ENGLISH

LITERATURE AND
COMPOSITION
Course Description
Effective Fall 2014

AP Course Descriptions are updated regularly. Please visit AP Central

(apcentral.collegeboard.org) to determine whether a more recent Course
Description PDF is available.

The College Board

The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college
success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to
higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the worlds leading
educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year,
the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college
through programs and services in college readiness and college success including the SAT and
the Advanced Placement Program. The organization also serves the education community through
research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators, and schools. For further information, visit
www.collegeboard.org.

AP Equity and Access Policy

The College Board strongly encourages educators to make equitable access a guiding principle
for their AP programs by giving all willing and academically prepared students the opportunity to
participate in AP. We encourage the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP for students from
ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underserved. Schools should
make every effort to ensure their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population. The
College Board also believes that all students should have access to academically challenging course
work before they enroll in AP classes, which can prepare them for AP success. It is only through a
commitment to equitable preparation and access that true equity and excellence can be achieved.

AP Course Descriptions
AP course descriptions are updated regularly. Please visit AP Central (apcentral.collegeboard.org) to
determine whether a more recent course description PDF is available.

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National Merit Scholarship Corporation. All other products and services may be trademarks of their respective owners. (Visit the
College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.)

Contents
About AP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Offering AP Courses and Enrolling Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How AP Courses and Exams Are Developed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
How AP Exams Are Scored . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Using and Interpreting AP Scores. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Additional Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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AP English. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
English Literature and Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Course. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Goals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Representative Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Exam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Sample Multiple-Choice Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Answers to Multiple-Choice Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Sample Free-Response Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Resources for AP Teachers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AP Central (apcentral.collegeboard.org) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AP Course Audit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Advances in AP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AP Teacher Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Higher Ed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
College Board Store. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

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About AP
The College Boards Advanced Placement Program (AP) enables students to pursue
college-level studies while still in high school. Through more than 30 courses, each
culminating in a rigorous exam, AP provides willing and academically prepared
students with the opportunity to earn college credit, advanced placement, or both.
Taking AP courses also demonstrates to college admission officers that students have
sought out the most rigorous course work available to them.
Each AP course is modeled upon a comparable college course, and college and
university faculty play a vital role in ensuring that AP courses align with college-level
standards. Talented and dedicated AP teachers help AP students in classrooms around
the world develop and apply the content knowledge and skills they will need later in
college.
Each AP course concludes with a college-level assessment developed and scored by
college and university faculty as well as experienced AP teachers. AP Exams are an
essential part of the AP experience, enabling students to demonstrate their mastery of
college-level course work. Most four-year colleges and universities in the United States
and universities in more than 60 countries recognize AP in the admissions process and
grant students credit, placement, or both on the basis of successful AP Exam scores.
Visit www.collegeboard.org/ap/creditpolicy to view AP credit and placement policies
at more than 1,000 colleges and universities.
Performing well on an AP Exam means more than just the successful completion of
a course; it is a gateway to success in college. Research consistently shows that
students who receive a score of 3 or higher on AP Exams typically experience greater
academic success in college and have higher graduation rates than their non-AP
peers1. Additional AP studies are available at www.collegeboard.org/research.

See the following research studies for more details:

Linda Hargrove, Donn Godin, and Barbara Dodd, College Outcomes Comparisons by AP and Non-AP High School
Experiences (New York: The College Board, 2008).
Chrys Dougherty, Lynn Mellor, and Shuling Jian, The Relationship Between Advanced Placement and College
Graduation (Austin, Texas: National Center for Educational Accountability, 2006).
2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

Offering AP Courses and Enrolling Students

Each AP course and exam description details the essential information required to
understand the objectives and expectations of an AP course. The AP Program
unequivocally supports the principle that each school implements its own curriculum
that will enable students to develop the content knowledge and skills described here.
Schools wishing to offer AP courses must participate in the AP Course Audit, a
process through which AP teachers syllabi are reviewed by college faculty. The AP
Course Audit was created at the request of College Board members who sought a
means for the College Board to provide teachers and administrators with clear
guidelines on curricular and resource requirements for AP courses and to help
colleges and universities validate courses marked AP on students transcripts.
This process ensures that AP teachers syllabi meet or exceed the curricular and
resource expectations that college and secondary school faculty have established
for college-level courses. For more information on the AP Course Audit, visit
www.collegeboard.org/apcourseaudit.
The College Board strongly encourages educators to make equitable access a
guiding principle for their AP programs by giving all willing and academically prepared
students the opportunity to participate in AP. We encourage the elimination of barriers
that restrict access to AP for students from ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups
that have been traditionally underserved. Schools should make every effort to ensure
their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population. The College Board
also believes that all students should have access to academically challenging course
work before they enroll in AP classes, which can prepare them for AP success. It is
only through a commitment to equitable preparation and access that true equity and
excellence can be achieved.

How AP Courses and Exams Are Developed

AP courses and exams are designed by committees of college faculty and expert AP
teachers who ensure that each AP subject reflects and assesses college-level
expectations. To find a list of each subjects current AP Development Committee
members, please visit press.collegeboard.org/ap/committees. AP Development
Committees define the scope and expectations of the course, articulating through a
curriculum framework what students should know and be able to do upon completion
of the AP course. Their work is informed by data collected from a range of colleges
and universities to ensure that AP coursework reflects current scholarship and
advances in the discipline.
The AP Development Committees are also responsible for drawing clear and wellarticulated connections between the AP course and AP Exam work that includes
designing and approving exam specifications and exam questions. The AP Exam
development process is a multiyear endeavor; all AP Exams undergo extensive review,
revision, piloting, and analysis to ensure that questions are high quality and fair and
that there is an appropriate spread of difficulty across the questions.
Throughout AP course and exam development, the College Board gathers feedback
from various stakeholders in both secondary schools and higher education institutions.
This feedback is carefully considered to ensure that AP courses and exams are able to
provide students with a college-level learning experience and the opportunity to
demonstrate their qualifications for advanced placement upon college entrance.

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

How AP Exams Are Scored

The exam scoring process, like the course and exam development process, relies on
the expertise of both AP teachers and college faculty. While multiple-choice questions
are scored by machine, the free-response questions are scored by thousands of college
faculty and expert AP teachers at the annual AP Reading. AP Exam Readers are
thoroughly trained, and their work is monitored throughout the Reading for fairness
and consistency. In each subject, a highly respected college faculty member fills the
role of Chief Reader, who, with the help of AP Readers in leadership positions,
maintains the accuracy of the scoring standards. Scores on the free-response questions
are weighted and combined with the results of the computer-scored multiple-choice
questions, and this raw score is converted into a composite AP Exam score of 5, 4, 3,
2, or 1.
The score-setting process is both precise and labor intensive, involving numerous
psychometric analyses of the results of a specific AP Exam in a specific year and of the
particular group of students who took that exam. Additionally, to ensure alignment
with college-level standards, part of the score-setting process involves comparing the
performance of AP students with the performance of students enrolled in comparable
courses in colleges throughout the United States. In general, the AP composite score
points are set so that the lowest raw score needed to earn an AP Exam score of 5 is
equivalent to the average score among college students earning grades of A in the
college course. Similarly, AP Exam scores of 4 are equivalent to college grades of
,
, and B. AP Exam scores of 3 are equivalent to college grades of
, , and C.

