The AP English Comp terms you do and don’t need to know, condensed

The AP English Comp terms you do and don’t need to know, condensed

by | Mar 27, 2017 | Blog, Students

I realized after posting yesterday that I had buried the most practical information in the middle of what became a much longer-than-intended meditation/diatribe, so I’m re-posting the key information here in condensed form.

To sum up: since 2014, the AP English Language and Composition exam has NOT included questions directly testing knowledge of high-level rhetorical figures. So you know those questions that directly ask you to identify whether a particular set of lines includes, for example, oxymoron, antithesis, or syncope? They’re gone. (You may, however, see questions testing less technical terms, e.g., abstract language.)

But please note: if you are studying from exams administered before 2014, you may indeed see these terms.

For a description of the College Board’s revised stance on rhetorical terminology, see the 2014 Course Description, p. 2021.  (more…)

AP English Composition: a rhetoric class without rhetoric

AP English Composition: a rhetoric class without rhetoric

by | Mar 26, 2017 | Blog, Tutors

When it first crossed my mind that I might be able to rework the original version of The Critical Reader into a prep book for the AP English Language and Composition exam, one of the initial things I did was head over to the College Board’s website and read the AP Comp course description.

I’d done some tutoring for the exam a few years back, but it wasn’t a test I’d been constantly immersed in, as was the case for the old SAT. I also knew that in addition to changing the SAT, the College Board had planned overhauls for a number of AP exams. Interestingly, the AP English Comp test was not officially listed among them; however, as I read the description for 2014 and beyond, it became clear that the test had recently undergone some important changes. (more…)