Category: 2018-2019

The main workshop post for these ETA exercises is here: AP Exam: Section II — ETA Workshop.

The full practice assignment for Section II is here: AP Exam: Section II — Workshop.

Section II, Question 3 — ETA Workshop

Argument: Students create an evidence-based argument that responds to a given topic.

You can find these materials on the College Board’s website. I am organizing them for you so we can discuss the exemplary essays interstitially.

For each prompt, look only at the highest-scoring essay. You can learn from the other ones, certainly, but it is a more efficient use of your time to deconstruct the essays that earn an 8 or 9. Each element of effective writing you would emulate in a timed setting is best demonstrated by those highest-scoring essays.

2018 Exam: Question 3 Prompt

The main reason for us to use this prompt as ETA practice is the abstract nature of the topic, which is “choosing the unknown.” The quotation in the prompt is difficult, too:

We tend not to choose the unknown which might be a shock or a disappointment or simply a little difficult to cope with. And yet it is the unknown with all its disappointments and surprises that is the most enriching.

The first sentence must be unpacked carefully, and the second one introduces the concept of enrichment. You have only a few minutes to turn that quotation into a workable approach.

• Link: 2018 Exam: Question 3 Prompt

2018 Chief Reader Report (Question 3 Only)

The real difficulty of this sort of prompt is that you must be able to draw from a wide range of experiences, readings, logic, etc., to defend any position effectively. In other words, you need to know a little bit about a lot of things.

The concept of the “unknown” opens up the possibilities. That’s why the details found in the best essays are so wide-ranging:

In upper-half essays, students responded to Lindbergh’s quote by calling on the likes of JFK, Galileo, and a laundry list of other scientists, explorers, and astronauts, as well as musicians, and philosophers. However, students also wrote about experiences traveling abroad, sailing for 17 days with a team of their peers, participating in a Mock UN, meeting the love of their lives, and rope climbing for the first time—all of which demonstrated for them what happened when the unknown is explored.

This is what you want to emulate: a balance between history, philosophy, pop culture, and personal experience.

• Link: 2018 Chief Reader Report (Question 3 Only)

2018 Exam: Question 3 Scoring Guide

To see what that balance looks like, you should study the essay that earned a 9. The scoring commentary especially emphasizes the arrangement of the student’s response:

The seamless transitions from the scientific to the musical (Bach and Shostakovich) and ultimately to the literary (Thoreau) are offered with appropriate and convincing explanations and extensive development (e.g., “Bach … created his own era of music … by exploring the possibilities of a chamber orchestra. He, by exploring new territory in music, changed the face of string and orchestral music, employing elements of fugue and countermelody”).

You should emulate as much of this student’s arrangement as possible when writing on exam day. You may not be able to predict the ability to balance scientific evidence with musical evidence — creating an effective balance and showcasing the breadth of your knowledge — but you can strive for some balance.

• Link: 2018 Exam: Question 3 Scoring Guide

2017 Exam: Question 3 Prompt

If 2018’s Question 3 is difficult, 2017 seems to turn that difficulty up to 11. (Ignore, for the purposes of this ETA workshop, how linear time works.) The prompt is to respond to “[Chris] Hedges’ argument that ;the most essential skill . . . is artifice.'” The first two sentences of the excerpt to which you must respond mention “political theater,” “consumer culture,” and “faux intimacy.”

This is worth an ETA focus, however, because the prompt only seems difficult. It is very much in your wheelhouse. The topic is how an “image-based culture” deals in distorted narratives and performative, artificial emotions. More interesting is that you’re responding to the idea of artifice as a skill — “the most essential skill,” according to the excerpt. As students, you are told constantly which skills are most important.

Which means the real difficulty of this prompt isn’t the language, nor the seemingly abstract concept, but the requirement that you draw from a wide range of experiences, readings, logic, etc., to defend your position. You need to know a little bit about a lot of things.

• Link: 2017 Exam: Question 3 Prompt

2017 Chief Reader Report (Question 3 Only)

To understand how this is assessed, look at the Chief Reader’s explanation:

This year’s prompt casts a wide net. Responses ranged from political and historical approaches to responses that focused on consumerism, materialism, and advertising. The prompt drew many students into political discussions, but some of the best essays took on consumer culture. Students explored the artifice they found in advertisements and in pop culture: they wrote about reality television, glorification of sports icons, and media coverage of pop celebrities. Many students drew evidence from their experiences living in a world dominated by social media, a world in which images were frequently presentations of self.

That “wide net” is a test by itself. In the next paragraph of the report, the College Board notes that “most students focused on standard definitions of artifice and leaned on unsurprising examples.” Remember Paul Graham? You want to find the surprising and interesting approach to your topic. You want to find the river.

