is there a lot of homework in ap lang

What do you normally do in AP English Lang?

<p>I’m in APUSH right now as a sophomore and will be taking AP Eng Lang next year. APUSH isn’t that bad in my opinion. My teacher says my outlines and essays are great, and he’s a really tough grader. I have a 95% in that class.</p>

<p>Anyway, how many hours of homework a day are there in AP Lang? What do you normally do in that class? 1000 word essays? 5000 word essays? Specificity please!</p>

<p>AP English Language is a class about learning how to identify the METHODS and TOOLS that writers use to get their point across or develop character/plot. It is a class wher you need to learn how to read critically. In my AP Lang class last year, the homework was primarily reading whatever we were assigned each night. In our class, there was a significant emphasis on nonfiction works, like essays, speeches, and articles, in addition to actual novels. We usually had to identify things like author’s purpose and types of devices as we read–for example, “this author is using pathos, anaphora, and parallelism to emphasize this argument about this topic.” So the homework isn’t hard, but it can be time-consuming depending on what your teacher gives you. I spent about an hour each night on it (maybe more if we had a lot of reading), but the essays were far more demanding.</p>

<p>The essay prompts you’ll get will likely be quite different from essay prompts you’ve gotten in the past. You’ll be asked to analyze actual text and style rather than just characters or plot. My teacher wanted us to learn about rhetoric and argumentation, so we wrote some very difficult argumentative essays.</p>

<p>As for length, I can’t really say that there’s a normal wordcount for AP Lang work. My teacher’s style was giving us really difficult prompts and a limited amount of space and time to answer them effectively. Expect to churn out stronger essays for more complex prompts in less time.</p>

<p>An example of a prompt I had to write on: “Examine Hamlet’s famous soliloquy in II.ii.501-540 and Claudius’ confession in III.iii.36-72, 97-98. Compare and contrast these characters as dramatic opposites or twins. ** Discuss Shakespeare’s use of literary and rhetorical devices to reveal each character’s state of mind.**” The sentence I bolded is the AP Lang part–analyzing style adds another layer on top of the traditional “talk about this character or plot” prompt.</p>

<p>Any other questions? (English is my best subject, so I’ll admit that I’m biased toward this class. I loved it.)</p>

<p>It all varies by class. My homework/classwork is fairly consistent though. We are always reading 1-2 books (always one that is self-paced/we have one date that the book has to be done by and sometimes a second one that we read x number of chapters for by the following class). Personally I am a quick reader and never spend more then an hour on a school night do the readings. We are also occasionally doing projects (fairly easy) and write journal writes (that is what my teacher calls them, but in reality they are mini papers) after each book, those tend to be 3-6 pages (nothing major). The only other assignment is each quarter we have to find 50 words we don’t know (they can be found from watching TV, talking to friends, reading, listening to music and so on) and document them. Personally I find the class extremely reasonable (I finished last quarter with 102), though I know some people who have struggled with it.</p>

<p>Oh and for what we do in class, we will do practice essays, book discussions, multiple choice practice, test strategies, grammar, history relating to the books and some other random stuff.</p>

<p>It really depends from school to school and class to class in both material and intensity. My friend took it as a junior at his school and it was very intensive. They wrote essays every night. I take it as a senior in a different school and we do nothing for the most part. I’m serious, I go into class, the teacher gets side tracked for 25 minutes, then I hear about what a synthesis essay is, and then it’s time to go. The teacher actually spent one class teaching us about contractions (one can understand why I do dual enrollment). My friend’s class wrote over 100 essays. I have written about 5 so far. </p>

<p>It depends on the school, the teacher, and the class. There’s no way of predicting what the class will be like unless you talk to the current instructor and current students.</p>

<p>I hate English and don’t consider it to be a real subject. That being said, I got a 5 somehow. In class, I always sucked at MC but got 8-9s on essays, considering that I love studying argument. I skipped one section of MC on the exam, but rocked the essays. Good stuff.</p>

<p>How can you not consider English a real subject? Ideas couldn’t be communicated properly without it, and one of the largest art forms (literature) is completely based on it…</p>

<p>AP Language isn’t about how long your essays are. No AP test is like that. If that’s the idea you’ve gotten, you need to get rid of it fast. My teacher told us to get rid of the five paragraph essay format we’ve gotten used to. It’s all about identifying what you’ve been asked in the question, the hidden whats, and communicating your ideas properly with developed evidence. </p>

<p>In my class, we work on vocab and analysis in class, and work on literature. Since my class is a combination of both the language and literature tests, we do a lot a literature as well. You will be writing a lot if your teacher’s class is any good. Good luck on your tests!</p>

<p>I have to do Journals about the books that we are reading, etc. It’s a really fun class because we do AP Practice questions once a while and my teacher is really good. I started to write better as well :D</p>

<p>Well we obviously read the literary cannons: Huck Finn, Gatsby, etc. And we often do presentations that convey we know how to detect rhetorical devices and show the author’s purpose for doing so as well as its effect upon the story. </p>

<p>Then we do a lot of practice essays: argument, style, and synthesis (in chronological order). Argument is self explanatory you get a topic and you either defend, challenge, or qualify. Style you get a piece of text and analyze it for its rhetorical devices and write about how this aids on the authors writing, etc. Synthesis is like an argument but you are given the evidence (which you don’t receive in the argument essay) from 5 sources and have to cite at least 3. </p>

<p>We also do some socratic seminars on a prompt and basically have a massive discussion about it. We do a little more but that’s the gist of it.</p>

<p>We do nothing, each day we do mindless “peerediting” of “essays” which in reality are single paragraph rhetorical responses. Other times we talk about the books we read, go off on random tangents. Our teacher has not mentioned the word Synthesis Essay or Argumentative essay. Am I alone on this?</p>

<p>We did quite a bit of analyzing literature, from short stories and plays in class to independent novels. So far, we’ve read The Great Gatsby, A Separate Peace, To Kill A Mockingbird, Farewell to Manzanar, and currently have Of Mice and Men. (The other period read Things Fall Apart instead of Farewell.) We just finished a unit on persuasion and satire and are starting a unit on identity. We are also working on an analytical research paper, but that’s a requirement from the community college that the class is a dual enrollment opportunity. (A waste of time and money for me. The credits probably won’t transfer to where I want to go) English 11 (What AP Language is replacing credit wise) in Pennsylvania has to be focused on American Lit, which kind of sucks… </p>

<p>The only problem is that the class is huge. My grade has a lot of kids that were, I guess you could say, unjustly placed in honors English as a freshman and, since our school got rid of the honors classes and just have AP, a lot of people took AP when they probably shouldn’t have. Same goes for my AP World class. APUSH is really tough at my school, and a lot of the APWH class are newbies… </p>

<p>But I should do alright on the AP Language exam. Our teacher gave us some practice packets and I’ll review them before the exam. What sucks though is we’re actually off school the day of the exam, so we need our own rides there and home, AND it’s the day before prom… </p>

<p>Sent from my Nexus 7 using CC</p>

<p>My teacher is insane and he assigned a ludicrous amount of books for my class to read throughout the year. I read the first one, used Schmoop and Sparknotes for the rest and pulled out an A. </p>

<p>Not a single kid in my class read a book after he assigned Huck Finn (october) so now we’re all screwed for the AP test. The teacher refuses to review for AP and babbles on about how “it’s the learning that matters, not the test, not your grade.”</p>

<p>So yeah. AP English classes can be pretty terrible if you get a bad teacher, because they don’t need to follow a strict curriculum. </p>

<p>BTW: Anyone have advice/tips for the multiple choice? Nobody in our class can finish the multiple choice on time with above 45 right, but most of us have 22-2400 SATS. A few of us got review books today but we’re not sure whether to use Princeton Review of Cliffnotes. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>It is one of the most difficult and rewarding classes I took. We were always reading 6-7 books at any one time (a total of something like 36 or more books throughout the year). About half my class did all the reading, the rest got by with Shmoop and such. The essays were incredibly demanding such as:</p>

<p>“Analyze how place and setting mirror character development in [insert three books of your choice]”</p>

<p>That essay was a killer – most people failed because they misread the prompt. The class, I’m sure, varies in difficulty, but it is super rewarding in my view.</p>

<p>I’ve always been an A student and this class conquered me! By far the most work and effort, despite the fact that I thought it would be one of my easier AP classes. It largely (extra emphasis here) depends on the teacher, but you can expect to transform as a writer of the course of the year. Yes, this class took down my GPA a bit, but I also came out a changed writer. I came in thinking my writing was superb and thought I did good on our first diagnostic-ish essay. Boy, was I wrong when I got that 4(out of 9) on an essay. I just took the AP test today and will be upset if I get anything less than a 4 or 5 on it after all the work I put in. This is one of the few classes where no matter how hard you try, you could very well not get the grade you want, regardless of what you do. This is my own personal experience so far… since I envy friends with other teachers who walk away with an easy A’s doing nothing, but remind myself that they have learned nothing in comparison. In other words, your experience in AP lang largely depends on your teacher. There were nights I got little to no sleep. My class did double journals all year, and read/analyzed/annotated too many essays to count. We read less books, but annotated many essays and took numerous practice prompts. Started with a 4/9 on essays, raised them to 5-6/9, and am finally in the place where I can get 7-8/9. </p>

<p>Don’t underestimate this class.</p>

AP English Language and Composition

Review the free-response questions from the 2024 ap exam, new for 2024-25: mcqs will have four answer choices.

Starting in the 2024-25 school year, AP English Language and Composition multiple-choice questions (MCQs) will have four answer choices instead of five. This change will take effect with the 2025 exam. All resources have been updated to reflect this change.

Exam Overview

Exam questions assess the course concepts and skills outlined in the course framework. For more information, download the  AP English Language and Composition Course and Exam Description (.pdf)  (CED).

Encourage your students to visit the  AP English Language and Composition student page  for exam information.

Wed, May 14, 2025

AP English Language and Composition Exam

Exam format.

The AP English Language and Composition Exam has question types and point values that stay consistent from year to year, so you and your students know what to expect on exam day.

Section I: Multiple Choice

45 Questions | 1 hour | 45% of Exam Score

• 23–25 Reading questions that ask students to read and analyze nonfiction texts.
• 20–22 Writing questions that ask students to “read like a writer” and consider revisions to stimulus texts.

Section II: Free Response

3 Questions | 2 hours 15 minutes (includes a 15-minute reading period | 55% of Exam Score

• Synthesis Question:  After reading 6 texts about a topic (including visual and quantitative sources), students will compose an argument that combines and cites at least 3 of the sources to support their thesis.
• Rhetorical Analysis:  Students will read a nonfiction text and analyze how the writer’s language choices contribute to the intended meaning and purpose of the text.
• Argument:  Students will create an evidence-based argument that responds to a given topic.

Exam Questions and Scoring Information

Ap english language and composition exam questions and scoring information.

View free-response questions and scoring information from past exams.

Score Reporting

Ap score reports for educators.

Access your score reports.

AP ® Lang teachers: looking to help your students improve their rhetorical analysis essays?

Coach Hall Writes

clear, concise rhetorical analysis instruction.

Is AP Lang Worth It?

September 3, 2022 by Beth Hall

One of the most common questions I received over on TikTok this summer was “Is AP Lang worth it?” 

The answer is “it depends.”

As someone who teaches both AP ® Language and Composition and College English (concurrent credit,) I think students need to consider a variety of factors before making this decision.

First and foremost, know that much of what I’m about to say depends on your interests/goals, the high school you attend, the state you live in, and where you want to attend college.

What is AP Lang?

For more information about the class, check out this video here . AP ® Language and Composition is a course offered through The College Board. Students have the option of taking an exam in May. Depending on the score they receive, students can earn college credit. More information on that to follow.

What is concurrent credit?

This term might vary a bit depending on where you live, but for the purposes of this blog post, concurrent credit means a college level class taught at a high school. Students receive both high school and college credit. The college credit often comes from a local college or community college and can transfer to other colleges. More information on this to follow as well.

What is dual enrollment?

Again, this term might very in its meaning depending on your school, but for the purposes of this blog post, dual enrollment is when you take an AP ® class and receive college credit from a local university at the same time.

 Availability

In some sense, students are limited to which classes their high school offers. Your school might have more AP ® options than concurrent credit options, or vice versa. Some concurrent credit programs will let students take classes over the summer or online of the school does not offer the class, so definitely talk to your guidance counselor about your options.

Generally speaking, both AP ® exams and concurrent credit classes are less expensive than taking the classes as a college freshman. In that sense, both can be great options.

If cost is a factor, look into the cost of the AP ® exam fee and compare it to the cost of an equivalent concurrent credit class.

There are a few states, mine is one of them, where the state department of education covers the AP ® exam fee for students. Also, in our area, students who qualify for free and reduced lunch can take a couple concurrent credit classes at no cost. Sometimes there are also scholarship options for concurrent credit students. Because this varies from school to school and state to state, talk to your teachers or guidance counselors, as they would likely be able to advise you based on the options in your area.

College Credit

Colleges and universities determine what they will accept for credit, so if you have an idea of which schools you might apply to, see which AP scores they accept and what their concurrent credit policy is. This information is typically on the college or university’s website.

College Credit for AP ® Classes

In regard to AP ® classes, one of the perks is that they are widely accepted for college credit, meaning that if you earn the score the school accepts, it is accepted in place of a college class. If you enter college with multiple AP ® or concurrent credits, you are (in theory) saving money, as you could graduate in 2-3 years instead of 4.

As a word of caution, though, college is a big adjustment, and sometimes “testing out” of several classes, whether it be because of AP ® or concurrent credit, can mean that you end up taking several difficult classes as a freshman–all while you’re adjusting to college life. For some people, this is an easy adjustment. For others, it is a challenge.

The downside of AP ® scores is that you might not earn the score you need. In these instances, I can see how it would be easy to think, “oh man, it was a waste.” But, don’t forget that you are a stronger student because of what you learned in the class. So when asked if AP Lang is worth it even if you don’t make the score you want, I think it is. Honestly, out all the AP ® and concurrent credit options out there, I think AP Lang and College English I (sometimes called Comp. I) are worth it because they reinforce how to read and write about nonfiction, a skill that most students will use in their future classes.

College Credit for Concurrent Credit Classes

With concurrent credit classes, it’s important to realize that in some cases private colleges and out-of-state schools are less likely to accept the concurrent credit. While I know of cases where a student attended a private college or out-of-state college and the schools accepted the concurrent credit, I know cases in which the school did not accept the credit. Just as with a school not accepting an AP ® score, I’d venture to say that the student still gained valuable knowledge from the concurrent credit class even if the credit didn’t transfer.

Moral of the story? Do your research.

Make a spreadsheet of the colleges you’re interested in and keep track of the AP and concurrent credit policies. This will help you make an informed decision once you start applying to colleges and receiving acceptance letters.

For more information about how to make a college list, check out this video here.

This is another factor that varies from school to school. Many schools give a “GPA boost” (5.0 scale) for completing an AP ® class. Schools may or may not give the same GPA boost for concurrent credit or dual enrollment classes.

Is AP Lang Hard?

In addition to being asked “is AP Lang worth it,” I’m also frequently asked if “is AP Lang hard.”

This depends on a variety of factors:

• your interest in English, especially nonfiction
• the classes you have previously taken on will be taking at the same time as AP Lang
• your teacher
• your learning style
• your other commitments (school, family, job, etc.)
• the class content and workload

I love that AP ® Lang focuses on rhetorical analysis, synthesis, and argument, as these are valuable skills. I also love that students are exposed to these skills in different ways throughout the year, as I believe these skills are valuable well beyond the class itself.

Want to know more? Check out this blog post about what is on the AP ® Lang Exam.

So is AP ® Lang hard? Maybe. But one of my goals is to try to make it a little easier for students, which is why I started my YouTube channel and TikTok .

Final Recommendations

When deciding “is AP Lang worth it,” make an informed decision by

• Doing your research to see what all your course options are
• Talking to your teachers, guidance counselors, parents/guardians, and students who have taken the classes at your school in previous years–while it should be your decision, sometimes it’s good to hear other people’s perspectives.
• Making a spreadsheet, t-chart, or list to compare the cost and credits accepted

DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with The College Board. The advice and opinions expressed in this video are my own.

For more information about AP ® Language and Composition, please go to The College Board’s website, which can be accessed here.

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AP® English Language

The best ap® english language review guide for 2024.

• The Albert Team
• Last Updated On: February 7, 2024

Navigating the AP® English Language exam is tough. That’s why we wrote this comprehensive AP® English Language study guide.

In this post, we’ll go over key questions you may have about the exam, how to study for AP® English Language, as well as what review notes and practice resources to use as you begin preparing for your exam.

Are you ready? Let’s get started.

What We Review

What’s the Format of the AP® English Language and Composition Exam?

The AP® English Language and Composition exam is broken into two sections: multiple-choice and free-response.

Students are asked to complete 23-25 reading questions focused on rhetorical analysis and 20-22 writing questions focused on making revisions related to diction, syntax, and other grammar concepts. The number of free-response questions remains the same, but they are now scored using an analytic rubric rather than a holistic rubric.

