Student Name______Date______Period______

The English Literature and Composition Exam

The Multiple Choice Component for AP Literature Exam

Yearly, the AP College Board prepares and develops a three-hour exam which consists of a multiple choice section and a writing section. The multiple choice section tests a student’s critical reading of selected passages, while the essay measures a student’s ability to read and interpret literature effectively.

Ordinarily, the exam consists of 60 multiple-choice questions followed by 120 minutes for essay questions. Performance on the exam is as follows:

  • the essay section of the exam counts for 55 percent of the total grade
  • the multiple choice section counts for 45 percent of the total grade

Bibliography

Professional Development: AP English Literature and Composition Workshop Handbook 2008-2009

Consider this your Bible for the multiple choice section of the AP Literature Exam.

In the multiple choice section of the AP Literature Exam, there will be several small passages followed by 1-13 multiple choice sections. These questions will lead up to approximately 45 to 55 questions. Maybe less or maybe more; it will depend on the year the test is/was created. The Multiple Choice passage is as follows:

Prose Selection

  • 10-13 multiple choice questions

Poetry Selection

  • 10-13 multiple choice questions

Prose Passage

  • 10-13 multiple choice questions

Poem Passage

  • 10-13 multiple choice questions

In order to be successful on the exam, you must understand and know the structure of the stem questions being given. Fortunately, the AP Literature Exam uses the skills frequently listed below. In order to know, what those skills consist of – you must first comprehend and understand the stem questions.

Below is a list of the Most Frequently Used Skills in MC Stems

1.Diction – there will always be a multiple choice diction question

  1. Types - to analyze diction go to the nouns and verbs in the sentence. Choose two highlighters, they must be in different colors. Highlight all the nouns in one color only and write them on the left margin of your paper. What type of connotationdo you get? Then, highlight all the verbs in the passage in another color. Write your verbs on the right margin of the paper. Remember these verbs will include feelings and emotions.
  2. Diction is also monosyllabic and polysyllabic.
  3. Monosyllabic – only has one syllable. For example: bar, her, its why, just, not, both, since, health
  4. Polysyllabic –has three or more syllables. For example: exciting; wonderful; fantastic; irregular; unnecessarily; wickedly
  5. Contributing to tone and mood - how does diction (word choice) contribute to tone and mood.
  6. Tone – is the attitude a writer takes toward the reader, a subject, or a character. In writing, tone is revealed by word choice. – give list of word choices.
  7. Mood is usually created through descriptive details and evocative language and to suggest the writer’s particular worldview.
  8. Contributing to Author’s Style – Style is the writer’s characteristic manner of employing language (The AP Vertical Teams Guide for English, p. 16).

2.Tone - If you see a tone question or an identity question you can expect a shift to occur somewhere in the reading passage.

  1. Identification (the tone)
  2. In passage as a whole (the tone)
  3. In one paragraph
  4. Shifts (in tone) – remember poetry
  5. Location in shift

3.Inference (Read in between lines to get hints)

4.Vocabulary in Context

5.Syntax – Sentence Structure – this is the function of simple sentences, the writer’s style. Also make sure you know all the terminology to syntax.

  1. Quotient/verbal patterns
  2. Phrases, clauses, and sentences

6.Main Idea/Author’s Purpose – this is theme – there are several of these questions

7.Function/Effect of

  1. Word(s) – how it works in sentence
  2. Phrases- function
  3. Clauses
  4. Literary elements
  5. Rhetorical strategies – use of detail, repetition

8.Grammar – most grammar will be noun/pronoun reference

9.Figures of Speech/Literary Terms

  1. Identification
  2. Finding examples
  3. Main types used in passages

10.Point of View

  1. Types
  2. First Person POV: When a character in the story tells the story. Example: When “I” or “Me” is used in a story or movie to tell the story.
  3. Participant – The narrator is a central/major character in the story and is directly involved in the action. Ex: Lily, The Secret Life of Bees
  4. Major character - The major characters may have prejudices or needs to justify their own actions to themselves which may distort what we're told. exL Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird
  5. Minor character - The minor characters observe the action without being an integral part of it, and they lack essential information. We may have to guess about what really happened or is happening. Ex: Nick Carroway, The Great Gatsby
  6. Innocent Eye Narrator – the character telling the story may be child or a developmentally disabled individual; the narrator is thus naive. The contrast between what the innocent-eye narrator perceives and what the reader understands may produce an ironic effect. Ex: Lily, The Secret Life of Bees, Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Marguerite, I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings
  7. Stream of Consciousness - (interior monologue) is a narrative method in modern fiction in which the author tells the story through an unbroken flow of thought and awareness. The technique attempts to capture exactly what is going on in the mind of a character. Ex: Virginia Woolf’s, Mrs. Dalloway
  8. Different times of a narrator’s life. Ex: Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman; Marguerite, I Know Why a Caged Bird Sings
  9. Second Person POV: When “you” is used to narrate the story. It can be intimate or accusatory. This should be used in adventure and recipe books.
  10. Third Person Limited POV: The narration does not use “I” or “me”. Only he/she/it. The narrator focuses on the thoughts and feelings of just one character.
  11. Third Person Omniscient POV: The all knowing narrator can tell us about the past, present and future of all the characters (godlike).
  12. Psychic Distance: (1) Basic Situation, General Details, No Emotion; (2) Specific Person, Added Detail, Mild Emotion; (3) Characters are more personal; (4) Extreme Emotion; (5) All Fragments, Particular(ing), Second Person
  13. Narrator: The person that is telling the story. A narrator can establish irony based on diction, tone, sarcasm, loose structure in a sentence, shift from one point of view to another, and a string of uncoordinated clauses in a passage. (Hamilton 116, 176, 187)
  14. Unreliable Narrator: A narrator who, intentionally or unintentionally, relates events in a subjective or distorted manner. The author usually provides some indication early on in such stories that the narrator is not to be completely trusted. Ex: Ellen “Nelly’ Dean, Wuthering Heights. To get an understanding of Unreliable Narration the following must be applied . . .Reconstruct meaning to test validity; Too self interested; Not sufficiently experienced; Not sufficiently knowledgeable; Not sufficiently moral; Too emotional; Actions to inconsistent with words; Culturally displaced; Compare the facts to the situation; Apply your knowledge to the world
  15. What if?: What if the point of view changes from a different character’s perspective?; What would the outcome of the novel, play or poem be like?; An example . . . If we were to take Ophelia’s voice . . . We would have to consider the following…Her silence, Her mannerisms, Her insanity, Her Valentine’s Song. What if we heard or read “Gertrude Talks Back” by Margaret Atwood or Sandra Cisneros “Eleven” – Question 2, 1995