You can still do well on Question 3 by addressing Hitler’s rise to power, recent American elections, and the novels you’ve read in school. Those are “unsurprising examples,” but they could support a serviceable position. What you want, though, is to search your experience for what this report calls “apt examples,” which really means specific and noteworthy examples. Knowing a bit about “Rousseau and Machiavelli and… Plato’s Allegory of the Cave” will help you. Knowing history, especially “specific details of… policies and decisions,” will help you.

• Link: 2017 Chief Reader Report (Question 3 Only)

2017 Exam: Question 3 Scoring Guide

You are looking at the selection of detail, then, in these student essays. The one scoring a 6 is adequate, and rewarded as adequate, but it leans on The Hunger Games. Again, there is no prohibition on popular fiction, popular television, famous historical moments, etc.; it may be better, however, to stretch your thinking beyond the “unsurprising examples.”

It’s worth linking directly to the essay that earned an 8:

• “Although many may argue that a nation’s leaders…”

Take careful note of how this essay uses more unexpected references to history alongside recent presidential elections. The how is what separates it, not just the surprising knowledge of Machiavelli. This is a student with a sense of how Machiavelli’s ideas have played out in contemporary politics.

• Link: 2017 Exam: Question 3 Scoring Guide

2005 Exam: Question 3 Prompt

We’re reaching back to 2005 to use a different kind of argument prompt. You’re given a controversial claim (“[W]hatever money you’re spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away”) from an article called “The Singer Solution to World Poverty.” You must then evaluate the pros and cons of that position before indicating, as part of your own argument, which is more persuasive.

The topic seems straightforward, but it requires you to navigate complex issues like human nature and politics. We will practice it because it is also easy to stray from the prompt — to forget to do exactly what the prompt asks you to do. You must evaluate Singer’s position, offering evidence in support of and against it.

• Link: 2005 Exam: Question 3 Prompt

2005 Section II Question 3 Scoring Commentary

Back in 2005, these materials were separated, so you won’t find the scoring rubric at the beginning of this document. That rubric (2005 Section II Question 3 Scoring Rubric) is identical to the current one for Question 3, however.

The most critical piece of information for our ETA purposes is this: “The task called upon students to flesh out the structure of Singer’s argument, especially its underlying assumptions.” All you are given in many of these argument prompts is an excerpt or summary of a position; in those cases, you must demonstrate your ability to think critically about what is assumed.

• Link: 2005 Section II Question 3 Scoring Commentary

2005 Section II Question 3 Student Essays

Focus on the essays scored an 8. In almost any general argument, you can generate momentum by defining terms; in this case, the College Boards notes that “[p]articularly compelling is the essay’s questioning of the definitions of and distinctions between ‘luxury and necessity.'” This prompt requires you to make that distinction clear, but in most cases, you’ll be able to start your essay by setting parameters and defining terms. In 2017, it’s the definition of “artifice”; in 2018, it’s the definition of “the unknown.”

What you want to avoid is stylistic: Don’t write, “The definition of [x] is [y]”; instead, talk about the term in context. For this 2005 prompt, it’s the idea of drawing a line. Where should we make the distinction between luxury and necessity?

• Link: 2005 Section II Question 3 Student Essays

Q&A: Interstitial ETA Work

Start with whatever directions you are given through Google Classroom. That’s where you’ll find any formal work associated with this prompt. It’s up to you, however, to utilize this opportunity to prepare for the exam. Ask questions in the comment section below. Invite your peers and teacher into a discussion of how these high-scoring essays work and how you can emulate them.

The main workshop post for these ETA exercises is here: AP Exam: Section II — ETA Workshop.

The full practice assignment for Section II is here: AP Exam: Section II — Workshop.

Section II, Question 1 — ETA Workshop

Synthesis: Students read several texts about a topic and create an argument that synthesizes at least three of the sources to support their thesis.

You can find these materials on the College Board’s website. I am organizing them for you so we can discuss the exemplary essays interstitially.

When studying on your own, look only at the highest-scoring essay. You can learn from the other ones, certainly, but it is a more efficient use of your time to deconstruct the essays that earn an 8 or 9. Each element of effective writing you would emulate in a timed setting is best demonstrated by those highest-scoring essays.

For the 2018 exam, however, you should look at both the essay earning an 8 and the essay earning a 6. The prompt is introduced below and given some context.

Note that for the purposes of this ETA workshop, we are only looking at the question from 2018.

2018 Exam: Question 1 Prompt

The main reason for us to consider Question 1 from the 2018 exam is the prompt’s topic: eminent domain. Here is what the Chief Reader Report has to say about it:

While the language was accessible, students seemed to lack familiarity with the topic, and many struggled. The struggles suggest many classes are not asking students to engage in subjects that are not within teenagers’ immediate concerns. As a result of this lack, many students merely repeated the provided information, not interrogating it or using it as a means to support their own claim.