Using and Interpreting AP Scores

The extensive work done by college faculty and AP teachers in the development of the
course and the exam and throughout the scoring process ensures that AP Exam
scores accurately represent students achievement in the equivalent college course.
While colleges and universities are responsible for setting their own credit and
placement policies, AP scores signify how qualified students are to receive college
credit or placement:
AP Score
5

Qualification
Extremely well qualified

Well qualified

Qualified

Possibly qualified

No recommendation

Additional Resources
Visit apcentral.collegeboard.org for more information about the AP Program.

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

AP English
OVERVIEW
For each AP subject, the College Board asks Development Committees to provide
descriptions of typical introductory college courses and to assess equivalent
achievement in them. Institutions make use of these course descriptions and
assessments so that academically prepared and motivated students can complete
meaningful elements of college-level studies while in any participating high school
and then proceed to advanced courses, with appropriate credit, at any participating
college.
In English, the task of describing the representative introductory course or
courses and of assessing students achievements in comparable high school courses
is a complex one, for curricula and instruction vary widely across the discipline.
The APEnglish Development Committees value, and would maintain, such diversity,
but they also recognize the need to emphasize the common skills in reading and
writing that are necessary for advanced study in the field. The greatest challenge
to the committees, then, is finding an appropriate balance between describing and
prescribing either curriculum format and content or instructional approaches.
Many American colleges begin with a course in expository writing for a year,
a semester or a shorter period, followed by a course in introductory readings in
literature. Subsequently, students may take advanced courses in language, rhetoric
and expository writing or in literature.
Students who elect courses in the first area typically focus their reading on
discursive prose that ranges across the disciplines of the sciences as well as the
arts. Those who elect advanced courses in literature generally study major authors,
periods, genres or themes; their reading typically concentrates on imaginative
literature poetry, fiction and drama.
The AP English Development Committees therefore offer parallel exams: one in
Language and Composition and one in Literature and Composition. The committees
intend them both to be of equal rigor in keeping with the standards of quality of the
AP Program, and they recommend that students taking either course or exam receive
similar treatment by the college granting credit or exemption or both. That is, although
the specific college courses that AP credit will satisfy differ from college to college,
each exam represents a years college-level work. Therefore, the amount of credit
that may be given for each exam is the same: up to two semesters of credit for the
appropriate score on either exam.
Because colleges offer many different introductory English courses, it is difficult
to describe generally how the two AP English Exams relate to those courses, but the
following guidelines should be useful.
1. Perhaps the most common beginning course in English is one in composition.
Students read a variety of texts and are taught basic elements of rhetoric:
writing with a purpose, addressing and appealing to an audience, creating
effective text structures, and effecting an appropriate style. Whether the course
is a one-semester or a yearlong course, a student presenting a score of 3 or
higher on either exam might expect credit for the course.

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

2. Another common introductory sequence of courses is a one-semester course in

composition followed by another semester course that offers additional instruction
in argumentation and teaches the skills of synthesizing, summarizing, paraphrasing,
quoting and citing secondary source material. A student presenting a score of 3
or higher on the AP English Language and Composition Exam might expect to
receive credit for both of these courses.
3. At some colleges and universities, students enroll in a composition course in the
first semester and in the second semester enroll in an introduction to literature
course in which they read and write about poetry, drama and fiction. A student
presenting a score of 3 or higher on the AP English Language and Composition
Exam might expect to receive credit for the composition course, and a student
presenting a score of 3 or higher on the AP English Literature and Composition
Exam might expect to receive credit for both the composition and the literature
course.
Although these are common models, they are by no means universal. Therefore,
students must read carefully the placement and credit policies published by the
college they expect to attend in order to determine what credit they might expect,
and therefore which exam would be most useful for them to take.
In determining which AP English option they wish to help their s tudents elect,
teachers will want to consider the following general g
uidelines:
their own skills and interests in these two domains;
the English programs offered by the colleges that their AP students
generally attend;
the AP policies of these colleges, particularly in English; and
their students own abilities and interests:
students choosing AP English Language and Composition should be

interested in studying and writing various kinds of analytic or persuasive

essays on nonliterary topics, and

students choosing AP English Literature and Composition should be

interested in studying literature of various periods and genres and using

this wide reading knowledge in discussions of literary topics.

Preparing for either of the AP Exams in English is a cooperative venture between

students and their teachers. Students should read widely and reflect on their reading
through extensive discussion, writing and rewriting. Although they may work
independently to supplement the work of a conventional course, ideally they should
interact with a teacher in a small class or tutorial session. In any case, students
should assume considerable responsibility for the amount of reading and writing they
do. Teachers of courses in AP English can complement the efforts of their students
by guiding them in their choice of reading, by leading discussions, and by providing
assignments that help students develop critical standards in their reading and
writing.

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

A description of the English Literature course follows. The description includes a

list of authors. The list is not meant to be prescriptive; it is a compendium of
appropriate examples intended to indicate the range and quality of reading covered in
such a course. The AP English Literature and Composition Teachers Guide is
designed to assist teachers who wish to start AP courses in English and contains
detailed information on the course of study. To find out how to order this and other
AP publications, see page 36. The Teachers Guide is also available as a free PDF file
at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/repository/ap07_englit_
teachersguide.pdf. Following the course description, a sample set of multiple-choice
and free-response questions is presented.
The following statement is printed in the AP English Literature and Composition
Exam: The inclusion of source material in this exam is not intended as an endorsement
by the College Board or ETS of the content, ideas, or values expressed in the material.
The material has been selected by the English Literature faculty who serve on the AP
English Literature Development Committee. In their judgment, the material printed
here reflects various aspects of the course of study on which this exam is based and is
therefore appropriate to use to measure the skills and knowledge of this course.

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

English Literature and Composition

English Literature and Composition

THE COURSE

Introduction
An AP English Literature and Composition course engages students in the careful
reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of
selected texts, students deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language
to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. As they read, students consider
a works structure, style and themes, as well as such smaller-scale elements as the
use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone.

Goals
The course includes intensive study of representative works from various genres
and periods, concentrating on works of recognized literary merit such as those by
the authors listed on pages 1011. The pieces chosen invite and reward rereading
and do not, like ephemeral works in such popular genres as detective or romance
fiction, yield all (or nearly all) of their pleasures of thought and feeling the first time
through. The AP English Literature and Composition Development Committee
agrees with Henry David Thoreau that it is wisest to read the best books first; the
committee also believes that such reading should be accompanied by thoughtful
discussion and writing about those books in the company of ones fellow students.

Reading
Reading in an AP course is both wide and deep. This reading necessarily builds
upon and complements the reading done in previous English courses so that by the
time students complete their AP course, they will have read works from several
genres and periods from the 16th to the 21st century. More importantly, they will
have gotten to know a few works well. In the course, they read deliberately and
thoroughly, taking time to understand a works complexity, to absorb its richness of
meaning, and to analyze how that meaning is embodied in literary form. In addition
to considering a works literary artistry, students reflect on the social and historical
values it reflects and embodies. Careful attention to both textual detail and historical
context provides a foundation for interpretation, whatever critical perspectives are
brought to bear on the literary works studied.
A generic method for the approach to such close reading involves the following
elements: the experience of literature, the interpretation of literature and the
evaluation of literature. By experience, we mean the subjective dimension of reading
and responding to literary works, including precritical impressions and emotional
responses. By interpretation, we mean the analysis of literary works through close
reading to arrive at an understanding of their multiple meanings. By evaluation, we
mean both an assessment of the quality and artistic achievement of literary works
and a consideration of their social and cultural values. All three of these aspects
of reading are important for an AP English Literature and Composition course.