How Long is the AP® English Language and Composition Exam?

The AP® English Language and Composition exam is 3 hours and 15 minutes long. Students will have 1 hour to complete the multiple-choice section (45 questions) and 2 hours and 15 minutes to complete the free-response section (3 questions).

How Many Questions Does the AP® English Language and Composition Exam Have?

Section i: multiple choice.

• 5 passages total: 2 Reading and 3 Writing
• 23–25 Reading questions
• 20–22 Writing questions

Section II: Free Response

• 1 Synthesis question
• 1 Rhetorical Analysis question
• 1 Argument question

Return to the Table of Contents

What Topics are Covered on the AP® English Language and Composition Exam? 

There are two types of AP® English Language and Composition questions: multiple-choice and free-response.

Because AP® English Language and Composition is a skills-based course, there’s no way to know what specific passages or topics might make it onto the official exam. 

However, we know exactly which skills will be assessed with which passages, so it’s best to center your studying around brushing up on those skills! The charts below will help you understand which skills you should focus on.

Note that, even though there are more writing passages, reading passages have a greater total number of questions.

Like the multiple choice section, the free response section is also skills-based. We cannot predict what specific passages you will be asked to analyze, but we do know the type of essays you will be asked to produce:

• 1 Synthesis essay: After reading 6-7 sources, students are asked to write an essay using at least 3 of the provided sources to support their thesis.
• 1 Rhetorical Analysis essay: Students read a non-fiction text and write an essay that analyzes the writer’s choices and how they contribute to the meaning and purpose of the text.
• 1 Argument essay: Students are given an open-ended topic and asked to write an evidence-based argumentative essay in response to the topic.

What do the AP® English Language and Composition Exam Questions Look Like?

Multiple choice examples.

The Course and Exam Description (CED) for AP® English Language provides 8 practice questions that address reading skills and 9 practice questions that address writing skills. 

Below, we’ll look at examples of each question type and the skills and essential knowledge they address.

Skill: 1.A Identify and describe components of the rhetorical situation: the exigence, audience, writer, purpose, context, and message. 

Essential Knowledge: RHS-1.B The exigence is the part of a rhetorical situation that inspires, stimulates, provokes, or prompts writers to create a text.

Skill: 3.A Identify and explain claims and evidence within an argument.

Essential Knowledge: CLE-1.A Writers convey their positions through one or more claims that require a defense.

Skill: 5.C Recognize and explain the use of methods of development to accomplish a purpose.

Essential Knowledge: REO-1.J When developing ideas through cause-effect, writers present a cause, assert effects or consequences of that cause, or present a series of causes and the subsequent effect(s).

Skill: 7.B Explain how writers create, combine, and place independent and dependent clauses to show relationships between and among ideas.

Essential Knowledge: STL-1.L The arrangement of clauses, phrases, and words in a sentence can emphasize ideas.

Skill: 2.A Write introductions and conclusions appropriate to the purpose and context of the rhetorical situation.

Essential Knowledge: RHS-1.I The introduction of an argument introduces the subject and/ or writer of the argument to the audience. An introduction may present the argument’s thesis. An introduction may orient, engage, and/or focus the audience by presenting quotations, intriguing statements, anecdotes, questions, statistics, data, contextualized information, or a scenario.

Skill: 4.B Write a thesis statement that requires proof or defense and that may preview the structure of the argument.

Essential Knowledge: CLE-1.I A thesis is the main, overarching claim a writer is seeking to defend or prove by using reasoning supported by evidence.

Skill: 6.A Develop a line of reasoning and commentary that explains it throughout an argument.

Essential Knowledge: REO-1.D Commentary explains the significance and relevance of evidence in relation to the line of reasoning.

Free Response Examples

The Course and Exam Description (CED) for AP® Lang also provides a sample question for each FRQ. Below, we’ll review these examples and which skills they address.

Skills: 2.A, 4.A, 4.B, 4.C, 6.A, 6.B, 6.C, 8.A, 8.B, 8.C

This prompt is long, but it’s important to notice the key task:

• Write an essay that synthesizes material from at least three of the sources and develops your position on the role, if any, that public libraries should serve in the future.

So, your response should:

• Synthesize the material from at least three sources
• Make your position on the topic clear

In a bit, we’ll have a look at the rubric and see this in action.

Rhetorical Analysis

Skills: 1.A, 2.A, 4.A, 4.B, 4.C, 6.A, 6.B, 6.C, 8.A, 8.B, 8.C

The key task in this prompt is to:

• Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Rice makes to convey her message to her audience.
• Analyze the author’s rhetorical choices
• Connect those choices to the author’s message and how it’s conveyed to the audience

We’ll also have a look at this rubric and learn how these points can be earned.

The key task here is:

• Write an essay that argues your position on Jordan’s claim that “private wants” threaten national identity.
• Use evidence to back up your position

We’ll break down this rubric in a bit.

Free Response Rubric Breakdowns

With the 2020 redesign came new rubrics for the AP® Lang essay section. Previously, essays were scored using holistic rubrics, on a scale of 0-9. Starting with the 2019 exam, students’ essays will be graded with new analytic rubrics. Each essay is worth up to 6 points.

Switching to an analytic rubric from a holistic rubric can be tricky, especially if you’ve already taken another AP® English class and are used to the holistic version. But, the best thing about an analytic rubric is that it tells you exactly what to include in your essay to earn maximum points. 

Think of the new rubrics as a How To Guide to getting a 6 on each essay. Below, we’ll spend some time breaking down each element of each rubric, but first let’s take a look at the Thesis point, which is pretty similar across all 3 essays.

Row A: Thesis

The Thesis row is all or nothing — you either earn the point or you don’t. It’s important to learn the wording of the rubric to make sure you are crafting an AP-level thesis. Note that you will not earn the point if your thesis:

• Just restates the prompt
• Summarizes the issue without also making a claim
• Doesn’t respond to the prompt

That’s all pretty straightforward, but earning the point for this category is a little more tricky than it seems at first. You will earn the point if your thesis:

• Responds to the prompt with a defensible position
• Takes a clear position that does not simply state there are pros and cons to the issue

Notice the second point above. While you may want to include a counterargument in the body of your essay (more on this later), your thesis is not the place to do so.

The purpose of presenting a counterargument is to refute it then and make your own argument stronger. Presenting the opposing argument in your thesis gets confusing for a reader and can make it seem like you aren’t holding strong in your own position, so it’s best to save that for the body of your essay.

The Additional Notes section of the rubric is also important to understand. This details what may or may not earn the thesis point. The main takeaways here are:

• Your thesis may be more than one sentence, as long as those sentences are near one another
• Your thesis doesn’t have to be in your opening paragraph
• Your sources must support your thesis, but you do not necessarily need to cite them
• Your thesis doesn’t have to outline your argument
• Your thesis statement can earn the point independent of whether or not your essay supports it on the whole

The Synthesis Rubric

As we’ve already discussed, the synthesis essay is the first of the three. You will be presented with 6-7 sources related to a given topic and asked to write an essay using at least 3 of those sources to support your thesis. 

Let’s take a look at the various elements of the rubric and how you can earn maximum points for each category.

Row B: Evidence and Commentary

The Evidence and Commentary row is a little more flexible than the Thesis row. You can earn between 0 and 4 points depending on the quality of the evidence and commentary that you provide. Note you will not earn any points if your evidence and commentary:

• Does nothing more than restate your thesis
• Repeats already given information
• References fewer than 2 of the sources
• Is just opinion without any textual evidence

The nice thing about this section is that there are lots of places you can earn points! You will earn full points if your evidence and commentary:

• Contains specific evidence from at least 3 of the sources
• Fully supports your claim and line of reasoning
• Explains how the evidence supports your claim and line of reasoning
• Pulls specific words or details from the sources that support your argument
• Supports a line of reasoning that is broken down into supporting claims, with each supporting claim supported by its own pieces of evidence

The final point in the above list is the main difference between earning full points and partial points in this section. AP-level evidence and commentary will not only support your overall claim, but will also support your supporting claims fully.

You can think of supporting claims as each individual body paragraph’s focus. If each body paragraph makes a supporting claim, and that supporting claim is bolstered by specific supporting evidence, you are much more likely to earn the full 4 points here.

The Additional Notes section of the rubric is also important to understand. This gives extra detail on what may or may not earn the thesis point. The main takeaway here is that your argument must be free of grammatical and/or mechanical errors in order to earn full points. This means that if your grammar is not solid, you can only ever earn 3 or fewer points in this section. 

If you struggle with grammar or syntax, check out Albert’s Grammar course to help build up those skills!

Row C: Sophistication

Similar to the Thesis point, the Sophistication row is also all or nothing — you either earn the point or you don’t. 

Where the Sophistication point differs from the Thesis point is that it’s a bit more difficult to understand how to earn it! The rubric states that essays that earn the point “demonstrate sophistication of thought and/or a complex understanding of the rhetorical situation.” 

In plain English, this means that you will not earn the point if your essay:

• Contains sweeping generalizations
• Only hints at other positions on the argument
• Uses complex sentences or language that doesn’t add anything to the argument

You will earn the point if your essay:

• Explores complexities or tensions between the provided sources, creating a more nuanced argument
• Acknowledges implications or limitations of your own argument through counterarguments
• Acknowledges implications or limitations of the sources’ arguments by situating them within the broader context of the argument
• Makes purposeful rhetorical choices that strengthen your argument
• Uses vivid and persuasive style

Note that you will not earn the point for this section if the items listed above are done in a single sentence or two. These elements must be present throughout your argument.

The Rhetorical Analysis Rubric

The rhetorical analysis essay is the second of the three. You will be presented with a non-fiction text and asked to write an essay that analyzes the writer’s choices and how they contribute to the meaning and purpose of the text.

• Gives information irrelevant to the prompt
• Explains how multiple rhetorical choices contribute to your understanding of the author’s argument, purpose, or message
• Pulls specific words or details from the passage that support your argument

The Additional Notes section of the rubric is also important to understand. This gives extra detail on what may or may not earn the thesis point. The main takeaways here are:

• You may address the same rhetorical choice more than once, as long you are addressing different instances of it.
• Your argument must be free of grammatical and/or mechanical errors in order to earn full points. This means that if your grammar is not solid, you can only ever earn 3 or fewer points in this section. If you struggle with grammar or syntax, check out Albert’s Grammar course to help build up those skills!

• Analyze individual rhetorical choices made by the author without also examining the relationships between the choices throughout the passage
• Oversimplify the passage
• Explains the significance of the writer’s rhetorical choices
• Explains the purpose or function of the complexities or tensions in the passage

The Argument Rubric

The argument essay is the last of the three. You will be given an open-ended topic and asked to write an evidence-based argumentative essay in response to the topic.

The final point above might be confusing at first glance. Giving your opinion is natural in an essay that literally asks for your opinion! But, the key is making sure to back up your opinion with evidence.

• Focuses on the importance of specific details to build your argument

• Explores complexities or tensions between the various elements of your argument, creating a more nuanced argument
• Acknowledges implications or limitations of your own argument through counter arguments
• Acknowledges implications or limitations of the prompt’s argument by situating it within a broader context

What Can You Bring to the AP® English Language and Composition Exam?

The College Board is rather specific about what you can and cannot bring to an AP® exam. You are at risk of having your score not count if you do not carefully follow instructions. We recommend that you carefully review these guidelines and pack your bag the night before so that you do not have any additional stress on the morning of the exam.

What You Should Bring to Your AP® English Language Exam

If you’re taking the paper AP® English Language exam in-person at school, you should bring:

• At least 2 sharpened No. 2 pencils for completing the multiple choice section
• At least 2 pens with black or blue ink only. These are used to complete certain areas of your exam booklet covers and to write your free-response questions. The College Board is very clear that pens should be black or blue ink only, so be sure to double-check!
• If you are concerned that your exam room may not have an easily visible clock, you are allowed to wear a watch as long as it does not have internet access, does not beep or make any other noise, and does not have an alarm.
• If you do not attend the school where you are taking an exam, you must bring a government issued or school issued photo ID.
• If you receive any testing accommodations , be sure that you bring your College Board SSD Accommodations Letter.

What You Should NOT Bring to Your AP® English Language Exam

If you’re taking the paper AP® English Language exam in-person at school, you should not bring:

• Electronic devices. Phones, smartwatches, tablets, and/or any other electronic devices are expressly prohibited both in the exam room and break areas.
• Books, dictionaries, highlighters, or notes
• Mechanical pencils, colored pencils, or pens that do not have black/blue ink
• Your own scratch paper
• Reference guides
• Watches that beep or have alarms
• Food or drink

This list is not exhaustive. Please check with your teacher or testing site to make sure that you are not bringing any additional prohibited items.

How to Study for AP® English Language and Composition: 7 Steps

Start with a diagnostic test. Ask your teacher if they can assign you one of our full-length practice tests as a jumping-off point. Your multiple choice will be graded for you, and you can self-score your FRQs using the College Board’s scoring guidelines. If you would prefer to take a pencil and paper test, Princeton Review or Barron’s are two reputable places to start. Be sure to record your score.

Once you’ve completed and scored your diagnostic, it’s time to put the results to work and create a study plan. 

• If you used Albert, you’ll notice that each question is labeled with the skill that it assesses. If any skills stand out as something you’re consistently getting wrong, those concepts should be a big part of your study plan.
• If you used Princeton Review, Barron’s, or another paper test, do your best to sort your incorrect answers into the skill buckets.

The tables below sort each set of skills into groups based on their Enduring Understandings and Big Ideas.

Big Idea: RHETORICAL SITUATION (RHS)

ENDURING UNDERSTANDING: Individuals write within a particular situation and make strategic writing choices based on that situation.

Big Idea: CLAIMS AND EVIDENCE (CLE)

ENDURING UNDERSTANDING: Writers make claims about subjects, rely on evidence that supports the reasoning that justifies the claim, and often acknowledge or respond to other, possibly opposing, arguments.

Big Idea: REASONING AND ORGANIZATION (REO)

ENDURING UNDERSTANDING: Writers guide understanding of a text’s lines of reasoning and claims through that text’s organization and integration of evidence.

Big Idea: STYLE (STL)

ENDURING UNDERSTANDING: The rhetorical situation informs the strategic stylistic choices that writers make.

Once your list of practice questions is complete, check out our 5 AP® English Language and Composition Multiple Choice Study Tips for some pointers.

Now that you’ve got your multiple-choice study plan in place, it’s time to make a plan for the FRQs. You should have self-scored your essays using the College Board’s scoring guidelines . If you notice that there is one particular prompt you struggled with, use Albert’s AP® Lang FRQ prompts for more practice!

If you didn’t struggle with a particular prompt as much as you did a particular part of the rubric, try to figure out where you went wrong. Does your thesis restate the prompt instead of proposing your own position? Did you remember to provide evidence but forget to bolster it with commentary? Maybe your word choice wasn’t varied enough to earn the sophistication point. Whatever element you struggled with, have a look at our 5 AP® English Language and Composition FRQ Study Tips for some expert advice.

Once you’ve compiled your entire study plan using the link above and identified the skills you need to practice, it’s time to implement your plan! Check your calendar. How many days, weeks, or months do you have until your exam? Pace your studying according to this time frame. Pro-tip: If you only have a few weeks or days to go, prioritize the skills that you scored the lowest on. 

About halfway through your study schedule, plan to take a second diagnostic test to check your progress. You can either have your teacher assign another full-length Albert practice test or use one of the additional practice tests included in whatever AP® English Language and Composition review book you purchased. Use these results to inform the rest of your study schedule. Are there skills that you improved on or scored lower on this time? Adjust accordingly, and use our tips in the next section to guide you.

AP® English Language and Composition Review: 15 Must-Know Study Tips

Like anything else, learning to read and write at the AP® level takes time and practice. Whether this is the first AP® class you’ve taken or you’re just looking to brush up on your study skills, this list of tips will put you in a position to earn a passing score in May.

5 AP® English Language and Composition Study Tips for Home

1. Read. Read widely. Read constantly. Read everything.

There’s no substitute for reading. Reading has a number of benefits: a more impressive vocabulary, a better understanding of varied sentence structure and syntax, facility analyzing how and why authors make specific rhetorical choices. The more you read, the better equipped you will be to ace this exam.

2. Flashcards are your friend.

You will need to have a strong understanding of literary devices and rhetorical techniques, and you don’t want to waste time scrambling for definitions on exam day. Make yourself some flashcards with the most common literary devices and rhetorical techniques, and don’t forget to include grammar and punctuation there too. After all, a writer’s use of grammar and punctuation has as much impact on their prose as the words they use!

3. Take your homework assignments seriously, especially summer assignments.

Your teacher didn’t ask you to read that book for no good reason, or to write that essay just because! Summer assignments help to ensure that you are starting your school year off on the right foot. Every time that you complete a homework assignment, you are one step closer to earning a passing score on your exam. “Practice makes perfect” is a well-known phrase for a reason! 