11.Cause and Effect

12.Use of Irony – is the use of contrast

  1. Types
  2. Verbal Irony - Consists of implying a meaning different from, and often the complete opposite of, the one that is explicitly stated. Usually, the irony is signaled by clues in the context of the situation or in the style of expression. In complex cases, the detection of irony may depend on values that the author assumes are shared by his or her audience. Be careful, as verbal irony requires subtle reading and comprehension and is always in danger of being misconstrued, and thereby of shocking or offending a naïve audience. (Hamilton 44).
  3. Dramatic Irony - Occurs when the audience is privy to knowledge that one or more of the characters lacks. The technique can be used in for comic or tragic effects.
  4. Situational Irony- takes place when there is a discrepancy betweenwhat is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and what really does happen (i.e., when both the reader and the characters do not know what to expect in the story).
  5. Sarcasm - The taunting use of apparent approval or praise for actual disapproval or dispraise, is mistakenly used as synonymous with verbal irony. The distinctions are that sarcasm is simpler and more crude; in dialogue, it is often signaled by vocal inflection.
  6. Pathetic Fallacy- is a type of PERSONIFICATION, in which inanimate aspects of nature, such as the landscape or the weather, are represented as having human qualities or feelings. The term, which was invented by the Victorian critic John Ruskin, derives from the logical absurdity (“fallacy”) of supposing that nature can sympathize with (feel pathos for) human moods and concerns. Usually the pathetic fallacy reflects or foreshadows some aspect of the poem or narrative at that point, such as the plot, theme, or characterization, and so intensifies the tone. At times, writers reverse the usual use of the pathetic fallacy for purposes of IRONY. (Hamilton 40)
  7. Cosmic Irony - Refers to an implied worldview in which characters are led to embrace false hopes of aid or success, only to be defeated by some larger force, such as God or fate.
  8. Understatement - Is a form of IRONY in which a point is deliberately expressed as less, in magnitude, value, or importance, that it actually is.
  9. Tragic Irony - When dramatic irony occurs in tragedies.
  10. Free Verse - Free verse poem's are poem's that do not have rules, they do not rhyme and does not have a meter. The poet makes up the rules for the poem as the poem is progressing or thoughts are being completed.
  11. Narrator - A narrator can establish irony based on diction, tone, sarcasm, loose structure in a sentence, shift from one point of view to another, and a string of uncoordinated clauses in a passage (Hamilton 116, 176, 187).
  12. Structural Irony - Refers to an implication of alternate or reversed meaning that pervades a work. A major technique for sustaining structural irony is the use of a naïve protagonist or an unreliable narrator who continually interprets events and intentions in ways that the author signals are mistaken.

13.Imagery

  1. Types
  2. Visual imagery - something described through sight, appears most commonly in poetry.
  3. Auditory imagery - representation of a sound
  4. Olfactory imagery - representation of a smell
  5. Gustatory imagery - representation of a taste
  6. Tactile imagery - touch: hardness, softness, wetness, heat, cold
  7. Organic imagery - internal sensation, hunger, thirst, fatigue, nausea
  8. Kinesthetic imagery - movement, physical tension
  9. Frame of reference - is a way of looking at the world, whether that's seeing things only in good and bad or immigrant and nonimmigrant terms or it's a matter of thinking that the world operates around meritocracy -- that people earn and then deserve their place in life. For example identifying images using the Holocaust, Asian artwork, Indian music, cowboy setting, summertime vacation.

Let’s look at some examples of Multiple Choice questions found on a typical AP exam. Read the questions carefully – identify what each question is based on the component list given by your teacher.

Take a look at the exam given in this packet. Remember, there are going to be thirteen skills you will need to know to answer the multiple choice section of the test; this will come from pages 1 and 2 of this packet.