to see if I can take it. I don't really plan on majoring or even minoring in it, but I just want to take it for experience's sake. I would appreciate it if one of you could fill me in on how it is, and if any of you took it, what you got</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>I did not take it, but you have to be very proficient in reading/writing in Spanish to do well. You need to read all of the [following</a> works](<a href=“Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board”>Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board) in Spanish for the test. You’ll also be writing three essays on the test, so it’s probably similar to English Literature & Composition in that respect, but in Spanish.</p>

<p>I suggest looking at previous [free</a> response questions](<a href=“Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board”>Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board), and even getting a [released</a> exam<a href=“or%20at%20least%20look%20at%20the%20free%20%5Burl=Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board”>/url</a> if you want to see what you’re in for.</p>

<p>Finally, even though 80% of the test takers are hispanic or latino, only 9% of test takers receive a score of 5. Even though not all hispanic or latino people have Spanish as their native language, that still has to make you wonder ;)</p>

<p>See the [url=<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools]AP</a> - Report to the Nation](<a href=“Store App”>Store App) for this information and other statistics.</p>

3

<p>I took Spanish Lit last year as a senior - to tell you the truth, I thought it was one of the more demanding tests (and courses) I took. Check the reading list out - it’s super long. We started the reading list junior year in AP Spanish Lang (obviously at a much slower pace), but by test time, we still had a handful of texts that we hadn’t read. And how helpful it is to have read the texts? My memory is a little hazy, but I remember that one of the texts we read was in the reading comprehension section, and I think I wrote about the texts in two of the essays. But mainly its the practice of reading and analyzing poetry and prose, and writing decent essays really fast, that will help you on the test.</p>

<p>I thought it was one heck of an endurance test. But that being said, I really enjoyed the texts we read (a lot of classics, and a ton of stuff that’s just downright entertaining), so if you really like Spanish and have a lot of motivation, go for it.</p>

<p>I got a five, but don’t plan to continue studying Spanish in college.</p>

4

<p>Thanks, but will I be able to read the texts and understand them satisfactorily through self-studying?</p>

5

<p>You will do just fine. I took it just last year, and I felt unprepared. Out of my entire class of 20 or so 4 of us took the exam. Our teacher really made no attempt to prepare us. As long as you are moderately fluent and you study up on the stories you will do well. Myself and my fellow test takers started studying only 6 weeks before the test, when we realized it was going to require some work. We created a master study guide with a plot description for every story, in english! I just studied straight off that. The only thing that threw me off on exam day was the poetry analysis. I had no idea what to do, we never covered it in class. Even still though I BS’ed it and I ended up with a 3. Not bad for 6 weeks worth of work… If you are giving yourself a year, you will be fine. Had I given myself even 4 months and studied poetry analysis, I would have had a 4 easily.</p>

6

<p>I would say self-studying for this exam is fairly difficult to do. I took this course senior year as well at TJHSST, and my teacher has a very high success rate - almost all of her students get 5’s (occassionally, one or two from her classes get lower if they stopped trying during second semester). We read ALL of the works over the school year, which was very difficult to keep up with - it is a lot of reading, looking up of words, etc. Workload-wise, it was the most difficult course I’ve taken. We also did a lot of practice writing.</p>

<p>The test (besides the essays, which I was very prepared for due to my teacher) was pretty difficult too - you read new passages/poems as well as old ones and are asked about them. Though I am normally good at comprehension, I don’t have a very large vocab, so even if I knew what the passage was about/what the questions were asking, I often had trouble picking the right answer choices because of my lack of vocab. I still got a 5, but it was most uncomfortable during the MC of that exam than any other AP.</p>

<p>It’s difficult to self-prepare because of the amount of works you need to look at (it would be hard for me to stay motivated on my own) and the level of comprehension they expect. Especially for the essays, you need to know all of the works pretty well to write a good essay (any of the stories/poems are open game, and you need to remember themes, characters, etc. from each), and our teacher told us what the AP keeps looking for (questions about identity, especially in relation to women). Also, the teacher can help you analyze the passsages, learn vocabulary/phrases specific to discussing prose/poetry, and point out things about the works you wouldn’t have noticed (I was one of the top students in my class, and even though I was able to figure out a lot of things about the work on my own, she revealed a lot of new things I didn’t notice (sometimes very big themes/symbols/metaphors) that I initially missed). When you are reading a foreign language, you miss certain subtletites that native speakers (or near that level) would catch, and comprehending something in a foreign language and then writing about it in that language is very difficult. With practice, it’s easy, but usually, a teacher really helps you develop those skills.</p>

<p>It’s not impossible, and I don’t know what the curve is (maybe it is large due to the difficulty of the exam), but I will not underplay that the self studying will require a lot of dedication. If you want to do it for fun, that’s fine. However, if you end up doing it, I would try getting your Spanish teacher to help you out along the way and find good translations of the works online/at a store to help you read everything.</p>

<p>If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask.</p>