4. Seek out extra opportunities for practice!

Many practice books are available for purchase, and sometimes you can even find e-book versions to check out from your local library. Princeton Review and Barron’s are the most popular, but tons more can be found with a simple Google search.

5. Study with your friends!

Studying alone can sometimes be monotonous, and you might not have a lot of motivation if the only person holding you accountable is you. Forming study groups with friends and classmates ensures that you are held accountable, and it never hurts to have multiple perspectives on an essay question or multiple-choice answer. Plus, it’s just plain more fun.

5 AP® English Language and Composition Multiple Choice Study Tips

1. practice answering multiple-choice questions as often as you can. .

AP® English Language and Composition multiple choice questions will fall into one of the following buckets: rhetorical situation, claims and evidence, reasoning and organization, and style. If these categories look familiar to you, that’s because these are also the four Big Ideas outlined in the AP® Lang CED .

2. Exercise your close-reading skills. 

The true key to acing the multiple choice section of this exam is staying engaged with the passages provided to you and actively reading. Active reading looks different to different people, so find what works best for you! For some, this can mean annotating as they read the passage. For others, this can mean reading the passage more than once: the first time just to scan for important information, and the second time to gain a deeper understanding.

3. Look over the questions before reading the passage. 

This tip doesn’t work for all readers, but it can be helpful if you’re someone who gets easily distracted when reading! If you find your mind wandering when reading AP® Lang passages, knowing the questions beforehand can give your brain a purpose to focus on.

4. Use process of elimination. 

Typically, an AP® Lang multiple choice question will have one or two answer choices that can be crossed off pretty quickly. See if you can narrow yourself down to two possible answers, and then choose the best one. If this strategy isn’t working on a particularly difficult question, it’s perfectly okay to circle it, skip it, and come back to it at the end. 

5. Remember that it doesn’t hurt to guess. 

Guessing on every single question isn’t a good strategy, of course, but you are scored only on the number of correct answers you give, not the number of questions you answer.

5 AP® English Language and Composition FRQ Study Tips

1. practice answering questions from the college board’s archive of past exam questions. .

Typically, the same skills are assessed from year to year, so practicing with released exams is a great way to brush up on your analysis skills.

2. Time yourself. 

On test day, you are free to work on all three essays at your own pace so long as you finish within the 2-hour and 15-minute time frame. But, College Board directions recommend that you spend no longer than 40 minutes on each individual essay—not including the 15-minute reading period. So, while you’re practicing with the archive linked in Tip #1, be sure to have a timer handy!

3. Use the rubric! 

The best part about the AP® English Language and Composition revised rubrics and scoring guidelines is that it’s very clear what elements are needed to earn full credit for your essay. Ensure that your thesis statement is clear and defensible; you provide specific evidence and commentary that supports your thesis; and you develop a clear and compelling argument.

4. Pay attention to the task verbs used in your FRQ prompts. 

The College Board deliberately includes these to help you guide your response. Task verbs you’ll see on the exam are: analyze, argue your position, read, synthesize, and write. Further breakdown of each of these task verbs can be found at the bottom of this College Board Writing Study Skills list.

5. Know your rhetorical devices and techniques. 

While you don’t need to call out these techniques and devices by name, you do need to know their purpose and effect on the passage. For example, maybe you know that the author is deliberately understating something for effect and to draw attention to something, but you can’t remember that the term for this is litotes. As long as you can successfully show this understatement’s effect on the overall piece and connect it back to your thesis, you’ll be okay.

The AP® English Language and Composition Exam: 5 Test Day Tips to Remember

1. get everything ready to go the night before..

Nobody wants to be scrambling around the morning of the exam with a million things left to do! Make sure you have everything from our What You Should Bring list in your backpack and ready to go.

2. Make sure you know where your testing site is and how to get there, especially if you’re taking the exam someplace other than your own school. 

If you’re getting a ride from a parent or friend, be sure they know the address beforehand. If you’re taking public transit, check the schedule. Don’t get too comfortable if you are taking your exam at your own school. Be sure you know the room number! This is something small but impactful that you can do to reduce your stress the morning of your exam.

3. Be sure to eat. 

We know, every teacher tells you this, but it’s for a good reason! If you’re hungry during the exam, it might be harder for you to focus, leading to a lower score or an incomplete exam. Making sure that you’ve eaten before taking your exam eliminates one less distraction, helping you stay focused and on task.

4. Bring mints or gum with you. 

The rules say that you can’t have food or drink in the testing room, but mints and/or gum are usually allowed unless it’s against your testing site’s own rules. If you find yourself getting distracted, pop a mint in your mouth! This can help to keep you more awake and focused.

5. Breathe! Seriously, breathe. 

If you’ve followed the rest of the tips in this post, listened to your teacher, and done your homework, you’re well-prepared for this exam. Trust that you have done all you can do to prepare and don’t cram the morning of. Last-minute studying helps no one!

AP® English Language and Composition Review Notes and Practice Test Resources

Write space.

This site provides AP® Lang students and teachers with resources on rhetorical analysis, synthesis, argument, grammar support, and much much more to help guide you through the AP ® English Language and Composition exam.

How to Guide for Rhetorical Analysis Essays

This step-by-step guide will take you through writing a rhetorical analysis essay from beginning to end.

AP® English Language and Composition Survival Guide

This survival guide is a one-stop-shop for everything you need to about multiple choice questions, essay writing, rhetorical terms, and more!

Ms. Effie’s Lifesavers

If you’re a seasoned AP® English teacher, Ms. Effie (Sandra Effinger) probably needs no introduction! Ms. Effie’s Lifesavers has helped many an AP® Lang (and Lit!) teacher plan effective and thoroughly aligned lessons and assignments. Sandra was an AP® Reader for many years, so she knows her stuff. She has tons of free content on her page, as well as a Dropbox full of AP® English goodies for anyone who makes a donation via her PayPal.

AP® Study Notes

This site has some great sample essays written at the AP® level. They also have a section dedicated to rhetorical terms, which is great if you want to make flashcards for review.

Summary: The Best AP® English Language and Composition Review Guide

Remember, the structure of the AP® Lang exam is as follows:

Because AP® English Language and Composition is a skills-based course, there’s no way to know what specific passages or topics might make it onto the official exam. But, we do know exactly which skills will be assessed with which passages, so it’s best to center your studying around brushing up on those skills!

Start with a diagnostic test, either on Albert or with a pencil and paper test via Princeton Review or Barron’s . Once you’ve completed and scored your diagnostic, follow our 7 steps on how to create an AP® English Language and Composition study plan. 

Read! The more you read, the better equipped you will be to ace this exam.

Practice answering multiple choice questions on Albert and free-response questions from The College Board’s archive of past exam questions. 

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, why do students struggle with ap lang.

Okay I've heard from so many people that AP Lang is notoriously difficult. I might take it next year, but I'm sort of nervous about it. Can anyone tell me why AP Lang has such a reputation for being so difficult? What is it about the class that makes people struggle?

There are a few reasons why students might find AP Lang challenging, and it's essential to understand these factors to prepare effectively for the class.

1. Analytical reading and writing skills: AP Lang focuses heavily on refining analytical reading and writing skills. It requires students to dissect sophisticated written pieces, understand the author's arguments and motives, and develop logical and persuasive essays in response to the author. These tasks require a strong grasp of rhetoric and a deeper understanding of language.

2. Time management: Crafting well-structured and persuasive essays can be quite time-consuming for some students, as you’ll often need to revise your essay at least a couple of times to get it to where you want. It's crucial to develop good time management skills, so that you can balance your AP Lang workload with other academic and extracurricular responsibilities.

3. Multiple-choice questions: The multiple-choice section of the AP Lang exam covers various aspects of language, such as vocabulary, syntax, and rhetorical strategies. Many students find these questions challenging because they require a thorough understanding of the material and careful attention to detail.

4. Writing style diversity: Throughout the course, students explore different rhetorical modes (narration, exposition, description, argumentation) and essay formats (e.g., synthesis, rhetorical analysis, and argument). The need to adapt writing styles, analyze texts from various genres, and maintain a strong voice across assignments can be tough for some students.

5. High expectations: As an AP course, AP Lang expects students to excel at a college level. Relative to other high school English classes, the course may involve increased workload, group discussions, and assignments that go beyond simply understanding the material. Students are encouraged to think critically, engage in complex ideas, and formulate original and persuasive arguments, and doing those things consistently takes a lot of brainpower.

To tackle these challenges and succeed in AP Lang, it's essential to stay organized, practice reading and writing consistently, and develop strong analytical skills. Seek help from your teacher or peers if you need assistance, and don't be afraid to challenge yourself! Good luck!

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The First Week of AP Language

How in the world do we start?

There are so many ways to design an AP English Language course, that it’s hard to decide what to do the first week. For some schools, schedules are pretty fluid the first ten days or so, so you may be constantly dropping and gaining students. For others, students might be allowed to drop classes they find too challenging, so the classroom dynamic keeps changing. I’ve never been in either situation; in both the schools in which I taught Lang, schedules were pretty much locked in for upper-level upperclassmen, and they weren’t allowed to drop. My problem in both schools was schedule modification because of extended homeroom. I might have had one class that met for 30 minutes and another that lasted 90. That drove me bonkers.

Ideal world: If I had the same students every day for the first week of school, and we met for the same amount of time each of those days, here’s how I would run that first week.

Day 1: Get to know students as teenagers and as learners.

I’m a little old school when it comes to the seating chart. I line ’em up in rows for the first two weeks until I have learned names and figured out how students interact with each other. After that, I change it up every few days depending on the activity we have going on.

I have three icebreakers I love to use, and they help me figure out how to group students later. All of them work with extroverts, introverts, and ‘tweeners like me.

I then use a couple of learning style and work style inventories for insight into how they learn.

We do spend a few minutes on the obligatory student information form, and I go over some basic course requirements (textbooks, materials they’ll need, how I want their binders divided, etc.).

Students are reminded of our school-wide independent reading program , and I show them where to sign up their books and how to check books out from my personal classroom library.

Day 2: Dive right in with a baseline writing assignment

It’s time for these never-made-below-an-A-type-A kids to experience some humility. We do a 40-minute in-class rhetorical analysis essay on a cold prompt. I give them lined paper, require that they use a black pen, and hand them the most challenging prompt I can find: the 1998 letter from Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth. This baby will separate the cream from the milk, the wheat from the chaff, the tired metaphor from . . . another tired metaphor. The problem this year is that we won’t have anchor papers for it on the new analytic rubric .

Why this prompt? The letter was written in 1801, and the tones are SUBTLE. I want to know who in the room can run with a 19th century piece with layered tones. Full disclosure: I’ve always taught Honors English 10 as well as AP Lang, so I knew many of my students. I had the relationship to scare them a bit without shutting them down.

Then comes the first assignment. Yes, they have homework. No, it’s not overwhelming. I give them hard copies of “Our Barbies, Ourselves” by Emily Prager and have them read and mark it up for whatever they notice. I also ask them to bring in Barbie dolls and GI Joe-type action figures.

Day 3: Introduce the Rhetorical Triangle.

Using “Our Barbies, Ourselves,” I introduce the Rhetorical Triangle, and we line the toys up along my white board tray and discuss the author’s claim and whether or not she makes her argument well.

Day 4: Introduce S.O.A.P.S.

Students learn SOAPS (subject, occasion, audience, purpose, speaker), apply it to stale text (“Our Barbies, Ourselves”) and then apply it to cold text with “The Black Table is Still There.”

Day 5: Introduce tone.

Students have learned the bare-boned basics of rhetoric, and now we get into strategies. I LOVE teaching tone for many reasons, and my first lesson always includes a skit that changes in meaning based on the way the parts are read. I give out an exhaustive list of tone words, categorize them with the students, and then assign “tone parts” to help them see how tone dictates meaning. Students pair up with their assigned tones and perform the mini skit for the class with whatever prompts they want to use. Here’s the script:

Person A: No, you didn’t.

Person B: Yes, I did.

Person A: Where?

Person B: On the other side of town. 

Person A: Was it expensive?

Person B: Are you kidding?

Image the tone pair being aghast/triumphant. Now imagine the tone pair being approving/guilty. Are they talking about a heist? A good sale? A new car? A clandestine meeting? Students have a lot of fun with this activity, and you can switch it up with different types of dialogue.

So, there you have it. I will send you my complete pacing guide if you’re interested. If you’re on a 180-day schedule, get this pacing guide . If you’re on a 90-minute block, get this pacing guide .

I’m a recovering high school English teacher and curriculum specialist with a passion for helping teachers leave school at school. I create engaging, rigorous curriculum resources for secondary ELA professionals, and I facilitate workshops to help those teachers implement the materials effectively.

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How to Write the AP Lang Argument Essay + Examples

What’s covered:, what is the ap language argument essay, tips for writing the ap language argument essay, ap english language argument essay examples, how will ap scores impact my college chances.

In 2023, over 550,148 students across the U.S. took the AP English Language and Composition Exam, and 65.2% scored higher than a 3. The AP English Language Exam tests your ability to analyze a piece of writing, synthesize information, write a rhetorical essay, and create a cohesive argument. In this post, we’ll be discussing the best way to approach the argumentative essay section of the test, and we’ll give you tips and tricks so you can write a great essay.

The AP English Language Exam as of 2023 is structured as follows:

Section 1: 45 multiple choice questions to be completed in an hour. This portion counts for 45% of your score. This section requires students to analyze a piece of literature. The questions ask about its content and/or what could be edited within the passage.

Section 2: Three free response questions to be completed in the remaining two hours and 15 minutes. This section counts for 55% of your score. These essay questions include the synthesis essay, the rhetorical essay, and the argumentative essay.

• Synthesis essay: Read 6-7 sources and create an argument using at least three of the sources.
• Rhetorical analysis essay: Describe how a piece of writing evokes meaning and symbolism.
• Argumentative essay: Pick a side of a debate and create an argument based on evidence. In this essay, you should develop a logical argument in support of or against the given statement and provide ample evidence that supports your conclusion. Typically, a five paragraph format is great for this type of writing. This essay is scored holistically from 1 to 9 points.

Do you want more information on the structure of the full exam? Take a look at our in-depth overview of the AP Language and Composition Exam .

Although the AP Language Argument may seem daunting at first, once you understand how the essay should be structured, it will be a lot easier to create cohesive arguments.

Below are some tips to help you as you write the essay.

1. Organize your essay before writing

Instead of jumping right into your essay, plan out what you will say beforehand. It’s easiest to make a list of your arguments and write out what facts or evidence you will use to support each argument. In your outline, you can determine the best order for your arguments, especially if they build on each other or are chronological. Having a well-organized essay is crucial for success.

2. Pick one side of the argument, but acknowledge the other side

When you write the essay, it’s best if you pick one side of the debate and stick with it for the entire essay. All your evidence should be in support of that one side. However, in your introductory paragraph, as you introduce the debate, be sure to mention any merit the arguments of the other side has. This can make the essay a bit more nuanced and show that you did consider both sides before determining which one was better. Often, acknowledging another viewpoint then refuting it can make your essay stronger.

3. Provide evidence to support your claims

The AP readers will be looking for examples and evidence to support your argument. This doesn’t mean that you need to memorize a bunch of random facts before the exam. This just means that you should be able to provide concrete examples in support of your argument.

For example, if the essay topic is about whether the role of the media in society has been detrimental or not, and you argue that it has been, you may talk about the phenomenon of “fake news” during the 2016 presidential election.

AP readers are not looking for perfect examples, but they are looking to see if you can provide enough evidence to back your claim and make it easily understood.

4. Create a strong thesis statement

The thesis statement will set up your entire essay, so it’s important that it is focused and specific, and that it allows for the reader to understand your body paragraphs. Make sure your thesis statement is the very last sentence of your introductory paragraph. In this sentence, list out the key points you will be making in the essay in the same order that you will be writing them. Each new point you mention in your thesis should start a paragraph in your essay.

Below is a prompt and sample student essay from the May 2019 exam . We’ll look at what the student did well in their writing and where they could improve.

Prompt: “The term “overrated” is often used to diminish concepts, places, roles, etc. that the speaker believes do not deserve the prestige they commonly enjoy; for example, many writers have argued that success is overrated, a character in a novel by Anthony Burgess famously describes Rome as a “vastly overrated city,” and Queen Rania of Jordan herself has asserted that “[b]eing queen is overrated.”

Select a concept, place, role, etc. to which you believe that the term “overrated” should be applied. Then, write a well-developed essay in which you explain your judgment. Use appropriate evidence from your reading, experience, or observations to support your argument.

Sample Student Essay #1:

[1] Competition is “overrated.” The notion of motivation between peers has evolved into a source of unnecessary stress and even lack of morals. Whether it be in an academic environment or in the industry, this new idea of competition is harmful to those competing and those around them.

