<p>I've heard many things about this. </p>
<p>What's annoying is my teacher doesn't teach. and he is so VAGUE. he goes us a couple of articles talking about the same subject and asks us to prepare to discuss the differences. </p>
<p>OKAY, what does the AP lang exam want us to look for when looking in "differences"? difference b/w use of rhetorical devices, purpose of the text and how that text was conveyed?? </p>
<p>and any other general tips about ap lang. i've heard "lots of essay practice". but what types of essays? i mean, all i know how to write are APUSH essays lol... or random literary analysis.</p>
<p>Well, your teacher was right to ‘discuss the differences’. Here’s what will happen on the AP Lang exam (I took it last year and got a 5.) You will have 3 essays, I believe, that will be persuasive and analytical. First will be the synthesis essay. You will be given like 5 different pieces, all on the same subject, which might include letters, pictures, encyclopedia entries, etc. You will have to consolidate these entries and put them into an essay so that you can support your position. Ex: Should NASA expand? Sources: NASA letter, picture of shuttle, scientific brief on NASA, etc. So you have to be strong at writing persuasive pieces. Then you’ll have an analytical essay, where the ‘looking at the differences come in’. One of last year’s analytical essays gave us 2 passages, side by side on a related topic, and we had to analyze them. You have to look at things like tone, rhetorical strategies, prospective audience, vocabulary, etc to differentiate the passages, and discuss how the author of each passage is getting his point across. You will basically have to do something called ‘active reading’. Instead of just scanning over something, like we usually do, you will have to note things about passages. Change of tone, transition words, examples that the author uses, any irony or humor, what’s their purpose in the passage, etc. So really, if you need practice on analyzing passages, like you need to learn rhetorical strategies, get an AP Lang prep book and review, and practice writing A LOT. Hopefully you’ll have some timed, in-class essays. But analyzing the text and seeing the ‘differences’ is definitely crucial to ace the test. Just think of it this way. Why did the author put this phrase here? What’s its purpose? Hope this helped. Good luck!</p>
<p>I took the exam last year and managed a 4. All I can say is to know your literary terms, how they are used, and why they are used. That is key for the multiple choice. WHY an author states something and WHAT RHETORICAL EFFECT they are trying to convey is what the essays and basically the entire exam are based on. My recommendation would be to get a review book and take all of the practice exams. I prefer using Princeton Review, but my teacher required the class to get Cliffs. I would actually recommend Cliffs for this exam because it has multiple practice exams that really help you to prepare for the multiple choice and it also has a really nice literary term index in the back. There are also sample essays that are analyzed and really give a good feel for what the College Board is looking for on the essays.</p>
<p>As for your teacher and the class: Don’t worry about him. My teacher taught us virtually nothing, she just made us write dozens of essays and take hundreds of practice AP exam multiple choice questions. She also had us come to school on three seperate occasions to make us take full length practice exams. So obviously the true value I got out of taking that course was that I was well practiced and learned the format of the exam because I was forced into it; it wasn’t anything that she taught me. As long as you are being well practiced, you will be fine. Getting very familiar with the format of the test helped me a lot I think, and it was through the insane amount of practice exam material.</p>
<p>And your last point about the writing: APUSH essays are very similar to AP Lang, surprisingly. I took both courses together last year and there are definitely similarities between the essays of the two. The synthesis on the Lang is basically the exact same thing as the DBQ. The two free responses are also similar to the APUSH exam, except for one of the ones on the Lang exam you have to read and analyze a passage, wheras on the APUSH exam you are simply given a topic to analyze for both.</p>