<p>Have you taken it without an AP course at school? How did you do? How hard was it?</p>
<p>My friend took the test without the class and said it was super easy. Yet, others take the class and say how hard it is. I’ve read somewhere that only some 40-something% actually get a 4 or 5 on the test so I’m not sure. I’d just get a study book; I wouldn’t imagine it being that hard if you are naturally good at English.</p>
<p>Actually, only ~20% get 4’s or 5’s according to collegeboard (2006 test).</p>
<p>yea u have to be innately good at english. also, it has been known to be the most difficultly graded AP test (5% 5’s in one year). however, i self-studied AP english and got a 5. by self studied, really just looked over what they expect for format in the essays at borders the night b4. the exam is not very difficult if u can effectively formulate an argument</p>
<p>I totally bombed one of the essays and I got a 5…</p>
<p>I think the hardest part for most people is actually the multiple choice…the essays are seriously not that bad. The questions are really ambiguous! So, you really should buy a study book (or two!) and practice as many multiple choice questions as you can.</p>
<p>My D took an AP Euro Hist in Sophomore year and got 5. She is planning to take AP USH and English Hons. (III) but wants to take AP English Language exams. Is it doable? She will be having other APs too.</p>
<p>My daughter took it last year with the class and got a 3 and then took it again this year without the class and got a 5. We’re flabbergasted because we don’t think she’s usually very good at this kind of thing. Was this years test particularly easy? I think she does well on short answers but not that well usually on essays. Maybe prepping for the SATs helped with the short answers.</p>
<p>Basically…
-I thought the class was insanely hard (A/B…and I worked pretty darn hard)
-By the test came around, I hadn’t a care in the world about the test. I did 0 practice tests…Never even bought a test prep book.
-I got lucky and got a 5, haha.</p>
<p>I’m not good at English Language at all…I’m not atrocious and I don’t sound like an illiterate, but I just don’t have a natural affinity for English. My teacher, however, allowed us to have a lot of practice. We did AP prompts from as far back as 1992 (some were older) to 2006, and examined each very carefully. I finally got the hang of what we needed to write for AP English Language, and deciphering the prompt became much easier this last January. It just clicked. Like anything else, I think practice is all you need to do well. I still think the class itself was demanding…and cost many many hours of sleep.</p>
<p>I took the test with a class (got a 5) but we did very little in-class test preparation (our teacher had an extended emergency until the week before the test, and the replacement thought there’s no difference between ‘AP English Literature’ and ‘Language’). My overall impression of this year’s test (MC and essay) is that it’s easier than the sample test given in the official course outline. Do as many MC and FRQ practices as you possibly can - don’t rely on test prep books alone, because they’re only supplementary in terms of value.</p>
<p>Reading a lot + innate ability + skill at doing timed, prompted essays = easy 5</p>
<p>its not that hard, if your a decent writer .If you get below a 3 there is seriously something wrong</p>
<p>^^ aww dont be mean like that
its actually not that bad
im an ok writer and i passed it
u get used to writing 3 essays in that short amount of time
u should definitely look into taking that class</p>
<p>I would say that taking the class would be helpful if you’re not an English-based person. Math/science people may not have a strong enough foundation of English skills (I know they can, I’m just saying) and may need the class to help them focus on the specific test curriculum. Students, like one of my friends, who are strong in English can probably take the test and do fine. As long as the student is familiarized with non-fiction/prose writing, is fairly polished in writing skills, and is well-aware of rhetorical terms and rhetorical analysis, a 4 or 5 is likely. I took the class and got a 4; the friend I mentioned didn’t and got a 4. It’s possible either way.</p>
<p>Hard.</p>
<p>Only about 5% of test takers this year got a 5.</p>
<p>Overall, I would say the exam is very doable, since I passed it with a 3 with the following factors:</p>
<p>1) I’m not an “english” person and I’ve always hated english classes, especially AP Lang.
2) My third essay was only an intro and one body paragraph because I ran out of time.
3) I didn’t even get to the fourth reading passage on the multiple choice because I ran out of time.</p>
<p>So if I passed it considering all of the above factors, then trust me,anyone can pass it.</p>
<p>This year’s test was DEFINITELY easier than last year’s, and DEFINITELY a higher percentage got 5’s. </p>
<p>The hardest part were the MC, but if your daughter is good at SAT-type questions and can memorize a brief list of literary terms, she’ll be fine. I took APE.Lang. and 4 other APs (one of which was a language, and my school’s language program is CRAP… it was basically self-studying French, so double the work) and got 5’s on all and a 4 on French. I wasn’t really stressed about the others. Seriously, AP exams are not really anything to flip out about. You only need like a 70% and there’s your 5. Not THAT much work involved. Your daughter will be fine.</p>
<p>Honestly, English Language / Lit are the only AP tests one can take without studying (unless you are fluent in another language). I actually found the critical reading to be on par with the critical reading on the SAT, believe it or not, but I got totally screwed on the essays because my stupid proctor only mentioned when there was only a half hour left in the test, leaving me 30 minutes to write two essays…I almost cried when I flipped the page to the second essay and realized it was a rhetorical analysis. Anyways, I feel that I could have walked into the test without taking the class and done just as well as I did without taking the class (then again, my teacher was awful, and I think about 10% of his students get a 4 or 5, with the majority getting 2’s or 1’s). I will be surprised if get a 4, but I am expecting a 3, without an ounce of preparation.</p>
<p>Not hard at all. I didnt study for this one. I generally scored 8/9 on in class essays at school so I was rather confident and after taking the test, I was expecting a 5. The multiple choioce passages for this year were very reasonable IMO because the passages were actually somewhat interesting. The essays were also very open-ended, so really it just came down to if you knew how to write rhetoric, argumentative, and synthesis essays.</p>
<p>@strandlib, there are always 3 essays, one of each.</p>
<p>Argumentative is an open-ended question. Rhetoric is analysis of author’s writing style. Synthesis is like a history DBQ with less docs. The hardest part during the test for me was figuring out what essay was what. If I recall correctly, it took me a few minutes to figure out the which was the argumentative and which was rhetoric. </p>
<p>Regardless, always write about author’s intent and wind your thesis around that, thereby answering the prompt.</p>
<p>The AP English exams can definitely be self-studied for potentially high grades.
My school only prepares us for the Lit exam after two years of prep, but I thought I’d just take the Lang exam this year as a junior.</p>
<p>My idea of studying for this exam basically involved opening a prep book (Cliff’s) and reading the tips for the essays, which only took around 20 minutes. The real exam turned out to be much easier than expected. The stories on the MC were interesting and engaging, and the questions were easy and straightforward, compared to those on the SAT I (of which I scored only a 680 on CR).
I guess since CB changed the exam a bit this year, the essay questions were easier, in a sense. You don’t have to follow a traditional 5-paragraph structure. As long as you construct a focused thesis and develop your argument well, you should be able to score at least a 6 out of 9.
I walked out of the exam, confident that I had done well, and I did end up with a 5.</p>
<p>I didn’t read the other posts but I took the test without the class and I got a 4. For the sake of comparison, I got 800s on both critical reading and writing for the SAT. I found the AP test much more difficult, and I had to read the passages carefully to be able to answer the questions about the nuances the text.
I have skill but little interest in English and English-related things. I get a vocabulary from reading old novels. Perhaps if your daughter enjoys the humanities more than I she will able to get a 5.</p>