[2] Back in elementary school, competition was rather friendly. It could have been who could do the most pushups or who could get the most imaginary points in a classroom for a prize. If you couldn’t do the most pushups or win that smelly sticker, you would go home and improve yourself – there would be no strong feelings towards anyone, you would just focus on making yourself a better version of yourself. Then as high school rolled around, suddenly applying for college doesn’t seem so far away –GPA seems to be that one stat that defines you – extracurriculars seem to shape you – test scores seem to categorize you. Sleepless nights, studying for the next day’s exam, seem to become more and more frequent. Floating duck syndrome seems to surround you (FDS is where a competitive student pretends to not work hard but is furiously studying beneath the surface just like how a duck furiously kicks to stay afloat). All of your competitors appear to hope you fail – but in the end what do you and your competitor’s gain? Getting one extra point on the test? Does that self-satisfaction compensate for the tremendous amounts of acquired stress? This new type of “competition” is overrated – it serves nothing except a never-ending source of anxiety and seeks to weaken friendships and solidarity as a whole in the school setting.

[3] A similar idea of “competition” can be applied to business. On the most fundamental level, competition serves to be a beneficial regulator of prices and business models for both the business themselves and consumers. However, as businesses grew increasingly greedy and desperate, companies resorted to immoral tactics that only hurt their reputations and consumers as a whole. Whether it be McDonald’s coupons that force you to buy more food or tech companies like Apple intentionally slowing down your iPhone after 3 years to force you to upgrade to the newest device, consumers suffer and in turn speak down upon these companies. Similar to the evolved form of competition in school, this overrated form causes pain for all parties and has since diverged from the encouraging nature that the principle of competition was “founded” on.

The AP score for this essay was a 4/6, meaning that it captured the main purpose of the essay but there were still substantial parts missing. In this essay, the writer did a good job organizing the sections and making sure that their writing was in order according to the thesis statement. The essay first discusses how competition is harmful in elementary school and then discusses this topic in the context of business. This follows the chronological order of somebody’s life and flows nicely.

The arguments in this essay are problematic, as they do not provide enough examples of how exactly competition is overrated. The essay discusses the context in which competition is overrated but does not go far enough in explaining how this connects to the prompt.

In the first example, school stress is used to explain how competition manifests. This is a good starting point, but it does not talk about why competition is overrated; it simply mentions that competition can be unhealthy. The last sentence of that paragraph is the main point of the argument and should be expanded to discuss how the anxiety of school is overrated later on in life. 

In the second example, the writer discusses how competition can lead to harmful business practices, but again, this doesn’t reflect the reason this would be overrated. Is competition really overrated because Apple and McDonald’s force you to buy new products? This example could’ve been taken one step farther. Instead of explaining why business structures—such as monopolies—harm competition, the author should discuss how those particular structures are overrated.

Additionally, the examples the writer used lack detail. A stronger essay would’ve provided more in-depth examples. This essay seemed to mention examples only in passing without using them to defend the argument.

It should also be noted that the structure of the essay is incomplete. The introduction only has a thesis statement and no additional context. Also, there is no conclusion paragraph that sums up the essay. These missing components result in a 4/6.

Now let’s go through the prompt for a sample essay from the May 2022 exam . The prompt is as follows:

Colin Powell, a four-star general and former United States Secretary of State, wrote in his 1995 autobiography: “[W]e do not have the luxury of collecting information indefinitely. At some point, before we can have every possible fact in hand, we have to decide. The key is not to make quick decisions, but to make timely decisions.”

Write an essay that argues your position on the extent to which Powell’s claim about making decisions is valid. 

In your response you should do the following:

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible position. 
• Provide evidence to support your line of reasoning. 
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning. 
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

Sample Student Essay #2:

Colin Powell, who was a four star general and a former United States Secretary of State. He wrote an autobiography and had made a claim about making decisions. In my personal opinion, Powell’s claim is true to full extent and shows an extremely valuable piece of advice that we do not consider when we make decisions.

Powell stated, “before we can have every possible fact in hand we have to decide…. but to make it a timely decision” (1995). With this statement Powell is telling the audience of his autobiography that it does not necessarily matter how many facts you have, and how many things you know. Being able to have access to everything possible takes a great amount of time and we don’t always have all of the time in the world. A decision has to be made with what you know, waiting for something else to come in while trying to make a decision whether that other fact is good or bad you already have a good amount of things that you know. Everyone’s time is valuable, including yours. At the end of the day the decision will have to be made and that is why it should be made in a “timely” manner.

This response was graded for a score of 2/6. Let’s break down the score to smaller points that signify where the student fell short.

The thesis in this essay is clearly outlined at the end of the first paragraph. The student states their agreement with Powell’s claim and frames the rest of their essay around this stance. The success in scoring here lies in the clear communication of the thesis and the direction the argument will take. It’s important to make the thesis statement concise, specific, and arguable, which the student has successfully done.

While the student did attempt to provide evidence to support their thesis, it’s clear that their explanation lacks specific detail and substance. They referenced Powell’s statement, but did not delve into how this statement has proven true in specific instances, and did not provide examples that could bring the argument to life.

Commentary is an essential part of this section’s score. It means explaining the significance of the evidence and connecting it back to the thesis. Unfortunately, the student’s commentary here is too vague and does not effectively elaborate on how the evidence supports their argument.

To improve, the student could use more concrete examples to demonstrate their point and discuss how each piece of evidence supports their thesis. For instance, they could discuss specific moments in Powell’s career where making a timely decision was more valuable than waiting for all possible facts. This would help illustrate the argument in a more engaging, understandable way.

A high score in the “sophistication” category of the grading rubric is given for demonstrating a complex understanding of the rhetorical situation (purpose, audience, context, etc.), making effective rhetorical choices, or establishing a line of reasoning. Here, the student’s response lacks complexity and sophistication. They’ve simply agreed with Powell’s claim and made a few general statements without providing a deeper analysis or effectively considering the rhetorical situation.

To increase sophistication, the student could explore possible counterarguments or complexities within Powell’s claim. They could discuss potential drawbacks of making decisions without all possible facts, or examine situations where timely decisions might not yield the best results. By acknowledging and refuting these potential counterarguments, they could add more depth to their analysis and showcase their understanding of the complexities involved in decision-making.

The student could also analyze why Powell, given his background and experiences, might have come to such a conclusion, thus providing more context and showing an understanding of the rhetorical situation.

Remember, sophistication in argumentation isn’t about using fancy words or complicated sentences. It’s about showing that you understand the complexity of the issue at hand and that you’re able to make thoughtful, nuanced arguments. Sophistication shows that you can think critically about the topic and make connections that aren’t immediately obvious.

Now that you’ve looked at an example essay and some tips for the argumentative essay, you know how to better prepare for the AP English Language and Composition Exam.

While your AP scores don’t usually impact your admissions chances , colleges do care a lot about your course rigor. So, taking as many APs as you can will certainly boost your chances! AP scores can be a way for high-performing students to set themselves apart, particularly when applying to prestigious universities. Through the process of self-reporting scores , you can show your hard work and intelligence to admissions counselors.

That said, the main benefit of scoring high on AP exams comes once you land at your dream school, as high scores can allow you to “test out” of entry-level requirements, often called GE requirements or distribution requirements. This will save you time and money.

To understand how your course rigor stacks up, check out CollegeVine’s free chancing engine . This resource takes your course rigor, test scores, extracurriculars, and more, to determine your chances of getting into over 1600 colleges across the country!

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AP Lang: how many hours per week?

By MamaSprout , December 14, 2020 in High School and Self-Education Board

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If your dc has taken or is taking AP English Language, how many hours a week did it require for them?

I have taken the provider out of my signature, if you've noticed it before, please don't call it out. I'm trying to size up a situation before deciding if I should contact dd's instructor.

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Share on other sites, fourisenough.

My DD took it last year with Lili Serbicki through AIM Academy. I’m going to say about 5 hours per week? DD couldn’t attend live class meetings, so she would watch the recordings at 1.5x or 2x speed (so she could listen to a 50 minute class in under a half hour). For reference, DD is a fast reader and quick, skilled writer. She earned an A in the class and a 5 on the exam (the heavily scaled back 2020 online version of the exam). Is that helpful for comparison? I can’t remember what your situation is/why you’re asking. Will you come back and update us later?

It  depended on the week.  Both of my older ones have taken it.  I would say 7 hours a week?  They took it in 11th grade.  Ds would have taken longer if he had been a tenth grader bc he wasn't as confident a writer at that age.

Okay thanks. We’re running about 15 hours a week. She’s a good writer, but not especially fast.

1 hour ago, MamaSprout said: Okay thanks. We’re running about 15 hours a week. She’s a good writer, but not especially fast.

Yikes. That’s a lot.

My DS self studied and spent about 10 hours per week - 1 hour a day reading and another hour per day writing

7 hours ago, MamaSprout said: Okay thanks. We’re running about 15 hours a week. She’s a good writer, but not especially fast.

The discussion board is more time-consuming than most that I've done for distance graduate classes.

I work at a uni and originally had dd registered there with the toughest (PhD) English comp professor for fall, but with COVID, the schedule was changed. She probably would have done 12-15 hours a week in that class, but it would have been just for the semester. Now I'm looking at Spring and trying to decide what other class isn't going to happen. 

2 hours ago, MamaSprout said: I do feel like the workload is somewhat out of line. The discussion board is more time-consuming than most that I've done for distance graduate classes. I work at a uni and originally had dd registered there with the toughest (PhD) English comp professor for fall, but with COVID, the schedule was changed. She probably would have done 12-15 hours a week in that class, but it would have been just for the semester. Now I'm looking at Spring and trying to decide what other class isn't going to happen.  She is really having a hard time with the instructor's expectations, too. 

Are you comfortable sharing the name of the provider/teacher? I think more openness about workload can help people identify fit before getting backed into situations such as this. But I understand if you prefer to share in a PM or wait until after the course is completed.

My youngest DD is a VERY different learner than my third, so I’ll need to carefully consider outsourced classes before enrolling her!

I'll post a review when the "What Worked" threads come around and before enrollments open up. In the meantime, feel free to PM me. 

BakersDozen

I took my dd through AP Language last year and she put in 1-1.5 hours/day not including weekends. We met with other students once/week for about the same amount of time.

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• How to Answer the AP English Language and Composition Essay Questions 

April 7, 2024

Answering the AP English Language and Composition Synthesis Essay Question

Sample synthesis essay question.

SUGGESTED TIME: 

15 MINUTES FOR READING THE QUESTION AND SOURCES 

40 MINUTES FOR WRITING AN ESSAY 

Homework has always been part of going to school. In recent years, efforts to improve education have included assigning more homework to students from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Many teachers, parents, and others applaud this increase. Critics, in contrast, claim that heavier loads of homework do more harm than good, not only to children but also to their families. 

Carefully read the following six sources, including the material that introduces each source. Then, in an essay that synthesizes at least three of the sources, take a position on the claim that large amounts of homework have more negative consequences than positive ones. 

Source A (Kohn) 

Source B (Gill and Schlossman) 

Source C (Loveless) 

Source D (Chart) 

Source E (Haley) 

Source F (Chaika) 

Source G (Hanson) 

Instructions: 

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that may establish a line of reasoning. 
• Provide evidence from at least three of the provided sources to support the thesis. Indicate clearly the sources used through direct quotation, paraphrase, or summary. Sources may be cited as Source A, Source B, etc., or by using the descriptions in parentheses. 
• Explain the relationship between the evidence and the thesis. 
• Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation. 
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating the argument.

Alfie Kohn, “Homework: An Unnecessary Evil?” Psychology Today , published online at www.psychologytoday.com , November 24, 2012.

The following passage is an excerpt from an article written by an author and specialist in behavior and education. His books include The Homework Myth and What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated?

At the high school level, the research supporting homework hasn’t been particularly persuasive. There does seem to be a correlation between homework and standardized test scores, but (a) it isn’t strong, meaning that homework doesn’t explain much of the variance in scores, and (b) one prominent researcher, Timothy Keith, who did find a solid correlation, returned to the topic a decade later to enter more variables into the equation simultaneously, only to discover that the improved study showed that homework had no effect after all.

. . . When homework is related to test scores, the connection tends to be strongest—or, actually, least tenuous—with math. If homework turns out to be unnecessary for students to succeed in that subject, it’s probably unnecessary everywhere. 

Along comes a new study, then, that focuses on the neighborhood where you’d be most likely to find a positive effect if one was there to be found: the effect of math and science homework on grades in high school . . . . 

This result clearly caught the researchers off-guard. Frankly, it surprised me, too. When you measure “achievement” in terms of grades, you expect to see a positive result—not because homework is academically beneficial but because the same teacher who gives the assignments evaluates the students who complete them, and the final grade is often based at least partly on whether, and to what extent, students did the homework. 

It’s important to remember that some people object to homework for reasons that aren’t related to the dispute about whether research might show that homework provides academic benefits. They argue that (a) six hours a day of academics are enough, and kids should have the chance after school to explore other interests and develop in other ways—or be able simply to relax in the same way that most adults like to relax after work; and (b) the decision about what kids do during family time should be made by families, not schools.

Brian P. Gill and Steven L. Schlossman, “My Dog Ate My Argument,” Op/Ed page of the Los Angeles Times , December 11, 2003.

The following passage is an excerpt from an opinion article written by a social scientist at the RAND Corporation and a history professor at Carnegie Mellon University. 

In our view, homework is the prime window into the school for parents to see, understand and connect with the academic mission of the teachers. It is the primary arena in which children, parents and schools interact on a daily basis. Yet it gets less systematic thought and attention than any other key component of education. Other than the admonition that kids should do more of it, we pay almost no attention to how to improve its design and content. Nor do we do much to prepare teachers to use and evaluate homework, to hold administrators accountable for monitoring the homework load or to cultivate parents’ collaboration. Homework remains an orphan child of the educational excellence movement. 

. . . After half a century of failure to increase student buy-in, it’s time to rethink how to make homework a more valued part of the pedagogic process. In addition to promoting academic achievement, homework can inculcate habits of self-discipline and independent study and can help inform parents about the educational agenda of their school. We must find ways to make homework an interesting and challenging educational experience for students, instead of the uniform, seat-bound, memorization-focused solo exercise it has been. Otherwise, all our talk about high standards and improving student achievement will run up against the same roadblock that has stymied the pursuit of educational excellence in the past.

Tom Loveless, “Do Students Have Too Much Homework?” A report for the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 2003.

The following passage is excerpted from a report on American education.

The most reliable data support the following conclusions: 1) the typical student, even in high school, does not spend more than an hour per day on homework, 2) the homework load has not changed much since the 1980s, 3) the students whose homework has increased in the past decade are those who previously had no homework and now have a small amount, 4) most parents feel the homework load is about right and, of those who would like to change it, more parents would rather see homework increased than decreased.

. . . Research shows that the relationship of homework with student achievement is positive for both middle and high school students and neutral for elementary school students. The research does not prove causality, an ever-present difficulty with research on many educational practices. High-achieving students in high school, for example, may do more homework because they enjoy studying. They take tough classes that require a lot of work. That does not necessarily mean that homework is boosting their achievement. Low-achieving students in elementary school, on the other hand, may do more homework because they are struggling to catch up. The homework is not causing their learning problems.

“Average NAEP Reading Scale Scores of Students by Age and Amount of Assigned Daily Reading Homework,” Digest of Education Statistics , National Center for Educational Statistics, 2012. 

See image below.

Brian Haley, “What Is the Value of Homework?” July 6, 2006. SearchWarp.com . Accessed August 2, 2006, http://www.searchwarp.com  

The passage that follows is adapted from an article published by a website that promotes the writing of authors in many disciplines, including education. 

Assigning homework serves various educational needs. It serves as an intellectual discipline, establishes study habits, eases time constraints on the amount of curricular material that can be covered in class, and supplements and reinforces work done in school. In addition, it fosters student initiative, independence, and responsibility, and brings home and school closer together. 

. . . Like mowing the lawn or taking out the garbage, homework seems to be a fact of life. . . . But the value of homework extends beyond school. We know that good assignments, completed successfully, can help children develop wholesome habits and attitudes. . . . It can teach children to work independently, encourage self-discipline and responsibility (assignments provide some youngsters with their first chance to manage time and meet deadlines), and encourage a love of learning. . . . Homework can help parents learn about their children’s education and communicate both with their children and the schools. 

Research in the last decade has begun to focus on the relationship between homework and student achievement and has greatly strengthened the case for homework. Although there are mixed findings about whether homework actually increases students’ academic achievement, many teachers and parents agree that homework develops students’ initiative and responsibility and fulfills the expectations of students, parents, and the public. Studies generally have found homework assignments to be most helpful if they are carefully planned by the teachers and have direct meaning to students.

Gloria Chaika, “Help! Homework Is Wrecking My Home Life,” Education World , August 8, 2000. 

The following passage is from an article for school administrators published in an online educational journal. 

“Teachers should devote energy to creating homework that is stimulating and provocative rather than banal,” says Howard Gardner of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “And parents or mentors should go shoulder-to-shoulder with youngsters, helping to motivate them, thinking of ways in which to help them without giving the answer, and being aware of the child’s special gifts and weaknesses.” 

It sounds great, “but you need parent input for kids to perform, and with the increase in single-parent families, there’s no one at home to help,” veteran fifth-grade teacher Loretta Highfield told Education World. 

