From a relevant column: “The Charm of Old-Fashioned Snail Mail”
How to Practice Timed Writing
First, an overview of what to expect:
That summary comes from the most helpful resource for the writing portion of the exam. Click the image of the link below to load the official site of the College Board:
Given enough time, anyone could use that page — and only that page — to pass Section II of this AP exam. That page gives you prompts, scored student essays with explanations, reports from the graders, and reports from students. You could follow a simple feedback loop:
- Pick an exam to practice.
- Pick a question.
- Set a timer for the suggested amount of time.
- Write a response.
- Read all of the resources for that question: sample essays, scoring explanations, grader reports, etc.
- Use this understanding to score your own essay.
- Revise that essay.
Step #6 works best with a teacher, of course, so I’ll be scoring your timed essays. In fact, it’s better to have a teacher handle the first two steps, too; I can give you tasks tailored to your needs, even if it means cobbling together a complete Section II from multiple exams.
The specific writing assignments will always be posted to Google Classroom. You will also always have time in class to write each response, although Question 1 requires you to schedule in 15 minutes to read the sources beforehand. See the section below for more information on getting the timing right.
Our Usual Section II Practice
Here is an example of cobbling together a practice exam:
This is what will most often be distributed in class. More on what each question provides:
2012 Exam: Question 1 | Source D is not included in this packet because of copyright constraints. That helps students focus on having the rest of the sources speak to each other. This prompt also requires a thoughtful balance of commonplace knowledge, anecdotal experience, and source-based argumentation1.
2012 Exam: Question 2 | This passage tops out at 110 lines, which is one of the longest passages given for any Question 2. That lets students practice reading and annotating quickly and toward a thesis. It also helps that this passage has a specific audience and rhetorical context that readers can grasp2.
2014 Exam: Question 3 | It’s interesting that this comes from Po Bronson, whose writing we study each year, but the reason to use this 2014 prompt is its unexpected complexity. It requires more reading than many Question 3 prompts, and then it names a specific audience for the response. Most prompts for Question 3 are truly general arguments; this one requires students to demonstrate an awareness of a specific audience, not just the rhetorical context3.
Getting the Timing Right
The suggested time for Section II is two hours, with fifteen minutes for reading. You have, therefore, 135 minutes total in which to write these three essays.
The best way to practice is to set aside 135 minutes for the entirety of Section II. You would first look at the prompts when you start the timer; after 135 minutes, you would stop.
This is often impossible, of course, because many AP students don’t have 135 uninterrupted minutes. If you do, that block of time falls at the end of a long day, when your writing is going to be severely affected by decision fatigue:
I’m embedding that article to draw your attention to the most important aspect of this practice: Write your best timed essay for each response, even if you have to break it up over multiple days. Decision fatigue will not be a factor at 8AM on the day of the exam.
If you complete Section II in one well-rested sitting, that’s the best possible set of data for us to use. Otherwise, you’ll have class time. The issue, of course, is that we have only 40 minutes or so each day, with 23 hours or so between each chamber. We will have to work around that.
The most efficient schedule is probably going to look something like this one, which is from 2019:
We will set aside a Monday for in-class reading, to make sure you’ve seen the prompts and had 15 minutes to read; then we’ll use three consecutive periods to finish Section II in its entirety.
During those three days, you could work on any essay, but it would make the most sense to go in order, letting the natural time limit of each period do its job. It’s not a perfect emulation of the testing situation, but it’s a good assessment of your timed writing ability.
Scoring Guides
The most important step in preparing for the timed writing portion of the exam is to study what the College Board expects you to be able to do. For our usual practice (see above), here are the scoring guides provided by the College Board:
- 2012 Section II – KEY – Question 1
- 2012 Section II – KEY – Question 2
- 2014 Section II – KEY – Question 3
Each one provides a high-scoring essay, an essay scored somewhere in the middle (4, 5, or 6), and an essay at the very low end. You need all three.
Start with the rubric, which will come before the sample essays. Read the rubric carefully. Then skip to the scoring commentary. Before you look at each essay, read the overview, which will tell you exactly what the prompt required; then read the College Board commentary for the essay you want to study.
As an example, look at Question 1 from 2012. The College Board provides commentary for an essay that was scored a 5. You must first know what that 5 translates into on the rubric:
Essays earning a score of 5 develop a position on whether the USPS should be restructured to meet the needs of a changing world, and if so, how. They develop their position by synthesizing at least three sources, but how they use and explain sources is somewhat uneven, inconsistent, or limited. The argument is generally clear, and the sources generally develop the student’s position, but the links between the sources and the argument may be strained. The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but it usually conveys the student’s ideas.
The language we use for scores of 5 in grade abatement is similar. Performances at this level are limited, with some strengths and some weaknesses. Usually, the weaknesses are such that the overall essay suffers, hence language like “inconsistent” and “strained.” Here is how the College Board evaluates the essay that was scored a 5:
This essay does present the argument that the USPS needs to be restructured, but this argument is uneven in its development. That unevenness is in part a consequence of how sources are synthesized to offer support for the argument. On the one hand, one series of sources is used to indicate the many specific ways the USPS might revitalize its operations to meet the needs of a changing world. On the other, the student cites a source that celebrates traditional modes of letter delivery and the personal touch it enables, the connection established when a handwritten card arrives at one’s doorstep. A more fully adequate essay would integrate these positions clearly. It is entirely plausible to argue that the post office might adapt to a changing world yet retain traditional elements of its service, but the essay lacks the organization necessary to sustain such an argument. Moreover, in the discussion of strategies the post office needs to pursue, the essay employs inconsistent evidence and explanations to support the student’s argument: some solutions based in the sources (for example, the USPS might consider being the only carrier to deliver reliably all seven days of the week) are reasonable and appropriate, but other solutions (for example, paying postal workers on commission) are not as convincing.
That essay is five pages long, which makes it longer than the essay scored a 9, yet it fails to establish and defend an adequate position in response to the prompt. This is a critical point to consider when evaluating your own writing.
Whether you are using scoring guides that are assigned by your teacher or looking through the College Board’s site for resources to study on your own, it might be most effective to start with the middle-of-the-road essays. The 5s (and even many 4s) provide an actionable contrast to the 8s and 9s. The lowest-scoring essays are less helpful, although the scoring commentary still offers important guidance.
All synthesis prompts invite this balance, but this one requires it. The subject is common, but the intricacies of the prompt demand more awareness than other prompts. ↩
For contrast, consider Question 2 from the 2006 exam. Student scores were low nationally for that prompt, probably due to the surprising complexity of such a short passage. That test is before the overall of this AP exam, however, and provides less benefit to current students. Hazlitt is tough, though, and worth getting to know; he has an essay on the pleasure of hating that is worth the time it takes to understand it. ↩
Again, almost all essays require this awareness. The advantage of practicing this particular prompt is that it requires students to address their audience specifically. ↩