In other words, this is not in your wheelhouse. Questions about public libraries, honor codes, and technology in schools — all topics on Question 1 in past years — are likely easier for you to write about. You start your reading of the sources already sure that you have outside information and understanding to use. Eminent domain, however, deals with property ownership, which is not, as the College Board says, “within teenagers’ immediate concerns.” Even the Question 1 Introduction is off-putting:

Eminent domain is the power governments have to acquire property from private owners for public use. The rationale behind eminent domain is that governments have greater legal authority over lands within their dominion than do private owners. Eminent domain has been instituted in one way or another throughout the world for hundreds of years.

Your job is to move quickly and completely past the need for the topic to be one of your “immediate concerns.” The sources will do some of that work for you, but in this case, you have to prove that you are imaginative and empathetic enough to see turn the topic of eminent domain into a workable prompt.

• Link: 2018 Exam: Question 1 Prompt

2018 Exam: Question 1 Scoring Guide

For this ETA work, you should start with the Chief Reader Report:

• 2018 Exam: Question 1 Chief Reader Report

The reason why: You must separate what you know about synthesis writing in untimed essays, what you’ve been taught about document-based questions in other subjects, and what is required for this timed essay. When you have time for the writing process, you will almost always find the nuance in other voices and perspectives. In other subject areas, a document-based question will be scored with a different rubric — one that does not stress the same qualities that are stressed here.

In brief, you must be able to piece together a nuanced argument of your own from these sources. As the College Board puts it in that Chief Reader Report:

Students often do not recognize nuance within the provided sources. They need to see not only what the provided arguments claim, but the context in which these arguments were created…
Students tend to create their arguments within a binary, as if the responses to the issues are either all good or all bad. Students need to recognize that most contested issues are contested because there often is sound support for all sides of the issue.

In our course, you have read widely and practiced exactly this sort of critical thinking. It’s now a matter of pulling it together in 40 minutes. The time constraints are unfair, at least in a writing-outside-of-tests sense, but it is still more than possible to work with these sources. As the Overview in the Scoring Guide puts it:

To do well, students were expected to understand that they were, in essence, creating an argument using the supplied information, as well as knowledge that they already possessed. Students also needed to understand that, with sources arguing among one another, students did not have to accept each source as “correct,” but rather, they needed to evaluate the provided information based on their own knowledge and perceptions of the world.

Emphasis mine. You are a thoughtful, experienced human being; your perspective must be on equal footing with the sources that are talking with each other (or, as that overview says, “arguing among one another”).

As for the scored essays themselves: Pay careful attention to the use of the counterargument in the essay earning an 8 (“Additionally, the fourth paragraph presents a counterargument regarding the constitutionality of eminent domain and then offers an effective rebuttal”), and note that the essay earning a 6 is successful in using multiple sources in a paragraph (“the third paragraph provides an adequate explanation of “false promises” and uses sources B and D to sufficiently support the argument”).

• Link: 2018 Exam: Question 1 Scoring Guide

Q&A: Interstitial ETA Work

Start with whatever directions you are given through Google Classroom. That’s where you’ll find any formal work associated with this prompt. It’s up to you, however, to utilize this opportunity to prepare for the exam. Ask questions in the comment section below. Invite your peers and teacher into a discussion of how these high-scoring essays work and how you can emulate them.

The main workshop post for these ETA exercises is here: AP Exam: Section II — ETA Workshop.

The full practice assignment for Section II is here: AP Exam: Section II — Workshop.

Section II, Question 2 — ETA Workshop

Rhetorical analysis: Students read a non-fiction text and analyze how the writer’s language choices contribute to his or her purpose and intended meaning for the text.

You can find these materials on the College Board’s website. I am organizing them for you so we can discuss the exemplary essays interstitially.

Start by reading the prompt carefully. Read the passage, taking brief notes as you go. Compare those notes to the Overview, which will highlight critical elements of the passage, prompt, and the best responses.

Then, for each prompt, look only at the highest-scoring essay. You can learn from the other ones, certainly, but it is a more efficient use of your time to deconstruct the essays that earn an 8 or 9. Each element of effective writing you would emulate in a timed setting is best demonstrated by those highest-scoring essays.

The 2018 exam is introduced below. The preceding years are presented in a list.

2018 Exam: Question 2 Prompt

The College Board’s Overview identifies one of the chief reasons to apply an ETA reading to this prompt: “This year’s task differed from previous iterations in that it was significantly lengthier; however, its language was very accessible to students.” It’s a long piece, but if you know what you’re doing, that ends up helping you.