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

English Literature and Composition

Moreover, each corresponds to an approach to writing about literary works. Writing

to understand a literary work may involve writing response and reaction papers,
along with annotation, freewriting and keeping some form of a reading journal.
Writing to explain a literary work involves analysis and interpretation and may
include writing brief focused analyses on aspects of language and structure.
Writing to evaluate a literary work involves making and explaining judgments
about its artistry and exploring its underlying social and c ultural values through
analysis, interpretation and argument.
In short, students in an AP English Literature and Composition course read
actively. The works taught in the course require careful, deliberative reading. And
the approach to analyzing and interpreting the material involves students in learning
how to make careful observations of textual detail, establish connections among their
observations, and draw from those connections a series of inferences leading to an
interpretive conclusion about the meaning and value of a piece of writing.
Most of the works studied in the course were written originally in English,
including pieces by African, Australian, Canadian, Indian and West Indian authors.
Some works in translation may also be included (e.g., Greek tragedies, Russian or
Latin American fiction). The actual choice is the responsibility of the AP teacher,
who should consider previous courses in the schools curriculum. In addition, the
AP teacher should ensure that AP students will have studied, at some point in their
high school years, literature from both British and American writers, as well as
works written from the 16th century to contemporary times. In addition to British
and American literature, teachers are encouraged to include in their curricula other
literature in English. (See the AP English Literature and Composition Teachers Guide
for sample curricula.)
In an ongoing effort to recognize the widening cultural horizons of literary works
written in English, the AP English Literature Development Committee will consider
and include diverse authors in the representative reading lists. Issues that might,
from a specific cultural viewpoint, be considered controversial, including references
to ethnicities, nationalities, religions, races, dialects, gender, or class, are often
represented artistically in works of literature. The Development Committee is
committed to careful review of such potentially controversial material. Still,
recognizing the universal value of literary art that probes difficult and harsh life
experiences and so deepens understanding, the committee emphasizes that fair
representation of issues and peoples may occasionally include controversial material.
Since AP students have chosen a program that directly involves them in college-level
work, the AP English Literature and Composition Exam depends on a level of
maturity consistent with the age of 12th-grade students who have engaged in
thoughtful analysis of literary texts. The best response to a controversial detail or
idea in a literary work might well be a question about the larger meaning, purpose or
overall effect of the detail or idea in context. AP students should have the maturity,
the skill and the will to seek the larger meaning through thoughtful research. Such
thoughtfulness is both fair and owed to the art and to the author.
Although neither linguistic nor literary history is the principal focus in the AP
course, students gain awareness that the English language that writers use has

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English Literature and Composition

changed dramatically through history, and that today it exists in many national
and local varieties. They also become aware of literary tradition and the complex
ways in which imaginative literature builds upon the ideas, works and authors of
earlier times. Because the Bible and Greek and Roman mythology are central to
much Western literature, students should have some familiarity with them. These
religious concepts and stories have influenced and informed Western literary creation
since the Middle Ages, and they continue to provide material for modern writers in
their attempts to give literary form to human experience. Additionally, the growing
body of works written in English reflecting non-Western cultures may require
students to have some familiarity with other traditions.

Writing
Writing is an integral part of the AP English Literature and Composition course
and exam. Writing assignments focus on the critical analysis of literature and include
expository, analytical, and argumentative essays. Although critical analysis makes
up the bulk of student writing for the course, well-constructed creative writing
assignments may help students see from the inside how literature is written. Such
experiences sharpen their understanding of what writers have accomplished and
deepen their appreciation of literary artistry. The goal of both types of writing
assignments is to increase students ability to explain clearly, cogently, even elegantly,
what they understand about literary works and why they interpret them as they do.
To that end, writing instruction includes attention to developing and organizing
ideas in clear, coherent and persuasive language. It includes study of the elements
of style. And it attends to matters of precision and correctness as necessary.
Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on helping students develop stylistic
maturity, which, for AP English, is characterized by the following:
a wide-ranging vocabulary used with denotative accuracy and connotative

resourcefulness;

a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordinate and

coordinate constructions;

a logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques of coherence such as

repetition, transitions, and emphasis;

a balance of generalization with specific illustrative detail; and

an effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, maintaining a consistent

voice, and achieving emphasis through parallelism and antithesis.

The writing required in an AP English Literature and Composition course is thus

more than a mere adjunct to the study of literature. The writing that students
produce in the course reinforces their reading. Since reading and writing stimulate
and support one another, they are taught together in order to underscore both their
common and their distinctive elements.
It is important to distinguish among the different kinds of writing produced in
an AP English Literature and Composition course. Any c ollege-level course in which
serious literature is read and studied includes numerous opportunities for students to

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English Literature and Composition

write and rewrite. Some of this writing is informal and exploratory, allowing students
to discover what they think in the process of writing about their reading. Some of the
w riting involves research, perhaps negotiating differing critical perspectives. Much
writing involves extended discourse in which students develop an argument or present
an analysis at length. In addition, some writing assignments should encourage students
to write effectively under the time constraints they encounter on essay exams in
college courses in many d
isciplines, including English.
The various AP English Literature and Composition Released Exams and AP
Central provide sample student essay responses written under exam conditions
with an average time of 40 minutes for students to write an essay response. These
essays were written in response to two different types of questions: (1) an analysis of
a passage or poem in which students are required to discuss how particular literary
elements or features contribute to meaning; and (2) an open question in which
students are asked to select a literary work and discuss its relevant features in
relation to the question provided. Students can be prepared for these free-response
questions through exercises analyzing short prose passages and poems and through
practicing with open analytical questions. Such exercises need not always be timed;
instead, they can form the basis for extended writing projects.
Because the AP course depends on the development of interpretive skills as
students learn to write and read with increasing complexity and sophistication, the
AP English Literature and Composition course is intended to be a full-year course.
Teachers at schools that offer only a s ingle semester block for AP are encouraged to
advise their AP English Literature and Composition students to take an additional
semester of advanced English in which they continue to practice the kind of writing
and reading emphasized in their AP class.

Representative Authors
There is no recommended or required reading list for the AP English
Literature and Composition course. The following authors are provided simply
to suggest the range and quality of reading expected in the course. Teachers may
select authors from the names below or may choose others of comparable quality
and complexity.

