1987 AP Exam

Multiple Choice Section:

I found this test to be difficult, because of its elevated vocabulary and complex passages. When reading the passages I think I understand them, until I look at the questions and then get confused again. I did worst in the poetry portion because is struggled to make correct inferences about themes and techniques.

Some questions I had trouble with were:

25. Since I didn’t understand the poem, I couldn’t quite guess what the author’s purpose was

32. Didn’t recognize all the terms listed

48. All answers seem reasonable, hard to determine one correct one

52. Didn’t know the definition of “desultory”

Essay #1:

This essay prompt was pretty straight forward and I had a couple ideas right of the bat. I was rather confident with the techniques I chose to talk about, but much less confident about the way I discussed the examples to back up my claims. I found it hard to put my ideas into words, without reusing the world “leisure” a million times. But overall, I feel with some practice with supporting my claim I can improve on this type of essay.

Essay #2:

I chose to write about “The Poisonwood Bible” because I have read it most recently and am comfortable with it. I hope that when the AP test comes around there is a book that works with the prompt that I am comfortable discussing. I think I did a good job of avoiding plot summary, but in doing that think I might have been a little too vague with my examples. Overall, I was much more comfortable with this essay than the first one.