Blog Post #1: Multiple Choice Reflection

The AP English Literature and Composition multiple-choice test, section one of the AP exam, is broken into multiple passages, each followed by 10-15 multiple-choice-style questions. To understand what this test looks like in application, my AP Literature and Composition class completed two passages out of the Practice Exam 2 Multiple Choice in Rankin's and Murphy's 5 Steps to a 5. The two passages included a poetry passage, a soliloquy from Shakespeare's King Richard II, and a non-fiction passage, The Solitude of Self by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Having the opportunity to take this practice exam gave me the freedom to make all the observations and comparisons I wanted. First and foremost, in putting this exam up against the AP English Language and Composition multiple-choice tests I am used to taking, I realized that the value in the passages lies more in the overall message of the piece than in the smaller details. This doesn't, however, mean that the stylistic choices and rhetorical devices aren't important; this means that more understanding can be gained by looking at the small details through the lens of the passage's message, rather than collect devices and details to build up to a message. Having noticed this I can see that the AP Literature multiple-choice passages, especially the non-fiction passage, should be approached more deductively than an AP Language and Composition multiple-choice. I have yet to fully implement this idea in my approach to the test, as three out of the four questions that I missed - out of the questions I /actually/ had time to finish - were focused more towards the general ideas presented in both of the passages, rather than the fine details and devices. This understanding will allow me to work far more efficiently on future multiple-choice exams; I ran out of time with five questions left to answer - I went into the test with no strategy for time management. In doing this, I spent far too long looking for devices and details that wound up being completely irrelevant to the valuable information available in the text. I am more comfortable working from the general message of a piece into the details, and because of that, I think it is a reasonable next step for me to approach future exams through deductive means. Ultimately, I did not do as well as I wanted to on this practice multiple-choice test, but there is an opportunity to take something from everything; the quantity of information found in a text is worth a fraction of the quality of information found in a text - this is especially true on the AP English Literature and Composition multiple-choice test.