Poetry
W. H. Auden; Elizabeth Bishop; William Blake; Anne Bradstreet; Edward Kamau
Brathwaite; Gwendolyn Brooks; Robert Browning; George Gordon, Lord Byron;
Lorna Dee Cervantes; Geoffrey Chaucer; Lucille Clifton; Samuel Taylor Coleridge;
Billy Collins; H. D. (Hilda Doolittle); Emily Dickinson; John Donne; Rita Dove; Paul
Laurence Dunbar; T. S. Eliot; Robert Frost; Joy Harjo; Seamus Heaney; George
Herbert; Garrett Hongo; Gerard Manley Hopkins; Langston Hughes; Ben Jonson;
John Keats; Philip Larkin; Robert Lowell; Andrew Marvell; John Milton; Marianne
Moore; Sylvia Plath; Edgar Allan Poe; Alexander Pope; Adrienne Rich; Anne Sexton;
William Shakespeare; Percy Bysshe Shelley; Leslie Marmon Silko; Cathy Song;
Wallace Stevens; Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Derek Walcott; Walt Whitman; Richard
Wilbur; William Carlos Williams; William Wordsworth; William Butler Yeats

10

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English Literature and Composition

Drama
Aeschylus; Edward Albee; Amiri Baraka; Samuel Beckett; Anton Chekhov; Caryl
Churchill; William Congreve; Athol Fugard; Lorraine Hansberry; Lillian Hellman;
David Henry Hwang; Henrik Ibsen; Ben Jonson; David Mamet; Arthur Miller;
Molire; Marsha Norman; Sean OCasey; Eugene ONeill; Suzan-Lori Parks; Harold
Pinter; Luigi Pirandello; William Shakespeare; George Bernard Shaw; Sam Shepard;
Sophocles; Tom Stoppard; Luis Valdez; Oscar Wilde; Tennessee Williams; August
Wilson

Fiction (Novel and Short Story)

Chinua Achebe; Sherman Alexie; Isabel Allende; Rudolfo Anaya; Margaret Atwood;
Jane Austen; James Baldwin; Saul Bellow; Charlotte Bront; Emily Bront; Raymond
Carver; Willa Cather; John Cheever; Kate Chopin; Sandra Cisneros; Joseph Conrad;
Edwidge Danticat; Daniel Defoe; Anita Desai; Charles Dickens; Fyodor Dostoevsky;
George Eliot; Ralph Ellison; Louise Erdrich; William Faulkner; Henry Fielding;
F. Scott Fitzgerald; E. M. Forster; Thomas Hardy; Nathaniel Hawthorne; Ernest
Hemingway; Zora Neale Hurston; Kazuo Ishiguro; Henry James; Ha Jin; Edward P.
Jones; James Joyce; Maxine Hong Kingston; Joy Kogawa; Jhumpa Lahiri; Margaret
Laurence; D. H. Lawrence; Chang-rae Lee; Bernard Malamud; Gabriel Garca
Mrquez; Cormac McCarthy; Ian McEwan; Herman Melville; Toni Morrison; Bharati
Mukherjee; Vladimir Nabokov; Flannery OConnor; Orhan Pamuk; Katherine Anne
Porter; Marilynne Robinson; Jonathan Swift; Mark Twain; John Updike; Alice Walker;
Evelyn Waugh; Eudora Welty; Edith Wharton; John Edgar Wideman; Virginia Woolf;
Richard Wright

Expository Prose
Joseph Addison; Gloria Anzalda; Matthew Arnold; James Baldwin; James Boswell;
Jess Coln; Joan Didion; Frederick Douglass; W. E. B. Du Bois; Ralph Waldo
Emerson; William Hazlitt; bell hooks; Samuel Johnson; Charles Lamb; Thomas
Macaulay; Mary McCarthy; John Stuart Mill; George Orwell; Michael Pollan;
Richard Rodriguez; Edward Said; Lewis Thomas; Henry David Thoreau; E. B. White;
Virginia Woolf

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

THE EXAM
Yearly, the APEnglish Literature and Composition Development Committee, made
up of high school and college English teachers, prepares a three-hour exam that
gives students the opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of the skills and abilities
previously described. The AP English Literature and Composition Exam employs
multiple-choice questions that test the students critical reading of selected passages.
But the exam also requires writing as a direct measure of the students ability to read
and interpret literature and to use other forms of discourse effectively. Although the
skills tested in the exam remain essentially the same from year to year, each years
exam is composed of new questions. The free-response questions are scored by
college and AP English teachers using standardized procedures.
Ordinarily, the exam consists of 60 minutes for multiple-choice questions followed
by 120 minutes for free-response questions. Performance on the free-response
section of the exam counts for 55 percent of the total score; performance on the
multiple-choice section, 45 percent. Examples of multiple-choice and free-response
questions from previous exams are presented below and are intended to represent the
scope and difficulty of the exam. The questions are samples; they are not a sample
exam. In the questions reproduced here, the authors of the passages and poems on
which the multiple-choice questions are based are George Eliot, Richard Wilbur,
Gwendolyn Brooks, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Multiple-choice scores are based on the number of questions answered correctly.
Points are not deducted for incorrect answers, and no points are awarded for
unanswered questions. Because points are not deducted for incorrect answers,
students are encouraged to answer all multiple-choice questions. On any questions
students do not know the answer to, students should eliminate as many choices as
they can, and then select the best answer among the remaining choices.

Sample Multiple-Choice Questions

Questions 111. Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers.

Line
(5)

(10)

(15)

12

Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the

Dodsons and Tullivers were of too specific a kind to
be arrived at deductively from the statement that they
were part of the Protestant population of Great Britain.
Their theory of life had its core of soundness, as all
theories must have on which decent and prosperous
families have been reared and have flourished; but it
had the very slightest tincture of theology. If, in the
maiden days of the Dodson sisters, their Bibles opened
more easily at some parts than other, it was because
of dried tulip-petals, which had been distributed quite
impartially, without preference for the historical, devotional, or doctrinal. Their religion was of a simple,
semi-pagan kind, but there was no heresy in itif
heresy properly means choicefor they didnt know

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

(20)

(25)

(30)

(35)

(40)

(45)

(50)

(55)

(60)

1
2

there was any other religion, except that of chapelgoers, which appeared to run in families, like asthma.
How should they know? The vicar of their pleasant
rural parish was not a controversialist, but a good
hand at whist,1 and one who had a joke always ready
for a blooming female parishioner. The religion of the
Dodsons consisted in revering whatever was customary
and respectable: it was necessary to be baptized, else
one could not be buried in the churchyard, and to take
the sacrament before death as a security against more
dimly understood perils; but it was of equal necessity
to have the proper pall-bearers and well-cured hams
at ones funeral, and to leave an unimpeachable will.
A Dodson would not be taxed with the omission of
anything that was becoming, or that belonged to that
eternal fitness of thing which was plainly indicated
in the practice of the most substantial parishioners,
and in the family traditionssuch as obedience to
parents, faithfulness to kindred, industry, rigid honesty,
thrift, the thorough scouring of wooden and copper
utensils, the hoarding of coins likely to disappear from
the currency, the production of first-rate commodities
for the market, and the general preference for whatever
was home-made. The Dodsons were a very proud
race, and their pride lay in the utter frustration of all
desire to tax them with a breach of traditional duty or
propriety. A wholesome pride in many respects, since
it identified honour with perfect integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules: and
society owes some worthy qualities in many of her
members to mothers of the Dodson class, who made
their butter and their fromenty2 well, and would have
felt disgraced to make it otherwise. To be honest and
poor was never a Dodson motto, still less to seem rich
though being poor; rather, the family badge was to be
honest and rich; and not only rich, but richer than was
supposed. To live respected, and have the proper
bearers at your funeral, was an achievement of the
ends of existence that would be entirely nullified if,
on the reading of your Will, you sank in the opinion
of your fellow-men, either by turning out to be poorer
than they expected, or by leaving your money in a
capricious manner, without strict regard to degrees of
kin. The right thing must always be done towards
kindred. The right thing was to correct them severely,
if they were other than a credit to the family, but still
a card game
hulled wheat boiled in milk and flavored with sugar and spices

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

not to alienate from them the smallest rightful share

in the family shoe-buckles and other property.
A conspicuous quality in the Dodson character was
(65) its genuineness: its vices and virtues alike were
phases of a proud, honest egoism, which had a hearty
dislike to whatever made against its own credit and
interest, and would be frankly hard of speech to
inconvenient kin, but would never forsake or ignore
(70) themwould not let them want bread, but only
require them to eat it with bitter herbs.