“It isn’t that the kids don’t want to do homework; the majority of my students don’t have the skills to go home and do it independently,” added Highfield, a teacher at Florida Avenue Elementary in Slidell, Louisiana. “Even young students are not getting the help at home that they used to.” 

The same seems to hold true for older children. “I have students who have been thrown out of the house or have a financial situation brought on by an ill parent,” Northshore High School (Slidell, Louisiana) teacher Kathleen Modenbach told Education World. “There are others whose after-school jobs pay for car insurance and clothes or whose involvement in extra-curricular activities, private lessons, or sports leaves little time for homework.” 

“For some students, a lot of homework can seem irrelevant,” Modenbach added. “High school students become expert at evaluating the validity of assignments and assigning priorities to them. Kids who wouldn’t dream of cheating on a test or copying a research paper think nothing of copying homework. I find students will do homework when it must be done to pass the class. Anything else is a waste of time and feeds into the vicious circle of beating the homework system.” 

Therefore, as kids deal with assigned homework in their own ways—or grow increasingly frazzled—their too-busy parents are uncertain what to do. Some, wanting their children to be academically competitive, demand extra homework, while others wonder just how much is too much.

Michael Hanson, “Analyzing ‘the Homework Gap’ Among High School Students,” Brown Center on Education Policy, 2017. 

Researchers have struggled for decades to identify a causal, or even a correctional, relationship between time spent in school and improved learning outcomes for students. Some studies have focused on the length of the school year while others have focused on hours in a day or week, and others on hours spent on homework. 

Measuring the relationship between homework and outcomes like test scores can be difficult. Researchers are primarily confounded by an inability to determine what compels students to choose homework during their time off over other activities. Are those who spend more time on homework just extra motivated? Or are they struggling students who need to work harder to keep up? What role do social expectations from parents and peers play? 

Previous studies have examined the impact of this outside time use on educational outcomes for students. A recent study from Berea College in Kentucky identified a causal relationship between hours spent studying and a student’s academic performance through an interesting measure. The researchers took advantage of randomly assigned college roommates, paying attention to those who came to campus with smart phones packed with video games. They hypothesized students randomly assigned to a roommate without much interest in video games would study more, since all other factors remained equal. That hypothesis held up, and that group also received higher grades, demonstrating a causal relationship. 

Other research has relied on data collected through the American Time Use Survey, a study of how Americans spend their time, and [has] shown the existence of a gender gap and a parental-education gap in homework time. Other studies have looked at the relationship between holding a job and students’ time use in discretionary activities, like sleep, media consumption, and time spent on homework.

SOURCE D (referenced above)

The table below has been adapted from research conducted by the National Association of Educational Progress, the nation’s largest testing agency responsible for assessing what America’s K–12 students know and can do in various subjects.

How to Answer the Synthesis Essay Question

Homework. Now, there’s a topic that you must know something about. Being a seasoned doer of homework, you’re probably bursting with ideas on the pros and cons of the stuff and could probably argue brilliantly for or against homework, or come down somewhere between the two poles. Regardless of where you stand, you’re not apt to find yourself short of ideas on the issue. In fact, you may be overloaded and find yourself sifting out only the best arguments among many to include in an essay on the subject.

But beware. This essay assignment is not intended simply to give you a chance to vent about homework. Although your biases will no doubt shape your argument, you mustn’t rely solely on your personal experience and observations. This, after all, is what the AP people call a “ synthesis essay ,” a label that you’ve got to take seriously.

AP English Language and Composition Synthesis Essay Step #1: Cite Sources

Stylistically, it may serve you well to use phrases like “According to Source C, . . .” or “In Loveless’s opinion . . .”, or “A study of students’ reading scores (Source D) shows that . . . ,” etc. Or you can simply cite your sources with parenthetical references—(Source A, Source B)—in your text. Another approach is to name the author or even the title of the sources, but writing out lengthy titles uses up precious time. AP essay readers will look for citations and will penalize essays that contain fewer than three. At the same time, however, you won’t earn extra credit for citing more than three. 

Whether or not you agree with the premise that “large amounts of homework have more negative effects than positive ones,” your task is to write an argument that defends your point of view. Because a researched argument is meant to sway readers whose views may be contrary to yours, you need to gather compelling evidence in support of your position. 

Let’s say that you think homework is generally good for you and the more you get, the better. Right off the bat, then, you have a main idea, or thesis, for your essay. But even if you know immediately where you stand on the issue, take the time to read all the sources carefully, underscoring or circling those ideas you might consider mentioning in your essay. It’s good to read the material with which you don’t agree, too, because in making your case, you can bolster your argument by refuting and revealing the weaknesses in what you’d expect your opponent to say.

AP English Language and Composition Synthesis Essay Step #2: Support Your Position

In building a convincing case, it often pays to gather at least three compelling reasons  to support your position. Although AP students ought not be constrained by the familiar “five-­paragraph” essay, you won’t go wrong following its structure: an introduction, three paragraphs of development, and a conclusion. Why three paragraphs of development? Mainly because three is a number that works. If you can come up with three different arguments, you appear to speak with the voice of authority. One paragraph is too simple. Two is better but still shallow. Three is thoughtful. It suggests depth and insight. Psychologically, three also creates a sense of wholeness for the reader, like the beginning, middle, and end of a story. (Incidentally, it’s no accident that the number three recurs in all literature, from Goldilocks and the Three Bears to the Bible.) Use the sources to bolster your arguments for or against large amounts of homework. But you needn’t depend totally on the sources. In fact, AP readers are likely to look kindly on your own original ideas, provided they are relevant to the issue, clearly expressed, and well-­ developed. On the positive side, you might pick out such ideas as: 

• Homework permits parents to participate with teachers in the education of their children. (Source B)
•  “[T]he relationship between the amount of reading homework and performance on reading tests is especially positive for high school students.” (Source D) 
•  Homework fosters the development of individual initiative and effective study habits. (Source B) 
• Homework provides opportunities for low-achieving students to catch up. (Source C) 
• Homework leads to a lifelong love of learning. (Source F) 
• Homework generally contributes to higher grades, and higher grades can lead to admission to higher-quality colleges. (Source G) 

Or, if you have an unfavorable view of homework, the following ideas can be used to support your argument: 

• Years of educational research have found only a weak correlation between homework and student achievement. (Source A) 
• Large amounts of homework can keep a student from pursuing worthwhile personal interests. (Source C) 
• Homework assigned during vacations is counterproductive; it turns kids away from the joys of learning and deprives them of reading for pleasure. (Source E) 
• More homework does not necessarily lead to better grades. (Source E) 

The given sources either support or decry homework. A middle-of-the-road position may be difficult to defend unless you build a case by refuting arguments presented on both sides of the issue. Source F, which argues against homework, for example, quotes an apparently frustrated teacher: “It isn’t that kids don’t want to do homework; the majority of my students don’t have the skills to go home and do it independently.” 

Because the word “majority” can mean almost all or just over half , the teacher appears to have overlooked the fact that some students can be counted on to work on their own. By generalizing about all students, the teacher in effect deprives some of her kids the opportunity to learn at home. An essay that argues neither for nor against homework might emphasize that universal policies regarding homework don’t work. In other words, when it comes to education, one size cannot fit all.

AP English Language and Composition Synthesis Essay Step #3: Determine Order

Once you’ve collected your ideas for or against the issue, stop for a moment to figure out which idea to put first, which to put second, and so on. Order is important. The best order is the clearest order, the arrangement that readers can follow with the least effort. No plan is superior to another, provided you have a valid reason for using it. The plan least likely to succeed is the aimless one, the one in which you state and develop ideas in random order as they happened to come to mind. It’s better by far to rank your ideas in order of importance by deciding which provides the strongest support for your thesis. Although your best argument may be listed first in your notes, save it for last on the essay. Giving it away at the start is self- defeating because everything that follows will be anticlimactic. An excellent way to arrange your ideas is to lead with your second best, save your best for the end, and sandwich the others in between. This structure recognizes that the end and the beginning of an essay are its most critical parts. A good opening draws the reader in and creates an all-important first impression, but a memorable ending, coming last, is what readers have fresh in their minds when they assign you a grade. But, as always, don’t just follow these guidelines slavishly. If you can justify another organization, by all means use it. 

AP exam readers won’t judge your essay based on the opinion you express. Even if they disagree with you, they are obliged to ignore their own biases and grade you according to the criteria of good writing. They may think that your view is off the wall, but a cogent, forceful essay that smoothly integrates the sources and demonstrates mastery of argumentation will merit a high score.

Answering the AP English Language and Composition Rhetorical Analysis Essay Question

Sample rhetorical analysis question.

SUGGESTED TIME: 40 MINUTES

Read the following passage published back in 1967 by The New York Times. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the structure of the passage and the use of language help convey the writer’s views.

Instructions:

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that may establish a line of reasoning.
• Select and use evidence to develop and support the line of reasoning.
• Explain the relationship between the evidence and the thesis.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation.

Rhetorical Analysis Passage

Americans and Western Europeans, in their sensitivity to lingering problems around them, tend to make science and progress their scapegoats. There is a belief that progress has precipitated widespread unhappiness, anxieties, and other social and emotional problems. Science is viewed as a cold mechanical discipline having nothing to do with human warmth and the human spirit. 

But to many of us from the nonscientific East, science does not have such repugnant associations. We are not afraid of it, nor are we disappointed by it. We know all too painfully that our social and emotional problems festered long before the age of technology. To us, science is warm and reassuring. It promises hope. It is helping us at long last gain some control over our persecutory environments, alleviating age-old problems—not only physical but also, and especially, problems of the spirit.

Shiraz, for example, a city in southern Iran, has long been renowned for its rose gardens and nightingales; its poets, Sadi and Hafiz; and its mystical, ascetic philosophy, Sufism. Much poetry has been written in glorification of the spiritual attributes of this oasis city. And to be sure, Shiraz is a green, picturesque town, with a quaint bazaar and refreshing gardens. But in this “romantic” city thousands of emotionally disturbed and mentally retarded men, women, and children were, until recently, kept in chains in stifling prison cells and lunatic asylums. 

Every now and again, some were dragged, screaming and pleading, to a courtyard and flogged for not behaving “normally.” But for the most part, they were made to sit against damp walls, their hands and feet locked in chains, and thus immobilized, without even a modicum of affection from their helpless families and friends, they sat for weeks and months and years—often all their lives. Pictures of these wretched men, women, and children can still be seen in this “city of poetry,” this “city with a spiritual way of life.” 

It was only recently that a wealthy young Shirazi who, against the admonitions of his family, had studied psychology at the University of Teheran and foreign universities, returned to Shiraz and after considerable struggle with city officials succeeded in opening a psychiatric clinic, the first in those regions. After still more struggle, he arranged to have the emotionally disturbed and the mentally retarded transferred from prison to their homes, to hospitals, and to his clinic, where he and his staff now attend them. 

They are fortunate. All over Asia and other backward areas, emotionally disturbed men and women are still incarcerated in these medieval dungeons called lunatic asylums. The cruel rejection and punishment are intended to teach them a lesson or help exorcise evil spirits. 

The West, still bogged down in its ridiculous romanticism, would like to believe that emotional disturbances, dope addiction, delinquency are all modern problems brought on by technological progress, and that backward societies are too spiritual and beautiful to need the ministrations of science. But while the West can perhaps afford to think this way, the people of backward lands cannot. . . . 

. . .The obstacles are awesome, the inertia too entrenched, the people’s suffering too anguished, their impatience too eruptive. Moreover, the total cultural reorganizations such as Asia and Africa are undergoing inevitably engender their own temporary dislocations and confusions. But their goals, the direction, remain constant. We are on the move, however awkwardly at first, to a saner, better world.

How to Answer the Rhetorical Analysis Question

Go back to the original question, which asks you to analyze two features of the passage: (1) its structure, or organization, and (2) its language. The first aspect is fairly specific. As you read the passage, you need to observe what the author discusses first, second, third, and so on. Your essay should explain not only the order of ideas but the reasons the author may have chosen that order. 

The second part of the question is more general. It invites you to analyze the use of language, which may include the author’s choice of words (diction), syntax (word order), figures of speech, use of evidence (such as statistics or logical reasoning), sentence structure, rhythm, sound, tone, or just about any other characteristics of style and rhetoric you choose.

Although the question directs you to write about two different aspects of the passage, the essay itself should be unified. That is, a good essay should not consist of, say, two disparate paragraphs, one exclusively devoted to structure and another to language. Rather, the essay should include material that shows the interrelationship of structure and language in the passage and how those elements contribute to the meaning and effect of the passage. This might be covered in a separate paragraph, or it could be woven into the overall fabric of the essay. 

Before you begin to write , read the passage at least twice: once for an overview and once as you write your analysis. You may notice early on that the opening paragraph contains generalizations about Westerners’ concepts of science and progress. Then the author contrasts the Western view of science and progress with the Eastern view. Immediately, you see that the author, by using the first-person pronoun (as in “many of us”) is speaking from the perspective of an Easterner. Consequently, his discussion of Eastern views is apt to come across as more well-informed, more authoritative, perhaps more personal. 

To support his position, the author gives an extended example—the city of Shiraz—to illustrate just how different the East is from the West. The description and vivid images of Shiraz memorably convey the idea that the “spiritual way of life” has a side to it that many Westerners don’t know about. This is the heart of the passage. The use of quotation marks around “romantic” and “city of poetry” is meant to point out the discrepancy between the idealized and real versions of Shiraz. 

Nearing the end, the author reiterates his initial contrast between West and East, with emphasis on the East. The last paragraph offers a generalized statement about conditions in Asia and Africa, reminding the reader of the contrast made at the very beginning of the passage. Tying the end to the beginning of the passage creates a sense of unity—a desirable feature in any piece of writing.

Answering the AP English Language and Composition Argument Essay Question 

The third essay on the exam requires you to respond to an idea contained in a short statement or paragraph. Your response must be written as an argument that either supports or refutes a writer’s views on a particular subject. Or, if you prefer not to take an either/or position, you can adopt a stance somewhere in between the two.

Writing a persuasive essay involves more than simply expressing your opinion on an issue. The validity of your position must be based on sound evidence. Passion alone won’t do it. You need to corral evidence from your experience, reading, studies, and observation in order to prove that your opinion has merit. 

To argue on behalf of your position, find at least two (three is even better) distinct arguments to support it. It helps, too, to develop a counterargument—an argument most likely to be used by someone who opposes your views—that you can refute in order to persuade readers that you are right and your opponent is not. 

Because topics for AP persuasive essays are unpredictable, it makes sense to arm yourself with a ready-to-use essay-writing strategy—one that, regardless of the topic, lays out the steps to take during the approximately forty minutes it takes to complete the essay. Chances are that you’ve written reams of essays during your school career. Over the years, you may have developed a method for writing blue-ribbon essays. But in case you haven’t, here is a list of steps you can count on. Follow them while you write essays for practice. Then, based on the results you get, amend the list in ways that enable you to write the best essays you can.

• Read and analyze the prompt.
• Jot down ideas that might be used to argue both sides of the issue.
• Review the ideas and choose a position on the issue.
• Articulate a main idea, or thesis, for your essay.
• Arrange supporting ideas purposefully—not simply in the order they occurred to you.
• Introduce the main idea of your essay.
• Develop unified paragraphs in support of your main idea.
• Devote at least part of your essay to refute an argument likely to be used by someone whose opinion differs from yours.
• Choose words and structure sentences that concisely convey your thoughts.
• Write a memorable conclusion but not a brief summary of your essay.
• Edit your essay for clarity, interest, and correctness.

Experience shows that these steps do not need be taken in the order presented, nor is each step discrete. Rather, they often overlap and blend into each other. While composing your essay, for example, you may also be revising and proofreading. Late in the process, you may weave new ideas into your text or shift the location of ideas. In short, no step really ends until the final period is put into place or the AP proctor calls “Time!” We can't tell you exactly how much of the suggested 40-minute writing period to devote to each step. A plan that works for other students may not work for you. In general, however, you won’t go wrong by devoting more than half the time—about 25–30 minutes—to composing an essay and no more than 5–10 minutes planning and polishing it. By now you may have noticed that the basic process of writing a persuasive essay hardly differs at all from that used in writing synthesis or analytical essays. All three require you to read the prompt over and over until you are absolutely sure of what it says and what you are expected to do. The prompt may not interest you right away, but if you really concentrate on the issue, you may soon be bursting with ideas for your essay.

Sample Argument Essay Question

SUGGESTED TIME: 40 MIINUTES

The following paragraph is adapted from Mirror for Man, a book written by anthropologist Clyde Kluckhorn in the middle of the twentieth century. Read the passage carefully. Then, write an essay that examines the extent to which the author’s characterization of the United States holds true today. Use appropriate evidence to support your argument.

Technology is valued as the very basis of the capitalistic system. Possession of gad- gets is esteemed as a mark of success to the extent that persons are judged not by the integrity of their characters or by the originality of their minds but by what they seem to be—so far as can be measured by their wealth or by the variety and material goods which they display. “Success” is measured by their investments, homes, and lifestyles— not by their number of mistresses as in some cultures.

