I have created 13 resources to help AP English Language teachers prepare students for the multiple choice portion of the exam, but I have never written explicitly about them in one post. In a departure from my typical how-to article, this piece is a simple breakdown of the resources I have created for this element of the test. If you want to test drive some of these materials, I’ll email you a sampler.
There are TWELVE of these practice sets, and each is unique. What they have in common is that they are ALIGNED with the 2019 CED and CHANGES TO THE EXAM. In addition, all answer keys include thorough explanations. Each exercise is provided in both PDF and Google Slides.
Here’s the breakdown:
#1 is on READING and includes five passages from Samuel Johnson, Yoshida Kenko, Zitkala-Sa, Mark Twain, and Robert Louis Stevenson.
#2 is on DOCUMENTATION and includes five exercises using Chicago Manual of Style, APA, MLA, in-text citations, clarification notes, and footnotes.
#3 is on READING and includes five passages by G.K. Chesterton, John Boehner, Susan B. Anthony, Winston Churchill, and Jane Austen.
#4 is on READING and includes five passages by A. C. Benson, Henry Canby (2), Julia Ward Howe, and Catherine of Aragon.
#5 is on READING and includes five passages by Benazir Bhutto, Hillary Rodham (Clinton), Matilda Joslyn Gage (2), and Abraham Lincoln.
In FULL PRACTICE #1, all FIVE of the first multiple choice practice sets are numbered consecutively so that students who have not yet seen those mini practice sets can get a feel for time management.
#6 is on READING and begins a turn toward having more questions on ONE passage. In this set, all questions are based on a letter Benjamin Franklin wrote to James Read.
#7 is on READING and uses letters written by Frederick Douglass and Phyllis Wheatley.
#8 is on READING and uses a piece Edgar Allan Poe wrote in 1845 for The Broadway Journal.
#9 is on READING and uses a letter Clementine Churchill wrote to her husband, Winston.
#10 is on READING and uses an excerpt of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
#11 is on COMPOSITION (finally, right?!) and is the newest addition to the multiple choice resource set.
(How to Have) Question Stem Swagger on the AP English Language & Composition Exam
This 18-page guide includes the following:
• A brief explanation of question design.
• A categorized student-friendly list of question stems taken from two released AP English Language and Composition Exams. These categories could certainly be reorganized. In order to show students how the questions are worded, some stems are left intact. Others contain blanks and can be easily used as templates for the question-writing activity.
• A Suggestions for Stem Use list.
• A detailed activity using stem strategies with “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Page references are from The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
• Another version of page one of the “Sinners” activity without page numbers. This page contains blanks so that the teacher can adapt the assignment for the textbook or online resource being used.
• A detailed activity using stem strategies with Chapter 1 of The Things They Carried.
• A one-page Strategies for Improving Performance tips sheet.
• A stem defense template for one-passage multiple choice practice. Students complete a timed practice (roughly one minute per question from a released exam), compare answers with a partner or team and make changes as necessary, find out the correct answer, and write a brief defense of the correct answer for each one missed.
• A two-page article on Angie’s take on changes to the AP Lang exam.
• All materials are provided in both PDF and Google Slides.
And just in case you need them all, I have bundled these resources in several different ways and discounted those collections.
Bundle #1 includes the first five practice sets PLUS the consecutively-numbered full practice. This one is is steeply discounted to account for the duplication. This set includes four reading passages and one documentation set but no composition questions.
Bundle #2 includes five reading sets. There are no documentation or composition questions, and there is no full-length practice exam. This bundle, however, is closer to the AP Lang exam format because there are 10-12 questions for each passage as opposed to just two to four questions for each passage (as in Bundle #1).
The Super Bundle has it all–11 mini practice sets with 55 exercises total, the full-length practice test, and Question Stem Swagger. This is the only one of the three bundles that includes Set #11, the composition practice. Everything is print ready, and all materials are on Google Slides for remote instruction.