1.

From the first sentence, one can infer which of the following about the Dodsons
and Tullivers religious and moral ideas?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

2.

In lines 1317 (Their religion . . . asthma), the narrator draws attention to the
Dodson sisters
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

3.

not particularly interested in theology

not very well regarded by female parishioners
too pious to please the Dodsons
too impractical to keep the church on a sound financial footing
more ascetic than his parishioners might have wished

Which of the following expressions most obviously suggests a satirical point of

view?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

14

devotion to certain rituals

untroubled complacency
deep religious conviction
disturbed consciences
sense of history and tradition

It can be inferred that the vicar mentioned in line 18 was

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

4.

The narrator is unable to describe them with complete accuracy.

They have no real logical foundation.
They cannot be appreciated by anyone who does not share them.
They spring from a fundamental lack of tolerance for the ideas of others.
They are not typical of those of British Protestants in general.

too specific (line 2)

have been reared and have flourished (line 7)
no heresy in it (line 14)
like asthma (line 17)
not a controversialist (line 19)

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

5.

By commenting that the Dodsons viewed the things described in lines 2328 as
being of equal necessity, the narrator emphasizes the Dodsons
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

6.

The reference to family shoe-buckles (line 63) serves chiefly to

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

7.

dislike of empty ceremony

failure to acknowledge their own mortality
keen sense of their own spiritual shortcomings
indifference to traditional Protestant practices followed by their parents
tendency not to distinguish between the spiritual and the practical

minimize the importance that property held for the Dodsons

emphasize a realistic description of the familys actual holdings
satirize the Dodsons preoccupation with property
generalize about the obsessiveness of a particular class of people
denounce the magnitude of the Dodsons material wealth

In line 69, the adjective inconvenient is used

(a) metaphorically
(b) euphemistically
(c) inappropriately
(d) pedantically
(e) grandiloquently

8.

The last sentence implies that the Dodsons would require that errant relatives
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

9.

suffer the material consequences of their actions

humbly accept criticism for their shortcomings
abandon their claims to the family fortune
make amends by restoring the familys good name
withdraw from society until they were forgiven

In the passage, the narrator is most concerned with

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

describing the values held by the Dodsons

contrasting different forms of British Protestantism
arguing for the importance of theological values as opposed to practical ones
lamenting the decline of religious values in the lives of people like the Dodsons
questioning the sincerity of the Dodsons

10. Which of the following would the Dodsons probably NOT approve of in a family
member?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

A frugal style of life

A social relationship with the clergy
A display of pride in ones ancestry
An indifference to the value of property
A tendency to criticize a wayward relative

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

11. Which of the following is used figuratively?

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

well-cured hams at ones funeral (lines 2728)

the hoarding of coins (line 36)
their butter and their fromenty (line 47)
the proper bearers at your funeral (lines 5253)
to eat it with bitter herbs (line 71)

Questions 1223. Read the following poem carefully before you choose your answers.
Advice to a Prophet
When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In Gods name to have self-pity,
Line
(5) Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange.
Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race.
(10) How should we dream of this place without us?
The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us,
A stone look on the stones face?
Speak of the worlds own change. Though we cannot conceive
Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost
(15) How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost,
How the view alters. We could believe,
If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip
Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy,
The lark avoid the reaches of our eye,
(20) The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip
On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn
As Xanthus* once, its gliding trout
Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be without
The dolphins arc, the doves return,
(25) These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken?
Ask us, prophet, how we shall call
Our natures forth when that live tongue is all
Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken

* in Greek myth, a river scalded by Hephaestus, god of fire

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean
(30) Horse of our courage, in which beheld
The singing locust of the soul unshelled,
And all we mean or wish to mean.
Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose
Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding
(35) Whether there shall be lofty or long standing
When the bronze annals of the oak-tree close.
Advice to a Prophet in ADVICE TO A PROPHET AND OTHER POEMS, copyright 1959
and renewed 1987 by Richard Wilbur, reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company. This material may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without
the prior written permission of the publisher.

12. In lines 112, the speaker assumes that the prophet will come proclaiming
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

a new religious dispensation

joyous self-awareness
a new political order
the horror of self-destruction
an appreciation of nature

13. According to the speaker, the prophets word of the weapons (line 5) will
probably not be heeded because
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

human beings are interested in weapons

nature is more fascinating than warfare
men and women are more concerned with love than with weapons
people have heard such talk too often before
people cannot comprehend abstract descriptions of power

14. In the phrase A stone look on the stones face (line 12), the speaker is
suggesting that
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

a stone is the most difficult natural object to comprehend

such a stone is a metaphor for human understanding
it is human beings who attribute meaning to nature
nature is a hostile environment for the human race
the pain of life is bearable only to a stoic

15. In line 13 (Speak of the worlds own change), the speaker is doing which of the
following?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

Anticipating the prophets own advice

Despairing of ever influencing the prophet
Exchanging his own point of view for that of the prophet
Heeding the prophets advice
Prescribing what the prophet should say

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

16. In lines 1316 (Though . . . alters), the speaker is asserting that we

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

learn about nature according to our individual points of view

can never understand change in nature
are always instructed by an altering of our perspective
have all experienced loss and disappointment
realize that the end of the world may be near

17. The phrase knuckled grip (line 20) primarily implies that the jack-pine
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

will never really fall from the ledge

has roots that grasp like a hand
is very precariously attached to the ledge
is a rough and inhuman part of nature
is very awkwardly placed

18. The speaker implies that without The dolphins arc, the doves return (line 24),
we would
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

be less worried about war and destruction

crave coarser pleasures than the enjoyment of nature
have less understanding of ourselves and our lives
be unable to love our fellow creatures
find ourselves unwilling to heed the advice of prophets

19. The phrase that live tongue (line 27) is best understood as
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

a metaphor for nature

an image of the poets mind
a symbol of the history of the world
a reference to the poem itself
a metaphor for the advice of the prophet

20. According to the speaker, how do we use the images of the rose (line 29), the
horse (line 30), and the locust (line 31)?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

Literally to denote specific natural objects

As metaphors to aid in comprehending abstractions
As similes illustrating the speakers attitude toward nature
To reinforce images previously used by the prophet
To explain the need for scientific study of nature

21. Which of the following best describes an effect of the repetition of the phrase
ask us in line 33?
(a) It suggests that the prophet himself is the cause of much of the worlds
misery.
(b) It represents a sarcastic challenge to the prophet to ask the right questions.
(c) It suggests that the speaker is certain of the answer the prophet will give.
(d) It makes the line scan as a perfect example of iambic pentameter.
(e) It provides a tone of imploring earnestness.

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

22. Which of the following best paraphrases the meaning of line 36?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

When the end of the year has come

When the chronicles no longer tell of trees
When art no longer imitates nature
When nature has ceased to exist
When the forests are finally restored

23. Which of the following best describes the poem as a whole?

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

An amusing satire on the excesses of modern prophets

A poetic expression of the need for love to give meaning to life
A lyrical celebration of the importance of nature for human beings
A personal meditation on human courage in the face of destruction
A philosophical poem about human beings and nature

Questions 2433. Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers.

