AP English Lang: Mastering Multiple Choice

kidfromthebeach
Tue, 08 May 2012 02:17:30 +0000

hey a senior here, who took (and miraculously 5-ed) lit last year and is taking language now : )

From what I’ve seen with AP english tests, you can probably do well on the multiple choice sections by being really good at 2 things. 1: understanding what the author is saying. 2: knowing how to explain it.

That might sound a bit generalized, and not of much use to the procrastinators, but I think it makes sense. An AP english course is basically trying to teach kids how to read and get the meaning of the author’s message. Language focuses more on rhetoric and non-fiction, Literature on fiction and poetry and the like. So to pass a multiple choice test of a bunch of passages where they want to see if you know that the author says, you’ll need 1. to understand the actual point of the writing, and 2. turn that thing now in your head into either A,B,C,D or E on the question about it.

Trying to figure out what the author says is usually the harder part. A lot of this stuff can’t be crammed or taught easily. If you aren’t a linguistic learner, you might not do so well on a language test. What usually works for me is to try and get inside the author’s head, and try and breakdown the writing into an outline. They’ll tell you a little bit about the author at the beginnning of the piece. Don’t overlook it, because context is everything, and if you’ve been paying attention in Euro and APush like good CCers, you’ll know the context. Heck, maybe read it in your head like how you think the author would say it. A lot of AP lang, and poetry, can be oratorical in essence and maybe just by saying it you can pick up on the subtext easier. Also important, is to annotate as you read so that you have a pretty basic working structure of the piece when you’re finished reading. We’ve written essays and used outlines, this is like that in reverse. If you notice major tense or connotation shifts, or voltas, or whatever else, underline it. Serious exaggeration or verbal irony? underline it. Make a note of the references and key syntactical features. These will be key to the main point, figuring out what the author is saying. I know annotating is something your teacher always recommends that you just can’t bring yourself to doing, but trust me: test scores correlate to scribbled-in margins. As Nabokov once said “good readers fondle the details”. Every so often, or couple of paragraphs, just take a step back and see if you know what you just read. Honestly, see if there’s a way you could explain it in a single sentence. All of these at the end should allow you to take a step back and see if you truly know what the author was saying. If you don’t do this, how are you going to answer the questions about it?

Which brings us to taking the knowledge of the piece you have now mastered, and applying it to the answers. First, the obvious things. Process of elimination. Always guess. If there’s info in one question, use it in another. Clouds might mean rain in the future. Grass grows green and cats love milk. A simple, simple way to radically boost points is to not take the shortcut and actually do the work. Many questions will quote the piece, with a reference to the line the quote is from. Read. The. Context. Go back, even if you have to, heaven forbid, turn the page, and read the line. You would do well to read the surrounding sentences as well. So much info can be gained from just this. Also, know your vocab. A lot of times, kids know what to explain it, but can’t tell the difference between apostrophe, polysyndeton, caricature, or ribonucleic acid. Try quizlet.com for great review flash cards. Just look up literary terms, read them, find a working example of each that you will not forget, define it in your own terms, and review. You can do this! Also, polysyndeton just means a lot of "and"s. That should make answering most of the questions monumentally easier.
So those are the big points for how to beat the multiple choice section. Of course, while you still have time, actually try sitting through some mock tests. Like all standardized tests, nothing is better than actually familiarizing yourself with the style of questions, or the time strains, or diction level, or whatever.

Other tips. This is a timed test. Your biggest enemy is not the page (all the answers are right in front of you, buried along the incorrect ones), but the clock. Shaving time off your reading can be a great help, so I recommend Spreader.com. it’s a program that let’s you work on your frequency of reading, and if you can pick that up, you will have more time to answer questions. Be warned, though, going too fast can make you lose focus on key points.

Also, a lot of AP tests aren’t that bad; they’re just excruciatingly long. Do what you need to do (sleep the night before, drink coffee, water, yoga, etc) to keep your mind sharp so you don’t tire out halfway through.

As we’ve all been studying for the SAT, or will get around to it, eventually, we should have a working vocabulary that gets larger. Anytime, ever, that you hear a word you don’t know, write it down. On the street, in bio class, at dinner, movies with the friends: if you don’t know a word, make sure you learn it. That will help, not only in life and the Critical Reading section, but on the English test, when you may come across some $10 words. Don’t waste time trying to read a word!

Lastly, those pieces from the 16th and 17th century are torture. Yes. Today we analyzed a defense of the gambling and sex addiction of Charles II of England. Kill me. But, the Collegeboard understands this, so usually they put easier questions to more challenging passages, and vice versa. Meaning there is a lot of room for easy points once you can decipher the basic meaning of that poem by John Donne or fransiscan monk essay.

I think that, as we all have fluency in actually speaking the english language, we are all capable of getting a 5 on english language. Now go get to work and earn your five!