The most important reason to start with 2018, however, is this sentence in the Overview: “While elements of style certainly merit consideration, they are not the first ingredient on which rhetors focus when developing strategies to persuade audiences: Style is the third canon of rhetoric, not the first or even the second.”

You probably don’t know what “rhetor” means (it’s the person engaging in rhetoric, and the term used by the folks who write and score your AP exam) nor exactly what is meant by the “canon[s] of rhetoric.” It’s information you have learned in a different context, however, making this the best place to apply an ETA perspective.

You can look at what these graders mean by “canons of rhetoric” in any of a dozen places. I suggest this one, because it’s a little more straightforward; the best source for this sort of thing, however, is the Forest of Rhetoric at BYU. Regardless of the source, what matters on Question 2 is that you understand what graders are looking for you to do: consider the relationship between the writer/speaker and the audience; consider appeals to logic and ethos that could persuade that audience; consider what details are included (and which are excluded); and consider the arrangement of the piece as it relates to the audience. Style (e.g., repetition, parallelism, figurative language) should be considered after the big stuff, so to speak.

Here’s how the College Board summarizes all that in the 2018 Overview:

To understand these choices and how they work, a student must first consider the rhetor’s relationship to the audience, as well as how this relationship necessitates both what this specific rhetor should include in — and exclude from — the speech to this specific audience. Additionally, a student must consider how the rhetor arranges the speech for the particular audience in the specific circumstances of the speech.

Because of its length, this passage invites you to consider those first two canons before any stylistic strategies.

• Link: 2018 Exam: Question 2 Prompt

2018 Exam: Question 2 Scoring Guide

Now that you’ve read all that, here’s why 2018 is so instructive in terms of test prep: The highest-scoring essay provided by the College Board focuses on style, specifically parallelism and diction, more than those first two canons. That’s important. It’s possible to do well with strategies like anaphora, if you connect those strategies to the audience, rhetorical context, etc.

It’s also possible to do well despite errors, as the scoring commentary notes. The essay earning an 8 needs “a more complete opening paragraph and some more clearly defined paragraph breaks,” but its analysis is accurate and apt. When you deconstruct this one to emulate its effectiveness, you must focus on that.

• Link: 2018 Exam: Question 2 Scoring Guide

Other Places for ETA Work

2017 Exam: Question 2 Prompt | Useful because, as the College Board notes, it “challenged students to think about how Luce managed her difficult task (of being asked to speak about problems with the press) with her audience of fellow journalists, the very people she would be criticizing.” The analysis has to grapple with audience and context specifically, as the essay earning an 8 does.

• 2017 Exam: Question 2 Scoring Guide

2016 Exam: Question 2 Prompt | This one, like the 2018 prompt, invites a greater focus on audience and arrangement over style. It’s also an example of how important the prompt itself is. Often, the prompt will give you necessary information about the context of the piece. In this case, as the College Board notes in their Overview, most of the necessary information is in the prompt. The only thing not given, in terms of context/audience/speaker, is “the laudatory nature of Thatcher’s work.”

• 2016 Exam: Question 2 Scoring Guide

2015 Exam: Question 2 Prompt | Again, the College Board designed this prompt to force students to look at rhetoric “not merely as words on the page but as words in action, words intended to have a social impact.” Even the use of “choices” (over “strategies” or “devices”) is meant to focus on “the primacy of authorial agency and communicative purpose.” This is what makes Question 2 more authentic than you thought: the attempt to connect you to real people persuading others in real contexts.

• 2015 Exam: Question 2 Scoring Guide

Q&A: Interstitial ETA Work

Start with whatever directions you are given through Google Classroom. That’s where you’ll find any formal work associated with this prompt. It’s up to you, however, to utilize this opportunity to prepare for the exam. Ask questions in the comment section below. Invite your peers and teacher into a discussion of how these high-scoring essays work and how you can emulate them.

Not to be confused with the workshop that focuses on completing a practice run at Section II:

AP Exam: Section II — Workshop

This ETA or emulation-through-analysis workshop invites analysis of the exemplary essays provided by the College Board. This workshop takes Step #5 from that post (“Read all of the resources for that question: sample essays, scoring explanations, grader reports, etc.”) and converts it into a standalone but repeatable exercise. It does not require that you write your own response, although that would certainly be permissible.

Question By Question

Question 2 — Rhetorical Analysis: Students read a non-fiction text and analyze how the writer’s language choices contribute to his or her purpose and intended meaning for the text.

AP Exam: Section II, Question 2 — ETA Workshop

Question 1 — Synthesis: Students read several texts about a topic and create an argument that synthesizes at least three of the sources to support their thesis.

AP Exam: Section II, Question 1 — ETA Workshop

Question 3 — Argument: Students create an evidence-based argument that responds to a given topic.

AP Exam: Section II, Question 3 — ETA Workshop