I spoke about the synthesis essay in general except I added a few “my school” in the first and last paragraphs just to satisfy them if they really wanted that. It did say your school but I feel like that’s kind of ridiculous so hopefully they’ll take a general essay.
@leafasao I think that’s kinda the point of the anonymity 
@MusicManatee I think it’s the same thing I said to @lol888888 “In the end it’s about whether they know what you’re talking about. If it’s comprehensible, you’ll be fine. However, spelling errors certainly do not help.”
I did that on the APUSH DBQ. I was trying to refer to Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, but I mistakenly confused her name with a girl in my grade who has the same initials. I think it matters more on that exam though :">
@MusicManatee As long as they get the drift, you’ll be fine. The readers understand you were pressed for time.
Is it okay if you didn’t talk about your school in the synthesis essay? 
I talked about honor codes in general but didn’t mention my own school even though it said to. Also, I didn’t explicitly mention any specific cultures in the argumentative essay, but I talked about how people kind of overlook small talk when I’m working (customers will ignore me when I say “have a nice day” and stuff) and I talked about how people are less and less inclined to make that kind of small talk. Does that kind of work for culture? I’m so upset with myself for not putting this stuff in my essay like the prompt said to do and I’m frustrated that the College Board had such weird prompts :,(
@TotallyTrudy You’ll be fine 
As long as your essay was good, I doubt the graders will mind a slight deviation from the prompt, so long as you wrote well. The prompts were weird though, frustrated about that.
I was really pissed about the argument essay prompt just because I feel like the point of the argument prompt is to make it relatable to kids our age and make it easy to reference things from history and your life but it was next to impossible for that one?? Like no one has an opinion on it so I just thought it was an awful prompt like honestly no offense college board
@Zigzag27 thanks, that makes me feel a lot better! My synthesis was alright, but I had some trouble structuring and getting it to flow right. It needed up being a little redundant. My analysis was actually really good, one of my best ones ever Then my argumentative one was so weird! The only good example I could think of was one about me being at work and customers often could care less about small talk. Idk why but I ended up comparing to the writing styles of some authors :(( I talked about how one author wrote with a lot of fluff (pointless small talk) and the other was way more direct and to the point (talking w/o small talk). And then I mentioned something that Stephen King wrote in my last example, and it was actually a decent point. Overall it was so weird I completely blanked and didn’t know what to put and panicked. Does any of this stuff seem valid? I was really hoping for a 4 but it seems like that ship has sailed :((
I didn’t think it was that bad. I was able to write that one most fluently without the long pauses to think of what I should write next or scribbling out a lot of what I wrote. I didn’t think too hard on the prompts, just wrote about what the question asked. My essays were pretty messy though.
@Zigzag27 Oh… well then… here’s my thoughts on the essays…
Synthesis: amazingly easy, especially since I had a debate about this like last week. I actually discussed and named my school, and talked about revisions that should be made.
Rhetorical Analysis: Honestly, it was easy but weird. I somehow lost my thoughts on this one, and wrote random stuff about pathos and juxtaposition… hope I get a 8…
The last one (I dunno what it’s called): The easiest persuasive essay ever! Since I’m an immigrant, it’s much easier for me to look outside American culture and say, this is what ____ does and its value. It also helped that I watch Asian reality TV all the time, so I could refer to that sort of culture as well… For reference, I talked about America’s individualist culture and dispositional attribution errors (thank you, AP Psych!) and how that contributed to the value of _____.
@TotallyTrudy I had this problem in class. My teacher always said that it’s better to be redundant and repetitive to get your point across than to automatically assume the reader knows what you’re talking about.
MC was horrible and the essays were easy.
At least if I don’t do well this year, I might be able to do better and get a 4 on AP lit next year, and if I do I’ll be able to get college credit for 6 hours at the school I want to go to
Wrote about the same things exactly for all three @leafasao
Polite conversations wth…
For the synthesis essay, did it say that we were supposed to mention our own school?
I didn’t get to read the last passage and educated guessed the entire last passage questions. Is it possible for me to get a 5 if I got approx. 4/5 out of the last 11? Do they throw some of the last pssage questions out
@leafasao I hope I helped! How did you think the MC went? I thought it was hard at first, but then became fairly easy as the passages progressed. And yeah, I do not think we are supposed to discuss specifics either… But I hope everyone did well! Fingers crossed that we don’t die of impatience waiting for July :-SS
Multiple choice: first passage was difficult and time consuming; second and third were a breeze; fourth was easy since I knew what androgynous meant (thank you psych) but I had to make educated guesses for the last four because of time.
Synthesis: cake. I devoutly hate cheaters so this was such a great essay topic. It did specifically say “your school” in the essay topic so I did occasionally write “my school” but it was General AF.
Rhetorical device: I thought it wasn’t as easy as my friends did. I used personification (because I couldn’t write an entire paragraph on the Ghandi allusion), metaphors, and ethos.
Argument: it did say specifically in a culture/community you’re familiar with so like it did restrict me to personal anecdotes rather than any other examples. I talked about how polite speech helps in high school because it promotes equality, allows for super ordinate goals to be met, and strengthens one’s argument (counterargument was that most may think polite speech is pusillanimous and inefficient).
Overall: 35~40/55; 9; 6-7; 7-8. I think I got a 5 but wouldn’t be disappointed with a 4.
Anyone think the rhetorical analysis was easy? If so, what were your body paragraphs?
Does anyone know how bad it would be if you were to misidentify a rhetorical device but still explained its rhetorical effect in detail (for example calling hypophora a rhetorical question)?