How to Answer the Argument Question

Whether you agree, disagree, or have mixed views on the content of the passage, your job is to write a convincing argument that expresses your opinion. Initially, the word argument may suggest conflict or confrontation. But rest assured that your essay need not be combative. Rather, make it a calmly-reasoned explanation of your opinion on a debatable subject. Your goal is to persuade the reader that your opinion, supported by examples, facts, and other appropriate evidence, is correct. 

If you have strong feelings about the topic, of course you should state them in your essay. But express them in calm, rational language. Be mindful that the essay should not be an emotional rant for or against the issue. 

Consider first whether you agree with Kluckhorn’s definition of “success.” Is it, as Kluckhorn asserts, measured by income and material possessions? Or do you think that a more accurate standard of success in today’s America should be determined by less tangible criteria—things such as happiness or self-respect? Or do you stand somewhere in between those two extremes? 

The actual position you take on the issue is less crucial than your ability to support it fully by drawing from your knowledge, background, experience, or observation. Regardless of your position, be sure to include more than one example. An argument that relies on a single example, however compelling, will fall flat. 

In the prompt, Kluckhorn’s notion of success seems to refer broadly to American society. Resist responding in kind. That is, a short essay shouldn’t focus on the whole of society but only on an identifiable segment—perhaps college-educated professionals or urban, blue-collar Americans. The point is that a narrowly focused essay on a limited topic will always turn out better than one that tries to cover too much ground in just a few paragraphs.

AP Biology Resources

• About the AP Biology Exam
• Top AP Biology Exam Strategies
• Top 5 Study Topics and Tips for the AP Biology Exam
• AP Biology Short Free-Response Questions
• AP Biology Long Free-Response Questions

AP Psychology Resources

• What’s Tested on the AP Psychology Exam?
• Top 5 Study Tips for the AP Psychology Exam
• AP Psychology Key Terms
• Top AP Psychology Exam Multiple-Choice Question Tips
• Top AP Psychology Exam Free Response Questions Tips
• AP Psychology Sample Free Response Question

AP English Language and Composition Resources

• What’s Tested on the AP English Language and Composition Exam?
• Top 5 Tips for the AP English Language and Composition Exam
• Top Reading Techniques for the AP English Language and Composition Exam
• AP English Language and Composition Exam Sample Essay Questions
• AP English Language and Composition Exam Multiple-Choice Questions

AP Human Geography Resources

• What’s Tested On the AP Human Geography Exam?
• AP Human Geography FAQs
• AP Human Geography Question Types and Strategies
• Top 5 Study Tips for the AP Human Geography Exam

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How to Do Well in an AP Class: Your Complete Guide

Advanced Placement (AP)

If you’re reading this it’s because you’re considering taking Advanced Placement (AP) high school classes or you’re already enrolled in AP classes. That’s great! AP courses are a great way to prepare for college, raise your GPA, and even earn college credit.

But in order for you to get the full benefit out of your AP classes, you’ll need to make sure you know how to prepare for AP classes. That can be tricky: AP classes are designed to be harder, so you’ll need to be proactive about learning class material if you want to earn As.

We’re here to help. This article will help you develop the skills and tools you need to excel in every AP class you take . We’ll discuss:

• What an AP class is, and why they’re beneficial
• A quiz to help you identify your biggest pain points when it comes to succeeding in AP classes
• Specialized study tips customized to show you how to do well in an AP class
• A hypothetical weekly schedule designed to show you how to manage AP classes

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started!

Feature Image: David Mulder /Flickr

What Is an AP Class?

The Advanced Placement (AP) Program is a program that is run by the College Board, the same institution that administers the SAT test .

Basically, AP allows you to take college-level courses in high school as a way of preparing you for college . These courses are more in-depth than regular high school courses, but they will give you an excellent introduction to college-style classes, and taking AP courses will make your transition from high school to college easier.

While AP classes are harder and more work, they also come with some pretty big perks, too. Read on to learn about the many benefits of taking AP classes and how to manage AP classes.

What Are the Benefits of Taking AP Classes?

The number one benefit of taking AP classes is that if you do well in them, you increase your chances of college admission ! Having AP courses on your transcript illustrates to college admissions committees that you have a commitment to pushing yourself to excel. Additionally, you show admissions committees that you already have experience with college-level coursework. This shows that you’re ready to succeed academically in college, too. 

Additionally, AP classes can raise your GPA even though they’re tougher than regular classes. That’s because AP classes contribute to your weighted GPA . A weighted GPA takes into account that you’re taking tougher classes by “adding points” to your final AP course grade. That’s how some students can g raduate high school with more than a 4.0 ! Weighted grades can be confusing, so be sure to check out our complete guide to weighted GPAs for more information. 

Another benefit to AP classes is that they give you the opportunity to earn college credit. Each May, you can then take the AP exams for each of the AP courses you took that year. If you pass the exam with a certain grade, you can potentially earn college credit . ( For more information about how this process works, check out this article. ) Earning college credit from your AP courses saves you valuable time and money...and it looks great on your college applications, too. 

Ultimately, AP classes benefit students by providing them with a rigorous education in subjects that you might otherwise have just glanced over in a regular high school class. This could even have the effect of exposing you to new ideas that shape your potential career goals!

The Top 3 Study Tips for Doing Well in AP Classes

Not sure how to do well in an AP class since they’re designed to be difficult. Guess what? It begins with developing good study habits.

In order to do well in an AP class, you’ll need to make sure you’re learning the course content on a daily basis. Trying to cram information into your head the night before an exam just isn’t going to work. So if you’re wondering how to prepare for an AP class, it all starts with studying!

Here are our top tips for studying regularly, efficiently, and effectively. That way you’re making the most out of your daily study time.

Tip 1: Get Ready to Study

First of all, if you’re going to succeed in an AP class, you need to believe that you will succeed in an AP class. You can do it! After all, you wouldn’t even be reading this article if you didn’t have what it takes to succeed in AP classes. 

It’s important that you spend some time making sure you’re confident and prepared to tackle your AP work. One way to do this is through visualization . Visualize yourself succeeding, then work toward that goal. Studies show that visualizing success is almost as effective as actual practice , and doing both yields even better results than practice alone.

Once you’re in a success mindset, it’s time to prepare to study. (Yes...you have to get ready to study.) Create a study habit by picking a study spot in your house or your school’s library. That way you’ll associate that place with studying, which will help you get in the right mindset quickly. Minimize distractions by putting your phone away, turning off your computer’s WiFi, and/or disabling notifications on your smart devices.

And finally, only get out the study materials you’ll be working on that day . Don’t overwhelm yourself with stacks of books and notes! If you’re focusing on AP Biology , for example, there’s no need for you to flip through your AP Literature or AP Physics notes. Focusing on one thing not only makes the study process manageable, it also helps minimize your stress levels.

Tip 2: Take Great Notes in Class

For many students, the problem with study time is knowing what to study. Do you look over your homework assignments? Reread the textbook? It can be kind of overwhelming when you’re faced with learning information on your own!

The key to studying efficiently is making sure you have great material to study with. That begins with class notes . Your homework and your class exams will cover the material your teacher talks about in class—they aren’t going to spring new ideas on you! Taking great notes in class means you’ll have an idea about what information your teacher thinks is important, which means you’ll know what you need to understand before test day.

Once you have great notes, you can start using other class materials as part of your study session . That can include using handouts, textbooks, and even old homework assignments to help you review.

For example, here’s how an AP Chemistry study session might go. You take out your class notes from Monday and review them. They’re over balancing equations, so once you finish going over your notes, you flip open your textbook to find the chapter that covers the same material. There, you realize the book has some practice questions that you haven’t gone over in class. To study, you decide to work through those and check your answers in the back of the book.

In about 45 minutes, not only have you reviewed a core course concept, you’ve also practiced putting that concept to work. Now you’re better prepared to balance equations on your next exam!

Tip 3: Enough Is Enough!

Speaking of balance...even though studying is important, you need to make time for the activities, hobbies, and people that sustain you. Burnout is a real thing, and you won’t be doing yourself any favors if you pursue your studies so vigorously that you harm your mental and physical health.

What often happens in burnout situations is that the student feels so ashamed of not being able to concentrate that they don’t tell anyone. As a result, they fall behind in their coursework, then have difficulty catching back up again. Before you know it, your grades are falling, your GPA goes down, and then you’re even more stressed out than you were when you started studying 24/7 in the first place.

Burnout can be a vicious cycle. The consequences of burnout can be severe, so watch for signs of it. If you’re having trouble concentrating or find yourself resenting the time you spend on your studies, or if you find yourself isolated because you’re so worried about falling behind, it’s time to take a break . Go do something relaxing for a few hours or a couple of nights. Maybe this is the instance in which going to the movies with your friends on a weeknight is a good idea.

Also, make sure you’re being open and honest about your struggles with people you trust. Whether that’s your parents, siblings, friends, or a trusted teacher, it’s important that you speak up if you’re having a hard time. School is important, sure, but so is your health! When you reach out, people can help connect you with resources that can not only alleviate your burnout, but can teach you skills to help you avoid it in the future, too.

3 Time Management Tips for How to Do Well in an AP Class

Now that you know how important it is to study for your AP classes, it’s time to get that study time on your calendar and learn how to prepare for AP classes. But there’s a good chance that your calendar is already full with extracurriculars and other responsibilities.

Don’t panic : we guarantee you can squeeze in study time if you’re smart about how you manage your time. Here are our top tips for time management (and if you’d like some more, be sure to check out our expert guide to managing your time ).

Tip 1: Triage Your Work

Have you ever spent three hours studying for a reading quiz the next day because you felt like you didn’t understand the material completely, only to skip out on studying for your chemistry exam because you ran out of time? The chances are that your reading quiz counted for a much smaller grade percentage than your chemistry exam did. 

Every student has found themselves in a situation where they wish they’d made a different decision about how to use their time. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes. One of the best things you can do to maximize your time is to prioritize your goals. That way you’re tackling the most important material first. 

Think about the emergency room. In the ER, they have a process called triage , in which they assign degrees of severity to a patient's various injuries , so they know which to focus on first. Whenever you get home from school and are about to get started on your homework, triage it first so that you can tackle the most difficult and important work while you’re still fresh and alert, saving the less challenging (or perhaps more enjoyable) work for last.

In order to triage your studying effectively, you need to consider three things: the grade point value of upcoming assignments, your understanding of the material, and your overall performance in the course.

Let’s take a look at an example: Joe is taking AP Biology, AP Statistics, and AP U.S. History. This week, he has a short essay due in U.S. History that’s worth 15% of his grade, one quiz in AP Biology worth 2% of his overall grade, and nothing due in Statistics. But he also has an A in both Biology and U.S. History, but he only has a B- in Statistics. He only has a few hours to study this week. How should Joe spend his time?

Here’s how we would recommend Joe triages his work. First, he should tackle his U.S. History essay. It’s worth a large portion of his final grade, so making a B or C on the assignment could keep him from making an A in the class.

From there, Joe should spend some time studying Statistics. Even though he has a Biology quiz, it’s clear that he has a pretty good handle on the material already since he has an A in the class. But he’s having a tougher time in Statistics, so spending a little extra time studying the course material will probably help him get higher scores on his upcoming work. Then, if he has a little extra time, Joe can quickly review his Biology notes to get ready for his quiz.

The big takeaway is this: make sure you’re doing the most important work first. That way you’re using your time as efficiently as possible!

Tip 2: Make a List

As you’re triaging all your tasks for the week, you’ll also be compiling a list of everything, with notes about the importance of each one. It’s very helpful to keep this list with you, perhaps in a planner or notebook, so that you can keep track in class of all the information that you might forget later. Just because you’re paying attention in class doesn’t mean you’ll remember assignments, due dates, or other important information later!

So what sort of information do you need to keep track of? Along with assignment due dates, you’ll also want to make note of any key ideas your teachers call out in class. You’ll also want to make sure you’re noting any extra credit assignments, special events, or even useful volunteer opportunities that are mentioned in class. Writing these down is a great way to making sure you don’t forget them!

Also, reviewing your planner or notebook every day is key to making this system work. If you’re writing things down and then never looking at them again, it’s not very useful. Pick a time every day when you review your calendar and update your to do list. Doing this at the same time every day helps ensure that you’re staying on top of your responsibilities.

Tip 3: Get a Good Night’s Sleep

This one is a little less obvious when you’re thinking about spending your time. After all, if you’re getting 8 hours of sleep a night, you’re wasting precious time you could use to study (or play video games), right?

Not so fast. Sleep is actually a key component to making sure your brain and your body stay healthy. After all, your brain is a physical muscle in your body, and there is a direct correlation between the well-being of your body and the capacity of your brain. Consequently, sleep is one of the most important factors in maintaining your mental and physical health.

A recent study shows that people have some very incorrect notions about how much sleep they need, and our culture prides itself on sacrificing our sleep in order to work more. Science shows that your body needs between seven and ten hours of sleep every night, yet over thirty percent of Americans sleep less than that . And when you’re not sleeping, you have a harder time paying attention and retaining formation , which isn’t great for your GPA, either.

When you’re staying organized by prioritizing your work, creating to do lists, and studying regularly, it becomes easier for you to get enough sleep to stay healthy. And the better your sleep is, the better you’ll do in school! So while all-nighters might seem like a good idea, it’s better for your health and your GPA to study ahead of time. That way you can get some much-deserved (and much needed!) rest.

We've put together an AP student's hypothetical week so we can show you how to plan for success.

How to Do Well in an AP Class: Plan Your Ideal Week

We’ve covered our top tips for how to manage AP classes, but it can be hard to see how those tips work in practice. We want to get beyond understanding just how to pass an AP class and show you how to excel in one.

To help, we’ve created a sample weekly schedule to help you figure out how to be successful in AP classes. (Keep in mind that this is just an example—depending on your course load, your ideal schedule will differ.)

Read on to see how to prepare for AP classes in order to be as successful as possible!

First thing’s first: you need to determine what’s on your schedule for the week. When you open your planner, you realize that this week is going to be heavy on reading. You have textbook chapters to read in your U.S. History and Macroeconomics courses, and you’re supposed to finish reading The Great Gatsby for your English class .

Since that’s a lot of reading, you’ll want to keep up with this nightly. You prioritize textbook chapters based on when you have reading quizzes and responses due in class . Right now, you have a reading quiz scheduled in your U.S. History class on Thursday and another reading quiz in your English class on Friday. You also realize that you have a quiz over the last 28 pages of The Great Gatsby, so you decide to split that into chunks so you can space the reading out over the entire week.

You’re also taking two science courses: AP Biology and AP Chemistry. You realize you have a lab report due in Biology on Thursday and an AP Chemistry exam on Friday. That means you’ll need to plan ahead to make sure you’re able to study for your test and finish your lab report.

So you open your planner and add the following due dates to your weekly schedule:

Now that you’re organized, you can tell that the end of the week is going to be hectic. You decide to get a jump on things by reading your Macroeconomics chapter tonight. That way you’ve freed up extra time to study for your quizzes and exams.

Teachers love to assign pop-up homework during the week, so there’s a chance that you’ve been given a handout or two that you’ll have to finish that night to turn in the next day. That’s not unusual: the typical workload for an AP class is about one hour per night per class.

You’ve gotten a quick handout to complete in Macroeconomics, so you tackle that first during your study time since it’s due the next day. Then you spend some time finishing the majority of your Biology lab report since it’s worth 10% of your overall grade. You want to make sure you have enough time to check it over before you turn it in!

Once that’s done, you split your remaining study time between reading for U.S. History, reading for English class, and going over your Chemistry notes. Since you don’t have a reading quiz over The Great Gatsby until Friday, you decide to tackle that reading last to ensure you’ve gotten a head start on studying for your Chemistry exam.

On this hypothetical Wednesday, your U.S. history class is doing an in-class discussion. You’re prepared since you’ve already done the reading, and your teacher gives you props for your excellent ideas in class.

When you get to English class, you realize you’re a little behind on your reading when your teacher splits you into small groups to talk about the characters in the book. You’re only a few pages behind, but you make a note to catch up on your reading that night.

When you sit down to study, you’re tempted to grab The Great Gatsby and start reading. But you know that you have a lab report due tomorrow and a Chemistry exam on Friday that are worth a lot more points than your reading quiz.

So instead of reading right away, you finish your Biology lab report first. Then you spend 30 minutes going over a tricky concept you talked about in Chemistry class before cracking open your copy of The Great Gatsby. By prioritizing your work, you’ve made sure you’re on the right track to do well on your assignments without having to pull an all-nighter.

You turn in your Biology lab report, confident that you’ve done a great job since you started it ahead of time. With that out of the way, you can now spend more time focusing on studying for your Chemistry exam on Friday.

That night, you pull out your quizzes and homework assignments, your class review sheet, and your notes. You spend an hour reviewing your handouts, studying key terms, and working a few extra sample problems . But since you’ve been studying a little every night, you find that you’re feeling pretty confident about the test.