Line
(5)

(10)

(15)

(20)

(25)

What had been wanted was this always, this always

to last, the talking softly on this porch, with the snake
plant in the jardiniere in the southwest corner, and the
obstinate slip from Aunt Eppies magnificent Michigan
fern at the left side of the friendly door. Mama, Maud
Martha, and Helen rocked slowly in their rocking
chairs, and looked at the late afternoon light on the
lawn, and at the emphatic iron of the fence and at the
poplar tree. These things might soon be theirs no
longer. Those shafts and pools of light, the tree, the
graceful iron, might soon be viewed possessively by
different eyes.
Papa was to have gone that noon, during his lunch
hour, to the office of the Home Owners Loan. If he
had not succeeded in getting another extension, they
would be leaving this house in which they had lived for
more than fourteen years. There was little hope. The
Home Owners Loan was hard. They sat, making their
plans.
Well be moving into a nice flat somewhere, said
Mama. Somewhere on South Park, or Michigan, or in
Washington Park Court. Those flats, as the girls and
Mama knew well, were burdens on wages twice the size
of Papas. This was not mentioned now.
Theyre much prettier than this old house, said
Helen. I have friends Id just as soon not bring here.
And I have other friends that wouldnt come down this
far for anything, unless they were in a taxi.
Yesterday, Maud Martha would have attacked her.

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

(30) Tomorrow she might. Today she said nothing. She

merely gazed at a little hopping robin in the tree, her
tree, and tried to keep the fronts of her eyes dry.
Well, I do know, said Mama, turning her hands
over and over, that Ive been getting tireder and tireder
(35) of doing that firing. From October to April, theres
firing to be done.
But lately weve been helping, Harry and I, said
Maud Martha. And sometimes in March and April and
in October, and even in November, we could build a
(40) little fire in the fireplace. Sometimes the weather was
just right for that.
She knew, from the way they looked at her, that this
had been a mistake. They did not want to cry.
But she felt that the little line of white, somewhat
(45) ridged with smoked purple, and all that cream-shot
saffron, would never drift across any western sky
except that in back of this house. The rain would drum
with as sweet a dullness nowhere but here. The birds of
South Park were mechanical birds, no better than the
(50) poor caught canaries in those rich womens sun
parlors.
Its just going to kill Papa! burst out Maud Martha.
He loves this house! He lives for this house!
He lives for us, said Helen. Its us he loves. He
(55) wouldnt want the house, except for us.
And hell have us, added Mama, wherever.
You know, Helen sighed, if you want to know the
truth, this is a relief. If this hadnt come up, we would
have gone on, just dragged on, hanging out here
(60) forever.
It might, allowed Mama, be an act of God. God
may just have reached down, and picked up the reins.
Yes, Maud Martha cracked in, thats what you
always saythat God knows best. Her mother looked
(65) at her quickly, decided the statement was not suspect,
looked away.
Helen saw Papa coming. Theres Papa, said Helen.
They could not tell a thing from the way Papa was
walking. It was that same dear little staccato walk, one
(70) shoulder down, then the other, then repeat, and repeat.
They watched his progress. He passed the Kennedys,
he passed the vacant lot, he passed Mrs. Blakemores.
They wanted to hurl themselves over the fence, into the

20

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

street, and shake the truth out of his collar. He opened

(75) his gatethe gateand still his stride and face told
them nothing.
Hello, he said.
Mama got up and followed him through the front
door. The girls knew better than to go in too.
Presently Mamas head emerged. Her eyes were
(80)
lamps turned on.
Its all right, she exclaimed. He got it. Its all
over. Everything is all right.
The door slammed shut. Mamas footsteps hurried
(85) away.
I think, said Helen, rocking rapidly, I think Ill
give a party. I havent given a party since I was eleven.
Id like some of my friends to just casually see that
were homeowners.
24. The chief effect of the first paragraph is to
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

foreshadow the outcome of Papas meeting

signal that change in the familys life is overdue
convey the womens attachment to the house
emphasize the deteriorating condition of the house
echo the fragmented conversation of the three women

25. The narrator reveals the familys fundamental feeling for the house and its
location primarily through
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

depiction of earlier scenes of family stress

direct allusion to family ancestors
analysis of the familys respectability
evocation of ordinary sensory pleasures
description of onerous family chores

26. Helens comments about this old house and her friends (lines 2528) are best
described as
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

an effort to be witty
a true and sad observation
a weak rationalization
a sarcastic attack on Mama
an obviously fervent hope

27. Maud Martha decided to say nothing (line 30) chiefly because
(a) her familys fate depended on a momentous decision being made that
particular day
(b) she was very fearful of Helens wrath and was loath to contradict her
(c) for once she found that she agreed with what Helen was saying
(d) looking at the robin, she was entranced and did not wish to break the spell
(e) she could not understand the heavy burden Papa had to carry
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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

28. Which of the following most clearly distinguishes Maud Marthas attitude from
that of Mama and Helen?
(a) Maud Martha is reluctant to accept the impending misfortune, whereas
Mama and Helen try to accommodate it.
(b) Maud Martha wants to shield Papa, whereas Mama and Helen want to urge
him to fight.
(c) Maud Martha is eager to move to South Park, but Mama and Helen are
reluctant to move.
(d) Maud Martha is enraged at Mama, Helen, and Papa for quietly accepting
misfortune.
(e) Maud Martha believes more in the power of God to change things than do
Mama and Helen.
29. The mistake mentioned in line 43 was to
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

assert that a fire in November made any difference

recall a pleasant memory about their home
remind the others how exhausting the firing was
suggest that life at home was uncomfortable
exaggerate the extent to which Harry and Maud Martha could help

30. Lines 4451 imply that life at South Park, compared with life at home, is
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

restricted and artificial

elegant and richly decorative
humorless and self-indulgent
comfortable, warm, and peaceful
nearly the same in most details

31. Maud Marthas mother looks at Maud Martha quickly (line 65) because she
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

feels that Maud Martha is being unusually agreeable

thinks fleetingly that her daughter is mocking her
is unusually preoccupied with the impending return of Papa
wants to see whether Maud Martha is trying to hide her embarrassment
has no more time to deal with Maud Marthas ill temper

32. The landmarks that Papa passes on his walk home (lines 7172) are carefully
noted primarily in order to
(a) provide background atmosphere for the familys more elevated social
position
(b) suggest that the family is much like the other families in the neighborhood
(c) provide a contrast to Papas anguish resulting from his meeting
(d) foreshadow the weight of the news Papa is carrying home to them
(e) emphasize the high degree of suspense and tension the three women feel

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

33. The final paragraph of the passage (lines 8689) reveals primarily that Helen
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

is still little more than a nave adolescent

has a basically superficial personality
has renewed feelings of confidence and pride
is fiercely protective of her parents and family
is determined to put a good face on an unfortunate situation

Questions 3446. Read the following poem carefully before you choose your answers.
The Eolian Harp1

Line
(5)

(10)

(15)

(20)

(25)

(30)

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined

Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot,2 our Cot oergown
With white-flowerd Jasmin, and the broad-leavd Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
Snatchd from yon bean-field! and the world so hushd!
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence.
And that simplest Lute,3
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caressd,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as much needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamd wing!
O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filld;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air

a box with strings across its open ends that makes music as the breeze passes through it
cottage
3
the harp
1
2

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23

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope
(35) Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closd eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
Full many a thought uncalld and undetaind,
(40) And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!
And what if all of animated nature
Be
but organic Harps diversely framd,
(45)
That tremble into thought, as oer them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?
But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
(50) Darts, O belovd Woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallowd dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily dispraisd
(55) These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophys aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
(60) I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies heald me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wilderd and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honourd Maid!

