As far as preparation goes for me, I am only going to briefly review the English readings for De Bello Gallico and the Aeneid because, as far as I know, the only place on the exam that requires knowledge of the English readings is the last question of the two FRQ’s in which you are asked to answer about 10 short answer questions pertaining to a certain passage, one from De Bello Gallico and one from the Aeneid. For example, on the 2014 FRQ section, the only outside knowledge of the Aeneid required is for the question, “In Book 1, Cupid is sent in disguise into the city of Carthage. What is his mission there?”. I am also reviewing all of my De Bello Gallico and Aeneid translations as frequently as possible so that the translations of the FRQ section will be very familiar to me. Personally, the hardest part for me will be the MC section on the new poetry section (non-Aeneid)… I like prose much more than poetry!
Does anyone else think that 2 hours PLUS a 15 minute reading period is a bit excessive for the FRQ section of this exam? My teacher gave my class the 2013 FRQ section to do in class this past week and we finished it in slightly more than an hour (over the course of two class periods) and, according to my teacher, we scored well according to the AP rubric. My class was able to finish De Bello Gallico by December and we finished the Aeneid in mid-April. The translations that I find most difficult are some of the speeches in the Aeneid, like Venus’s address to Aeneas in Book 2 and Anchises’ Marcellus speech in Book 6.