Finally, you settle in to finish your Great Gatsby reading. You’ve got ten pages to read since you didn’t quite hit your reading goal yesterday, but it’s still a manageable amount. Actually, you find it’s a nice break from studying for chemistry!

Today’s a busy day, but because you’ve planned ahead, you’re ready to tackle it. You have your English class first, so you get up a little extra early to review your reading notes in order to ace your quiz. Your chemistry exam is after lunch, so you decide to spend a few minutes studying with your friends before the big test.

There’s a good chance that your teachers will assign your homework for the next week on Friday, so it’s important you take good notes and jot down important assignments and due dates in your planner as they’re announced. Don’t rely on your memory! This list will help you plan your next week so it will be as successful as this one.

But for now, it’s the weekend! Doing well in school matters a lot, but it’s also important to take some time to relax and recharge with your family and friends. Think of your time off as rewarding yourself for a job well done!

What's Next?

If you’d like even more tips for managing your time, don’t miss our article on the top 12 time management tips that everyone needs to know.

In our hypothetical student schedule, we mentioned AP classes. AP classes are advanced placement classes that can help you raise your GPA and potentially earn college credit while still in high school. Get the scoop on AP classes , and learn more about how their difficulty compares to a normal high school curriculum .

Setting aside study time only works well if you know how to study. But don’t worry: anyone can learn how to study well! Our expert guide to studying better in high school, can set you on the path to success .

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Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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Connect AP to Majors and Careers

Explore the relationships between AP courses, majors, and careers based on your choice.

AP English Language and Composition

Ap course: ap english language and composition, skills you'll learn.

• Skill: Reading closely, analyzing, and interpreting a piece of writing
• Skill: Evaluating a source of information
• Skill: Gathering and consolidating information from different sources
• Skill: Writing an evidence-based argument
• Skill: Drafting and revising a piece of writing

AP can get you on your path

Related majors and careers.

Acting students learn how to portray dramatic characters and their thoughts, moods, and feelings. Classes include instruction in voice for the actor, movement, improvisation, theater history, and actor coaching.

If starring in high school productions of such stage classics as Antigone, The Crucible, or Grease has given you the acting bug, you may want to study acting at the college level. What skills will you need to play your characters more convincingly? What is the subtext of a play? How do actors make stage combat look real? You’ll find the more you study acting, the more you learn about the preparation it takes to bring a character to life on stage or on screen.

Advertising

Advertising majors learn how to create and spread messages used to promote and sell products and services.

Do Internet pop-up ads really sell products, or do they just annoy people? Why do some TV commercials pull us in while others turn us off? What are the psychological effects of various colors?

These are just a few of the questions you’ll explore as an advertising major. If you’ve ever dreamed of writing clever ad copy, planning a media campaign, or selling advertising space, this may be the major for you.

American Studies

American studies majors look closely at the United States and its people from a variety of angles.

As a young and incredibly diverse nation, the United States is considered by many to be a work in progress. American studies majors explore the colorful canvas of the United States, often asking what it means to be American.

If you choose this major, you’ll study everything from the novels, music, and film of the United States to its politics, economy, and history. You’ll even investigate primary sources such as the letters of a Civil War soldier or the oral histories of the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles.

Area Studies

Area studies majors study the histories, politics, economics, and cultures of various areas of the world. They usually focus on a specific area, but sometimes compare two or more areas.

If the magical realist novels of Latin America capture your imagination, you might major in comparative literature or Spanish. Or if it’s the history of colonialism in African countries that fires your brain, you might major in history. But if you want to know Latin America or Africa inside out, then major in area studies. You’ll not only study everything from an area’s history to its present-day economy and art, you’ll also bring greater understanding to specific topics, from magical realism to colonialism.

While only a few schools have departments called area studies, many more have programs dedicated to specific regions. Some schools offer programs in comparative area studies. At others, you’ll have to design your own area studies major.

Broadcast Journalism

Students in broadcast journalism learn to report, produce, and deliver the news for radio, TV, and other broadcast media.

With a degree in broadcast journalism, you’ll be ready to bring all kinds of news to the public. You could find yourself on the local news pressing mayoral candidates to find out what they really think or chatting up celebrities on a music-video channel. You might become a sports announcer on a local radio station or deliver the news as a talking head on TV.

But this major is also for people who’d rather be behind the camera. You’ll learn how to operate microphones, recording equipment, and other devices, and could go on to edit, produce, or direct the news. 

Business Administration and Management

This program prepares students to plan, organize, direct, and control an organization's activities.

With the creation of large factories in the late 1800s came the need to manage large groups of workers. In his 1911 book The Principles of Scientific Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor addressed that need. He suggested that each worker be trained to do a single task with no wasted effort. His philosophy made such a big impact on the business world that it was nicknamed Taylorism and is still studied today.

Of course, there’s a lot of disagreement about Taylorism: some people argue that it's inhumane, while others celebrate the increased productivity it has led to. As a student in business management, you’ll add your voice to this debate and others like it.

Business, General

Business majors study the buying, selling, and producing of goods, as well as business organization and accounting. They learn how to use the basic principles and techniques of business in a variety of workplaces.

Handheld computers and cell phones make business dealings easier and faster. But there's a downside. Because these devices are easily lost, there's a risk that private information will fall into the wrong hands. Executives using cell phones in airports or other public places may forget to avoid discussing confidential topics. To make matters worse, competitors could also use technology to listen in.

How can we ensure that the cons of new technology don’t outweigh the pros? If you major in business, you’ll learn a wide range of business skills and study the issues affecting today's business climate.

Classics majors study the languages, literatures, and civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome and the places under their control.

Ancient Greek and Roman literature continues to be reinterpreted in every way possible, turning up in forms as different as James Joyce’s Ulysses and Wonder Woman comic books. Yet you may be surprised by how different from us the founders of Western civilization were after all. For instance, the Athenians regarded their women practically as slaves.

There is still a lot we don’t know about the way the ancients lived. Classics majors delight in finding out. Whether researching the ethnic diversity of ancient Rome  or putting a fresh spin on an old favorite while translating it, they keep an eye out for the unexpected.

Communication and Rhetoric

Communication and rhetoric majors study and practice the exchange of messages in all their variety.

Do you love nothing more than a good debate? Have you made a sport of picking apart everything from presidential speeches to class lectures? If you’ve answered yes, you may want to consider majoring in communication and rhetoric.

You’ll learn much more than how to be a powerful, persuasive speaker. You’ll study the complex ways in which we communicate with each other, through the media and face-to-face, with words and without, at work and at play.

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Students of communication sciences and disorders study the science behind communication problems and their development. They also learn how to treat children and adults and use what they learn to come up with new strategies and technologies for diagnosis and rehabilitation.

Imagine a birthday party for a three-year-old child. The room is full of chatter: children asking for more ice cream or complaining that another child took their toy. But one child, who appears to be as healthy as his peers, is silent. He is not playing with others, and his face shows an absence of emotion. 

If you study communication sciences and disorders, you’ll learn the cause of this child’s behavior. You’ll also learn how to help him interact with others and break his silence.

Community Organization and Advocacy

This major prepares students to organize communities for social action. Students learn how to serve as links between community groups and public agencies, and how to give information, instruction, and help to community members.

The history of community organizing as we know it today began in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. That's when college-educated young people set up settlement houses in midwestern and East Coast cities.

Settlement houses provided services, such as child care and English language classes, to the great numbers of people who needed them urgently. They were mostly immigrants working in low-wage jobs such as meat packing and garment making. Some settlement-house organizations also advocated for workers, urging government to take action and improve housing or create child labor laws, for example.

Comparative Literature

Students of comparative literature learn about the literature and literary traditions of two or more different countries, cultures, or languages.

Try to imagine King Lear translated into Chinese and you will have an idea of the difference it makes to read a literary masterpiece in its original language. As a comparative literature major, you will study literature and literary movements across national and cultural boundaries. You may trace the influence of Chinese poetry on American poetry, or compare early Japanese novels to more contemporary French ones. Whatever you read, you will learn to see life from a variety of perspectives.

Creative Writing

Students of creative writing focus on the construction of poetry and prose. They read and analyze the work of established writers and write original creative work.

When you read a good poem, do you wonder how the writer managed to form such interesting images? When you read a novel, do you think about how the author created characters you can relate to?

If you study creative writing, you’ll try to answer questions like these, analyzing poetry and fiction to learn how writers create successful work. And, of course, you’ll try your hand at creating your own work, which you’ll share with professors and classmates. Although it’s very unlikely that you’ll make a living from writing poetry or fiction, you will gain the skills needed to work in fields such as editing, publishing, journalism, and advertising.

Early Childhood Education

Students in early childhood education learn how to teach children who may range from infants to third graders, according to the school system.

Are you the babysitter whom kids call fun and parents call responsible? Are you the person to whom children sidle up at the park or potluck, sensing they've found a friend? Are you the kid who used to take on the role of teacher when you played school with your friends?

If you answered yes, you share a lot in common with people who work with children as a profession. You might consider majoring in early childhood education. You’ll learn how to create and manage a nurturing, safe classroom where every child thrives.

Education majors study how people learn and how to best teach them. Classes cover such topics as educational psychology, school health and safety issues, and the planning of classroom activities.

Do you find yourself reading stories to younger kids or organizing games for your cousins at the family picnic? Do you feel proud when you've explained a difficult math problem to a friend and his face lights up with understanding?

If you major in education, you’ll develop your talents into the skills every teacher needs. You’ll find out how to set up and manage a classroom, design and teach inspiring lessons, and help students succeed no matter what their age, background, or learning style.

Elementary School Teaching

This major focuses on the teaching of elementary grades, which can range from kindergarten through eighth grade, depending on the school system.

Science fiction author Ray Bradbury has penned more than fifty books, including the ever-popular Fahrenheit 451 . You'd think a famous futurist would spend all his time dreaming up new electronic devices or planning trips to the moon. Not Bradbury. One of his favorite topics is the importance of, in his words, "teaching kids to read and write and think." For Bradbury, giving children a solid education prepares our whole society to better meet the future.

Maybe you share Bradbury's vision -- or maybe you just like kids. Either way, you might enjoy working as an elementary school teacher. Courses in this major will prepare you to teach all elementary subjects, from reading to 'rithmetic.

English majors read, discuss, and write about the literature and culture of English-speaking people. They also learn about the history, structure, and use of the English language.

If you love to curl up with a good book, then majoring in English might be for you. But there's a lot more to studying English than just reading novels, short stories, plays, and poetry by English-speaking writers. You'll have to examine what you read and come up with opinions about it. For example, you might have to explain a book's main theme or show what it reveals about cultural stereotypes. You'll then have to share your views in class discussions and in papers.

One of the great things about majoring in English is that you can bring your personal interests into your studies. For instance, you can focus on the literature of a certain time period, location, or author.

Environmental Studies

Students of environmental studies use what they learn in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities to understand environmental problems. They look at how we interact with the natural world and come up with ideas for how we can prevent its destruction.

We use cars to get to work, run errands, and visit friends. Most of these cars run on gas, but the oil we use to make gas is running out. What’s more, drilling for oil destroys natural areas, and burning gas creates pollution. Other ways to power cars, such as electricity, ethanol, and biodiesel, already exist. So why isn't everyone using these energy sources?

To answer this and other important environmental questions, you’ll need to draw on the ideas of many fields, such as science, economics, and politics. If you major in environmental studies, you’ll learn how.

Film Studies

As a film studies major, you’ll study film history, theory, and criticism, as well as the basics of film production. You’ll also examine related arts such as television and video.

Think of your favorite movie. Was it the story you liked? Or the characters? The action? How about the look of it? Digging deep into your gut feelings about movies is just the beginning of film studies.

If movies mean more to you than just an evening out with your friends, this could be the major for you. You’ll learn how to discuss and write about films critically. You’ll also learn about the connections movies have to history and national identities. You’ll even learn what all those people listed in the credits actually do. P.S. A gaffer is a lighting technician.

High School Teaching

This major prepares students to teach high school (also called secondary school). High school usually includes grades nine through twelve.

Think about the best teacher you've ever had. What stands out? A great sense of humor? The ability to guide you through a tough math lesson or stay calm in the midst of chaos? An attitude of concern for each and every student? Many high school educators went into teaching because of a teacher they loved. Do you have such a teacher, one who inspires you to walk in his or her footsteps?

If you choose this major, your studies will cover everything from classroom management to teaching methods to specific subjects, such as history. You’ll also learn how to meet the needs of students who learn in different ways.

History majors learn how to interpret objects and written documents from the past. They also read the works of published historians and evaluate their ideas.

You’ve probably heard older people talk about the “good old days.” But were they really all that good? Were people and ideas all that different? How did the good old days become today?

To answer questions like these, you’ll need to look for clues -- and not only in textbooks filled with dates and biographies. As a history major, you’ll find history in everything from a 1956 Elvis Presley poster to a 1934 ticket stub showing the price of a movie. You’ll even find it in last summer’s playlist of your favorite songs.

By the time you graduate, you’ll know how to decide for yourself what to think about the old days -- good or bad. And, perhaps more importantly, you’ll learn what those days can teach us about today and tomorrow.

Hospitality Administration and Management

Hospitality majors learn to run hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, and other businesses that serve business travelers and vacationers.

As a train traveler headed out West in 1875, you would have had trouble finding a decent meal or a place to rest your head. But Fred Harvey changed all that. He started a chain of restaurants and hotels where clean and polite waitresses served tired travelers everything from oysters to duck and olives to ice cream.

You might say that Harvey tamed the Wild West, making it more hospitable (welcoming and pleasant) to travelers. If you study hospitality management, you'll prepare to follow in his footsteps.

Journalism majors learn to report, write, and edit articles for publication or broadcast.

Are you someone who can’t get enough of the latest headlines? Do you love the thrill of the chase? If so, you may want to consider majoring in journalism. With this degree, you could find yourself covering world events for a major newspaper or TV network, reporting on sports for a local radio station, or writing about entertainment on the Internet.

As a journalism major, you’ll not only master the art of reporting and writing, but you'll also learn about libel and other legal issues that affect the media. And you'll learn what it takes to survive in a tough, but often rewarding, business.

Library and Information Science

Students of library and information science learn the skills they need to work as librarians or information consultants. Classes cover developing, storing, finding, organizing, and using information -- whether it's written in a book, posted on a website, recorded on a video or CD, or captured on a slide.

Many of us picture librarians as old-fashioned bookworms. Yet here's how one student describes today's librarians: “[They] help people find jobs [and] search the Internet. They help kids and parents find homework resources. They introduce people to the joys of reading … and they protect our rights to freedom of speech."

Most librarians study library science at the graduate level only. If becoming a professional librarian is your goal, you may want to major in another area of interest as an undergraduate. For example, a bachelor’s degree in science will come in handy if you hope to work as a science librarian someday.

Linguistics

Linguistics deals with the structure of language (including syntax, phonetics, and grammar), the relationships between languages, and the way languages change over time.

The sentence that you are reading right now has a structure that can be taken apart and analyzed, just like sentences written in other languages have structures unique to them. Yet, since all humans are, after all, human, every language also contains universal linguistic elements.

Linguistics majors study how languages like Spanish, French, Korean, Hopi -- and even computer programming languages -- function and how people learn to speak and write in those languages.

Mass Communications

Mass communications majors undertake a thorough investigation of mass media, from its institutions, history, and laws to the ways in which it transforms our culture.

Which do you trust more -- the news you see on the tube or the news you read on the Internet? How have TV, newspapers, and other forms of mass media shaped your life? What influence do advertisers have on the choice of music played on the radio? 

As a mass communications major, you’ll examine questions like these. You’ll analyze different forms of media, study the impact media has on our culture, and learn about media history and laws. You may also have a chance to test the waters by creating media projects of your own.

Middle School Teaching

Students in this major learn to teach middle school (also known as intermediate school or junior high). Middle school can range from grade four through grade nine, depending on the school system.

The middle school years are a thrilling stage in the life cycle. People at this age can master all kinds of physical and mental challenges, doing amazing skateboard tricks, writing inspired essays, and acing math quizzes. Yet, in many ways, they're just beginning to live -- so many experiences lie ahead of them.

Middle school teachers choose to be a part of this exciting turning point. Where some adults see "attitude," gifted teachers see energy and curiosity. They want to help students shape all that potential in ways that will make a positive difference in the world. 

This major prepares students to become ordained Christian ministers or priests. Courses include such topics as church history, Christian ethics, church organization and management, evangelism, and homiletics (preaching).

There's a minister so famous he has a day of the year named after him: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King became a minister at the green age of nineteen and continued to preach until his tragic death at age thirty-nine. His sermons were so eloquent and inspired we still listen to them. Drawing on Christ's example, he fought for the rights not only of African Americans but of all poor people. He was willing to put his life on the line for his religious beliefs.

If you feel you could inspire others to walk in Christ's footsteps, consider majoring in ministry.

Nursing (RN)

Nursing majors train to care for sick and disabled patients and to promote better health.