24

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

34. In the first section of the poem (lines 112), the speaker seeks to convey a feeling
of
(a) curiosity
(b) contentment
(c) remoteness
(d) resignation
(e) foreboding
35. In context, saddening (line 7) suggests that the
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

clouds have become darker

speaker is increasingly melancholy
happiness of the speaker will fade
security of the couple will be threatened
prospect of night vexes the speaker

36. The speaker gives explicit symbolic significance to which of the following?
I.
II.
III.
IV.

The Jasmin (line 4)

The Myrtle (line 4)
The star (line 7)
The Sea (line 11)

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

I and II only
III and IV only
I, II, and III only
I, II, and IV only
I, II, III, and IV

37. Lines 1112 (The . . . silence) are best understood to mean which of the
following?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)

The silence is such that even the sea itself is aware of it.
We are in a quiet place, but the sea, however distant, is at least not silent.
Even the gentle murmuring of the sea is fading into silence.
The fact that we can just hear the far-off sea shows how quiet our
surroundings are.
(e) The silence of the sea speaks more forcefully than words can of the hushed
world around us.

38. In lines 1415, the breeze is compared to

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

a lute
a maiden
a lover
an elf
a wave

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25

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

39. In lines 3233, the mute still air . . . instrument suggests that the
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

sound of the lute makes the speaker drowsy

music cannot exist while the air remains silent
sound of the lute can make the air itself mute
lute can make music even without the breeze
air itself contains potential music

40. In line 38, tranquil functions as which of the following?

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

An adjective modifying I (line 36)

An adverb modifying behold (line 36)
An adjective modifying sunbeams (line 37)
An adjective modifying muse (line 38)
An adverb modifying muse (line 38)

41. In lines 3443, the speaker compares

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

his muse to tranquillity

his brain to the lute
the midpoint of his life to noon
his thoughts to the ocean
his muse to a sunbeam

42. Lines 4448 can be best described as a

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

digression from the main subject of the poem

change from description to narration
counterargument to establish the speakers credibility
metaphorical application of the image of the lute
simile for the relationship between the speaker and Sara

43. In the last section of the poem (lines 4964), the speaker implies that to try to
fathom the Incomprehensible (line 59) is
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

every thinking persons duty

possible only through metaphor
difficult except during privileged moments
the true function of music and poetry
an act of overweening pride

44. It can be inferred that Saras attitude toward the speakers speculations is one of
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

26

open hostility
gentle disapproval
mild amusement
fond admiration
respectful awe

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

45. In the poem, the Eolian harp is, for the speaker, all of the following EXCEPT
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

a source of inspiration
a source of pleasure
a gentle reproof
a suggestive symbol
an enchanting voice

46. The poem is an example of which of the following verse forms?

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

Blank verse
Heroic couplet
Terza rima
Ballad meter
Free verse

Answers to Multiple-Choice Questions

1e

8b

15 e

22 d

29 b

36 c

43 e

2b

9a

16 d

23 e

30 a

37 d

44 b

3a

10 d

17 b

24 c

31 b

38 c

45 c

4d

11 e

18 c

25 d

32 e

39 e

46 a

5e

12 d

19 a

26 c

33 c

40 a

6c

13 e

20 b

27 a

34 b

41 b

7b

14 c

21 e

28 a

35 a

42 d

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27

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

Sample Free-Response Questions

Note: There are more sample questions here than would appear on an actual exam.
1. (Suggested time40 minutes)
In the following soliloquy from Shakespeares Henry IV, Part II, King Henry laments
his inability to sleep. In a well-organized essay, briefly summarize the Kings thoughts
and analyze how the diction, imagery, and syntax help to convey his state of mind.

Line
(5)

(10)

(15)

(20)

(25)

How many thousand of my poorest subjects

Are at this hour asleep! O sleep! O gentle sleep!
Natures soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,1
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hushd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lulld with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavst the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boys eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafning clamour in the slippery clouds,
That with the hurly death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial2 sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a King? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
1
2

28

huts
not impartial

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

2. (Suggested time 40 minutes)

Read carefully the following poem by the colonial American poet, Anne Bradstreet.
Then write a well-organized essay in which you discuss how the poems controlling
metaphor expresses the complex attitude of the speaker.
The Author to Her Book

Line
(5)

(10)

(15)

(20)

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,

Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Til snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad exposed to public view;
Made thee in rags, halting, to the press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened, all may judge.
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou runst more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth in the house I find.
In this array, mongst vulgars mayst thou roam;
In critics hands beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou are not known.
If for thy Father asked, say thou hadst none;
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.
(1678)

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29

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

3. (Suggested time 40 minutes)

Read the following passage from Nathaniel Hawthornes novel The House of the
Seven Gables. Then write a careful analysis of how the narrator reveals the character
of Judge Pyncheon. You may emphasize whichever devices (e.g., tone, selection of
detail, syntax, point of view) you find most significant.

Line
(5)

(10)

(15)

(20)

(25)

(30)

(35)

(40)

30

To apply this train of remark somewhat more closely

to Judge Pyncheon! We might say (without, in the least,
imputing crime to a personage of his eminent respectability) that there was enough of splendid rubbish in his
life to cover up and paralyze a more active and subtile
conscience than the Judge was ever troubled with. The
purity of his judicial character, while on the bench; the
faithfulness of his public service in subsequent capacities;
his devotedness to his party, and the rigid consistency with which he had adhered to its principles, or, at
all events, kept pace with its organized movements;
his remarkable zeal as president of a Bible society;
his unimpeachable integrity as treasurer of a Widows
and Orphans fund; his benefits to horticulture, by producing
two much-esteemed varieties of the pear, and to
agriculture, through the agency of the famous Pyncheonbull; the cleanliness of his moral deportment, for a great
many years past; the severity with which he had frowned
upon, and finally cast off, an expensive and dissipated
son, delaying forgiveness until within the final quarter
of an hour of the young mans life; his prayers at morning
and eventide, and graces at mealtime; his efforts in futherance
of the temperance-cause; his confining himself, since the last attack of the gout, to five diurnal
glasses of old Sherry wine; the snowy whiteness of his
linen, the polish of his boots, the handsomeness of his
gold-headed cane, the square and roomy fashion of his coat,
and the fineness of its material, and, in general,
the studied propriety of his dress and equipment; the
scrupulousness with which he paid public notice, in the
street, by a bow, a lifting of the hat, a nod, or a motion
of the hand, to all and sundry his acquaintances, rich or
poor; the smile of broad benevolence wherewith he
made it a point to gladden the whole world;what
room could possibly be found for darker traits, in a
portrait made up of lineaments like these! This proper
face was what he beheld in the looking-glass. This
admirably arranged life was what he was conscious of,
in the progress of every day. Then, might not he claim
to be its result and sum, and say to himself and the
communityBehold Judge Pyncheon, there?
2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

(45)

(50)

(55)

(60)