It’s a typical morning at a city hospital. A woman arrives complaining of severe stomach pain. A nurse asks her a series of direct questions about her symptoms and learns what may be causing the pain. The nurse alerts a doctor, and they work together to order tests and begin treatment. Upstairs, a second nurse administers chemotherapy drugs to a patient who suffers from cancer. On another floor, a third nurse helps to deliver a baby. 

If you study nursing, you may train in a hospital like this where nurses care for, educate, and enhance the lives of patients every day. You’ll learn about everything from examining patients and treating their immediate needs to keeping up the health of people with long-term conditions.

Office Management

This program prepares students to supervise and manage people and operations in business offices. Classes cover such topics as employee supervision, records management, budgeting, scheduling, and public relations.

In Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville's strange, riveting tale, a solemn young Bartleby one day refuses to do his work. His reason? "I would prefer not to." Although Bartleby stops working, he keeps showing up, to the distress of the other employees.

Scholars find a wide range of meanings in Melville’s story. But whatever their interpretation, one thing’s certain: Bartleby creates a difficult workplace situation. If you major in office management, you’ll learn to handle such challenges professionally.

Paralegal Studies

This major prepares students to work under the supervision of a lawyer or court, completing research, conducting investigations, and keeping records. Courses cover legal research and writing.

Much of what paralegals do (researching legal questions and writing legal documents, for example) is the same work that attorneys do. So why not become an attorney instead -- especially since attorneys make more money? 

Some people choose the paralegal route because they don't want to go through three years of law school in addition to receiving a bachelor's degree. Others want a meaningful way of participating in the legal process without the demanding schedules that attorneys face.

Of course, there's no reason you can't do both. Some people start out by getting paralegal training and working as a paralegal for a time, and then go to law school.

Philosophy majors examine basic questions about such topics as the nature of existence and knowledge. They also study the history of philosophy, learn how to use logic and argue their ideas, and use philosophy to better understand other fields.

Philosophy dates back to ancient times when Confucius and Plato walked the earth. Yet it is very much alive today in such questions as whether or not computers think. Philosophers question issues that others either take for granted or find too difficult to ponder. If you choose this major, you'll find yourself asking everything from why we should be good to how we know what we know. You'll even question your own questions.

Some philosophy undergrads become philosophers. But most by far build careers in other areas, such as law. And thanks to all that pondering, all develop great skills in logic, problem solving, and creative thinking that pay off in any field.

Political Science and Government

Political science and government majors study the systems people set up to organize their societies, from neighborhoods to nations.

Politics affects the air we breathe, the schools we attend, the jobs we do, the communities we live in, and the taxes we pay. If you choose this major, you’ll learn the principles at work behind the decisions that affect every aspect of our lives.

Whether they're conservative or liberal, cynical or idealistic, one common characteristic among political science and government majors is their addiction to politics. If active engagement in the political system is for you, a political science major is a great way to get started. 

Prelaw Studies

Almost never offered as a major, a prelaw advising program will help you stay on track as you prepare for law school.

In the movie The Paper Chase, law professor Kingsfield strikes terror into students' hearts. Like many law professors who use the Socratic method, named after the philosopher, Kingsfield asks questions rather than lecturing. And when students answer his questions poorly, he's not above insulting them. But over time viewers realize that Kingsfield's goal is to sharpen his students' ability to reason.

That’s a skill they'll need to succeed as lawyers -- and a skill that law schools look for in applicants. In fact it’s not any specific major that will get you into a top school; it’s sharp thinking, reading, and communication skills that make the difference.

Professional, Technical, Business, and Scientific Writing

Students in this major focus on the theory, methods, and skills needed to write and edit scientific, technical, and business materials.

From computers to cell phones to stereos, technology is ingrained in our lives. That's why technical writers are so important. They create a range of materials, from instruction manuals and training guides to business reports.

If you choose this major, you’ll learn how to translate difficult material into text that's easy for everyone to understand. You’ll learn how important it is to consider the needs of specific audiences and how to use images to get your message across. If you're into both writing and technology and like working with different types of people, from editors to engineers, this could be the major for you.

Psychology majors study the way humans and animals act, feel, think, and learn.

If psychology interests you, you have something in common with the ancient Greek philosophers. They asked questions about the life of the mind: What is the relationship between mind and body? How can we tell if the world is really the way we think it is?

Today's psychologists study all sorts of fascinating questions, such as the following: Why is learning a language as an infant easier than as a teenager? What are the roots of violence? What is the best way to help someone with an eating disorder like anorexia?

Public Administration

Majors in public administration study how administrators enact policy at the local, state, and federal levels.

Whether developing education programs for inner-city youth or working with residents to create a crime-fighting neighborhood watch, public administrators breathe life into public policies.

If you major in public administration, you’ll learn how they do it. You’ll build the skills it takes to bring together diverse groups -- from neighborhood associations to private businesses -- and change communities for the better.

Public Relations

Public relations majors learn how to create and promote the images of individuals as well as businesses and other organizations.

Images don’t happen by themselves. Before celebrities step out on the red carpet at Academy Awards time, every detail -- clothes, accessories, makeup, and hair -- is carefully crafted. But image management isn’t reserved for Hollywood stars. It’s a tool used by every political figure, government agency, or business you can think of.

If you’d like to be the person pulling the strings behind the scenes, a major in public relations (PR) may be just the ticket. 

Religious Studies

Religious studies majors learn about the nature of religious belief and traditions. Courses focus on specific religions such as Hinduism, academic fields used to study religion such as anthropology, and religious history and politics.

How can religion lead both to the activism of Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to cult suicides? How was the universe created? Do we have souls? Religious studies majors explore such questions -- but they don't settle for simple answers. Instead, they seek rich insights through research, reading, writing, and discussion.

Whatever their differences, most religious studies majors agree that, as one student put it, "we are really one people; we just have different ways of expressing truth." If you are fascinated by religious questions and traditions, and enjoy exploring many points of view, consider this major.

Social Work

Social work majors learn to practice social work in various settings such as hospitals, child welfare agencies, and the criminal justice system.

Social worker Whitney M. Young, Jr. was a key civil rights activist of the 1960s. Yet most people have never heard of him. That's because while others were protesting in the streets, Young spent much of his time meeting with top businesspeople. Young was skilled at encouraging wealthy white Americans to give money to the movement.

As a social work major, you’ll learn that there are many ways to go about making the world a better place. Some social workers counsel people and help them get services such as subsidized housing and food stamps. Others, like Young, guide social movements, research social issues, or design and set up policy programs such as Social Security.

Sociology majors learn how to study people and the roles they play in society, both as individuals and in groups. Course work covers such topics as families, TV and other mass media, and criminology.

Picture your high school cafeteria for a moment. It’s not just one giant group of students hanging out together, is it? There are probably more than a few cliques.

Have you ever wondered how these cliques form? Or why some kids are more popular than others? Or why people act one way at home and a completely different way at school? If you want to explore questions like these, consider majoring in sociology. 

Special Education

This major prepares students to teach children or adults with special learning needs or disabilities. Courses cover topics such as diagnosing learning disabilities and creating plans to meet the special needs of each student.

Nancy, a fifth grader, has trouble hearing. But thanks to a special headset that her teacher wears, Nancy is able to hear his voice. She raises her hand often during discussions, her eyes bright with curiosity. 

Alan, a second grader, avoids the writing lesson, instead talking loudly to his aide. Alan has Asperger's syndrome, which makes it hard for him to socialize. After several weeks, with skilled help from his teacher and instructional assistant, Alan is able to write alongside his classmates.

If you like the idea of helping children with special needs such as these, consider becoming a special education teacher.

Sports Communication

Students of sports communication, also called sports media and sports journalism, prepare for careers as sports journalists or public relations professionals specializing in sports.

The Super Bowl, the World Cup, the U.S. Open. Start with a major in sports communication and you could find yourself where the action is, covering or promoting big-time sports events. It's not all glamour, though. You might pay your dues covering high school sports for the local paper.

Keep in mind that sports reporting today is about much more than covering games and profiling athletes. Some investigators dig deep into steroid use, racism, and other tough topics.

Theater Arts

Theater majors study plays and other dramatic works and their production. Classes cover such topics as theater history, playwriting, acting, and directing, as well as lighting, scenery, and costume design.

If you’ve ever acted in a play, you know how much work it takes to put a production together. A theater major is your ticket to every corner of the theater world.

Whether you specialize in acting or design, you’ll learn in class, backstage, and onstage. You’ll read, discuss, and write about all kinds of theatrical works. You’ll also get your hands dirty applying what you learn in class as you build sets, design costumes, direct, or act in department productions.

Tourism and Travel Management

Tourism and travel majors learn to manage tourism- and travel-related businesses. Course work includes such topics as travel-agency management, tour planning, convention and event planning, and travel industry law.

Until the 1820s, oceangoing ships carried mostly goods and mail -- not passengers. In 1840, the ship Britannia made history when it introduced an onboard cow for fresh milk. This event signaled the shipping industry's new interest in passenger comfort.

Much later, the cruise industry struggled to stay afloat once air travel across the Atlantic became common. But by the 1960s, it bounced back with Caribbean vacation cruises still popular today.

Urban Studies

Urban studies majors use the tools of sociology, economics, and other social sciences to study city life, government, and services. If you choose this major you’ll learn how city dwellers live and behave. You’ll also study the problems they face.

Cities are loud, crowded, concrete jungles, right? But they’re also places full of energy, where great thinkers, artists, and leaders come together and give birth to new and exciting creative movements and ideas.

Urban studies majors learn what makes city culture unique and how urban areas respond to problems and events. You’ll ask yourself many questions as an urban studies major. For example: How do different neighborhoods develop their own identities? How do the buildings and the layout of a city affect its people? What happens when the need for growth clashes with the need to preserve history? How does living close together affect the way city dwellers interact?

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What’s the deal with the Olympics? Your burning questions, answered

Sha’Carri Richardson won her first-ever race at the Olympics and Australia’s swimmers and Léon Marchand continued their dominance in the pool on Day 7 of the Paris Games. (AP Photos: Petr David Josek, Robert F. Bukaty, Morry Gash, Mark J. Terrill, Aurelien Morissard, Kirsty Wigglesworth, Eugene Hoshiko, Thibault Camus, Dita Alangkara, Abbie Parr)

Czech Republic’s fencers Jiri Beran, Jakub Jurka, Martin Rubes and Michal Cupr celebrate on the podium after winner the bronze medal in the men’s team epee competition during the 2024 Summer Olympics at the Grand Palais, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

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From left, silver medal winners Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie of New Zealand, gold medal winners Diego Botin Le Chever and Florian Trittel Paul of Spain, and bronze winners Ian Barrows and Hans Henken of the United States, take a group selfie with their Olympic medals during the men’s skiff medal ceremony at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, in Marseille, France. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Brian Daniel Pintado, of Ecuador, celebrates after winning the gold medal at the end of the men’s 20km race walk at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Britain’s Lois Toulson dry tears of her teammate Andrea Spendolini Sirieix after winning the bronze medal in the women’s synchronised 10m platform diving final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Jin Lee Man)

Gonzalo Dominguez, of Mexico City, wears an Olympic flag as he tours the grounds of the Chateau de Versailles, site of the equestrian events during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, in Versailles, France. Once the residence of French royalty, the chateau is one of the most popular tourist spots in Paris. Under the monarchy, horses were used by the royal family, its entourage and visitors to go hunting, show their equestrian skills and enjoy rides in the Versailles gardens. They were an essential part of festivities and a symbol of the king’s power. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Kauli Vaast, of France, leaps over a wave during the second round of the 2024 Summer Olympics surfing competition Sunday, July 28, 2024, in Teahupo’o, Tahiti. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Silver medalist Brazil’s Caio Bonfim pretends to bite the Paris 2024 Olympics mascot, “Phryges” at the end of the medal ceremony for the men’s 20km race walk at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Supporters cheer with Phryge, the Olympic mascot, prior to the women’s Group A soccer match between New Zealand and France at the Lyon stadium during the 2024 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Decines, France. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Vivianne Robinson lets a passer by choose one of the pins Robinson collected from USA Olympics 1984, during 2024 Summer Olympics, in Paris, France, Tuesday, July 30, 2024. The Olympics superfan has attended seven Games over the span of 40 years. (AP Photo/Lujain Jo)

Calab Law, from left, of Australia, Joseph Fahnbulleh, of Liberia, Wayde van Niekerk, of South Africa, and Cheickna Traore, of Cote D’Ivoire, compete in the men’s 200-meters’ heat at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

PARIS (AP) — The Olympics have their own language, traditions and rules — ones that are ever-evolving. It can be a lot to take in so here, The Associated Press will be answering some of the most asked questions about the Paris Games.

I thought it was the Paris Olympics. Why are so many events ... not in Paris?

Most of the events are in or around Paris, but select competitions are scattered around France — or in Tahiti. It’s not uncommon for host cities to tap venues outside municipal limits. It’s down to a few factors: space, appropriate facilities for each discipline, a sustainability commitment that meant only two new venues were constructed in Paris and, in Tahiti’s case, the best place to get sick waves with minimal impact.

What’s in the box athletes get with their medals?

Gold, silver and bronze medalists can skip the trip to the gift shop. When the winners take the podium, they’re handed a long, thin package containing the official Paris Olympics poster. They also get special stuffed Olympic Phryges with their corresponding medal.

On that note — what IS the Paris 2024 mascot?

It’s the Olympic Phryge, a triangular red behemoth that has confounded some. It’s meant to commemorate the phrygian bonnet, a hat that is a symbol of the French Revolution. The Paralympics mascot is much the same but has a prosthetic leg.

Why isn’t Russia at the Olympics?

The Russians were already on thin ice at the Olympics before the invasion of Ukraine. Amid doping investigations, Russian athletes competed on the Olympic Athletes from Russia team in Pyeongyang and as the Russian Olympic Committee in Tokyo and Beijing. After the invasion of Ukraine, the International Olympic Committee suspended the ROC for forming sports councils in eastern Ukraine — a breach of the Olympic Charter.

So then, who are the AINs?

Russia is not at the Olympics, but some Russian athletes are. After Belarus and Russia were barred over the war in Ukraine, the IOC permitted some of the athletes from those countries to compete as Individual Neutral Athletes, abbreviated to AIN based on the French term. Winning AINs will not hear their country’s anthem or wear its colors. They also weren’t allowed to participate in the opening ceremony.

Why are people going crazy over pins?

Pins are currency, pins are souvenirs, pins are life. Many countries, news organizations, brands and even people have customized pins — lapel-sized but often found weighing down lanyards, hats, jackets and so on. Pins are swapped, used to entice or simply savored by fans, journalists, volunteers and athletes alike.

2024 Paris Olympics:

• What to know about the closing ceremony : A skydiving Tom Cruise and performances from Billie Eilish, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Paris Olympics mainstay Snoop Dogg highlighted the French capital’s au revoir to the Olympics.
• Indelible images : AP photographers pick their favorite images from the Paris Olympics .
• Who won the 2024 Olympics?: See which countries tied for the most gold medals in Paris, and who exceeded expectations.
• When are the next Summer Games? The Olympics will always have Paris . But next up for the Summer Games: Los Angeles 2028 . See how the City of Angels is preparing to follow the City of Light.

On the subject of branding, what do the Olympic rings represent?

The five interlocking rings “represent the five parts of the world now won over to the cause of Olympism,” according to modern Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin. But the colors of the rings do not correspond to any particular world regions or continents.

What does ‘repechage’ mean?

It means second chance, though this is the first time Olympic track and field athletes will get to use it. Athletes in the 200-meter through 1,500-meter races and hurdle events can get a chance at the semifinals by competing in the repechage round. Some other Olympic sports already employ it.

What are the new Olympic events?

A number of events have been tweaked, but there’s one wholly new sport debuting: breaking. There’s also a new event under canoe slalom, kayak cross.

Wait, what is the difference between a sport and an event?

Well, there are sports and then there are disciplines and then ... there are events. There are 32 sports at these Olympics, with 45 disciplines among them. Marathon swimming and springboard diving are very different disciplines but both fall under the umbrella of World Aquatics. And then among the 45 disciplines, there are 329 events in which athletes can compete.

Speaking of swimming: Why are people swimming in the Seine in the first place?

Sure, the swimming portion of the triathlon is only 1.5 kilometers — the same distance Katie Ledecky swam to nab her 12th Olympic medal. But can you imagine more than 50 people swimming 30 laps in the pool at the same time? Both triathlon and marathon swimming don’t employ heats — all competitors start at the same time, in an open-water swim. In this case, the selected body of water was Paris’ famous — and, at times, infamous — Seine River. The location also helped triathletes transition relatively seamlessly to the cycling leg of the race.

Why is the track for athletics events purple?

The track at the Stade de France, where athletics events are being held, is purple-hued — a marked change from the typical rusty red. Paris Games organizers wanted to stand out, in more than one way. According to Olympics.com, Paris 2024 organizers commissioned a track in a unique color so viewers would remember it. They also worked in conjunction with Olympic Broadcasting Services, which determined that the track color would help highlight competitors.

For more coverage of the Paris Olympics, visit https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games .

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