And, allowing that, many, many years ago, in his

early and reckless youth, he had committed some one
wrong act or that, even now, the inevitable force of
circumstances should occasionally make him do one
questionable deed, among a thousand praiseworthy,
or, at least, blameless oneswould you characterize
the Judge by that one necessary deed, and that halfforgotten act, and let it overshadow the fair aspect of a
lifetime! What is there so ponderous in evil, that a
thumbs bigness of it should outweigh the mass of
things not evil, which were heaped into the other scale!
This scale and balance system is a favorite one with
people of Judge Pyncheons brotherhood. A hard, cold
man, thus unfortunately situated, seldom or never looking inward, and resolutely taking his idea of himself
from what purports to be his image, as reflected in the
mirror of public opinion, can scarcely arrive at true
self-knowledge, except through loss of property and
reputation. Sickness will not always help him to it; not
always the death-hour!
(1851)

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31

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

4. (Suggested time40 minutes)

Read carefully the following passage from Joy Kogawas Obasan, a novel about the
relocation of Japanese Canadians to internment camps during the Second World War.
Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze how changes in perspective and style reflect
the narrators complex attitude toward the past. In your analysis, consider literary
elements such as point of view, structure, selection of detail, and figurative language.

Line
(5)

(10)

(15)

(20)

1942.
We are leaving the B.C. coastrain, cloud, mistan air overladen with
weeping. Behind us lies a salty sea, within which swim our drowning
specks of memoryour small waterlogged eulogies. We are going down to
the middle of the Earth with pick-axe eyes, tunneling by train to the interior, carried along by the momentum of the expulsion into the waiting
wilderness.
We are hammers and chisels in the hands of would-be sculptors, battering the spirit of the sleeping mountain. We are the chips and sand, the
fragments of fragments that fly like arrows from the heart of the rock.
We are the silences that speak from stone. We are the despised rendered
voiceless, stripped of car, radio, camera and every means of communication, a trainload of eyes covered with mud and spittle. We are the man in
the Gospel of John, born into the world for the sake of the light. We are
sent to Siloam, the pool called Sent. We are sent to the sending, that we
may bring sight. We are the scholarly and the illiterate, the envied and the
ugly, the fierce and the docile. We are those pioneers who cleared the bush
and the forest with our hands, the gardeners tending and attending the soil
with our tenderness, the fishermen who are flung from the sea to flounder
in the dust of the prairies.
We are the Issei and the Nisei and the Sansei,* the Japanese Canadians.
We disappear into the future undemanding as dew.

The memories are dream images. A pile of luggage in a large hall.

Missionaries at the railway station handing out packages of toys. Stephen
(25) being carried on board the train, a white cast up to his thigh.
It is three decades ago and I am a small child resting my head in Obasans
lap. I am wearing a wine-coloured dirndl skirt with straps that criss-cross
at the back. My white silk blouse has a Peter Pan collar dotted with tiny
red flowers. I have a wine-colored sweater with ivory duck buttons.
(30)
Stephen sits sideways on a seat by himself opposite us, his huge white
leg like a cocoon.
The train is full of strangers. But even strangers are addressed as
ojisan or obasan, meaning uncle or aunt. Not one uncle or aunt, grandfather or grandmother, brother or sister, not one of us on this journey
(35) returns home again.

* The Issei, Nisei, and Sansei are, respectively, first-, second-, and third-generation Japanese Canadians.

32

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Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

(40)

(45)

(50)

(55)

(60)

(65)

(70)

The train smells of oil and soot and orange peels and lurches groggily as
we rock our way inland. Along the window ledge, the black soot leaps and
settles like insects. Underfoot and in the aisles and beside us on the seats
we are surrounded by odd bits of luggagebags, lunch baskets, blankets,
pillows. My red umbrella with its knobby clear red handle sticks out of a
box like the head of an exotic bird. In the seat behind us is a boy in short
gray pants and jacket carrying a wooden slatted box with a tabby kitten
inside. He is trying to distract the kitten with his finger but the kitten
mews and mews, its mouth opening and closing. I can barely hear its high
steady cry in the clackity-clack and steamy hiss of the train.
A few seats in front, one young woman is sitting with her narrow shoulders hunched over a tiny red-faced baby. Her short black hair falls into her
birdlike face. She is so young, I would call her o-nesan, older sister.
The woman in the aisle seat opposite us leans over and whispers to
Obasan with a solemn nodding of her head and a flicker of her eyes indicating the young woman.
Obasan moves her head slowly and gravely in a nod as she listens.
Kawaiso, she says under her breath. The word is used whenever there is
hurt and a need for tenderness.
The young mother, Kuniko-san, came from Saltspring Island, the woman
says. Kuniko-san was rushed onto the train from Hastings Park, a few days
after giving birth prematurely to her baby.
She has nothing, the woman whispers. Not even diapers.
Aya Obasan does not respond as she looks steadily at the dirt-covered
floor. I lean out into the aisle and I can see the babys tiny fist curled tight
against its wrinkled face. Its eyes are closed and its mouth is squinched
small as a button. Kuniko-san does not lift her eyes at all.
Kawai, I whisper to Obasan, meaning that the baby is cute.
Obasan hands me an orange from a wicker basket and gestures towards
Kuniko-san, indicating that I should take her the gift. But I pull back.
For the baby, Obasan says urging me.
I withdraw farther into my seat. She shakes open a furoshikia square
cloth that is used to carry things by tying the corners togetherand
places a towel and some apples and oranges in it. I watch her lurching
from side to side as she walks toward Kuniko-san.
Clutching the top of Kuniko-sans seat with one hand, Obasan bows and
holds the furoshiki out to her. Kuniko-san clutches the baby against her
breast and bows forward twice while accepting Obasans gift without looking up.

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

33

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

5. (Suggested time40 minutes)

The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings:
The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from readers
are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy
ending, I do not mean mere fortunate eventsa marriage or a last-minute rescue from
deathbut some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the
self, even at death.
Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a wellwritten essay, identify the spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation evident in
the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole. You may select a work
from the list below or another novel or play of literary merit.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
All the Pretty Horses
Bless Me, Ultima
Candide
Ceremony
The Color Purple
Crime and Punishment
Cry, the Beloved Country
Emma
The Eumenides
Great Expectations
Heart of Darkness
Invisible Man
Jane Eyre
King Lear

34

Major Barbara
Moby-Dick
The Piano Lesson
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
The Portrait of a Lady
Praisesong for the Widow
A Raisin in the Sun
Song of Solomon
The Stone Angel
The Tempest
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Twelfth Night
The Warden
Wuthering Heights

2014 The College Board. Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

Sample Questions for English Literature and Composition

6. (Suggested time 40 minutes)

Choose a novel or play that depicts a conflict between a parent (or a parental figure)
and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the conflict
and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work.
Avoid plot summary.
You may base your essay on one of the following works or choose another of
comparable literary quality.
All My Sons
Antigone
As I Lay Dying
Beloved
The Brothers Karamazov
Fathers and Sons
The Glass Menagerie
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Hard Times
Henry IV
The Homecoming
King Lear
The Little Foxes
Long Days Journey into Night

The Mill on the Floss

Mrs. Warrens Profession
The Oresteia
Our Mutual Friend
Persuasion
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
A Raisin in the Sun
Romeo and Juliet
Sons and Lovers
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Tom Jones
Washington Square
Wuthering Heights

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35

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