AP Exams
AP English Literature practice and prep course
Poetry, prose fiction, literary interpretation, and the three free-response essay types. Start with 13 free questions. The full course adds the lessons, the study guide, and practice tests.
Course outline
- Read character through action and choiceBuild a claim about a character from specific behavior under pressure, relationships, contradiction, and refusal to change, then test it against the whole passage.22 questions
- Ask what the setting changesTreat setting as a source of meaning: how physical, social, and historical conditions restrict, expose, or press on characters and shift your interpretation.15 questions
- Read how the arrangement shapes the eventsLearn to explain how sequence, delayed information, repetition, shifts, and pacing change meaning, and to map a passage in four short phrases.23 questions
- Who is telling it, and what can they see?Judge a narrator or speaker by distance, knowledge, selection, and evidence of gaps, and learn to separate limitation from unreliability without confusing voice and author.22 questions
- Slow down at the word and sentence that carry the pressurePractice close reading of connotation, repetition, degree words, syntax, ambiguity, and turn each quotation into commentary that could not fit anywhere else.21 questions
- Explain what each figure of speech doesInterpret metaphor, personification, extended comparison, image patterns, symbols, and allusion by naming the quality transferred and connecting it to meaning.20 questions
- Hold the tension and explain itQualify interpretations, test genuine ambiguity, and compare competing readings against the whole passage, using Mansfield and Chopin.34 questions
- Test your first reading against the whole passageBuild a prose interpretation from evidence across an excerpt, use framing information, and revise claims as the passage shifts, with Dickens and Hardy.25 questions
- Read dialogue as action, and stage directions as evidenceAnalyze what dialogue does, how stage directions and silence work as evidence, and how the balance of power turns in drama, using Wilde and Glaspell.26 questions
- Why the almost-right answer is wrongProse and drama multiple-choice practice: learn the five ways plausible distractors fail and review misses by scope, function, degree, inference, or precision.38 questions
- Read the situation before you interpret the poemEstablish the speaker's situation, recover difficult syntax, and track a poem's movement before you interpret its figurative language.26 questions
- Ask what the arrangement doesLearn to explain how line breaks, stanza movement, punctuation, repetition, and sound shape meaning in a poem without relying on a catalog of terms.27 questions
- Match your evidence to the scale of the questionFive timed-style poetry clusters on Marvell, Keats, Dickinson, Hardy, Millay, Lowell, and Whitman for practicing local versus whole-poem decisions.38 questions
- Know exactly where each of the six points comes fromLearn how the thesis, evidence and commentary, and sophistication rows of the AP Literature rubric are scored, and how Row B differs between Q1, Q2, and Q3.16 questions
- Argue from the poem's movementPlan and write the Poetry Analysis essay: build a thesis from the poem's movement, choose precise evidence, and keep commentary consistent across the line of reasoning.15 questions
- Let the thesis survive the whole passagePlan and write the Prose Fiction Analysis essay: use the framing information, draw evidence from across the passage, and turn plot summary into commentary.15 questions
- Choose the work that fits the taskDefine the task's concept narrowly, test works against it with specific scenes, and build a flexible Question 3 portfolio before exam day.17 questions
- Build the argument from scene to whole workAnchor each body paragraph in a specific scene, turn evidence into commentary, and always finish by connecting the scene to the work as a whole.18 questions
- Run the full two-hour free-response sectionComplete a poetry, prose-drama, and Literary Argument essay in one timed two-hour section, then audit where your time went.3 questions
- Mix the skills and diagnose the errorPractice drama passages with no skill labels, classify each miss as scope, function, degree, inference, or complexity, and trace repeated errors to their source.28 questions
- Turn each missed question into one precise fixName each error with one of six labels, route it to a single correction, retest on fresh material, and rate your readiness before Practice Exam 1.6 questions
- Practice Exam 1: Multiple ChoicePractice Exam 1 Section I: 55 multiple-choice questions on five passage sets, timed at 60 minutes, with rationales.55 questions
- Practice Exam 1: Free ResponsePractice Exam 1 Section II: three free-response essays (poetry, prose fiction, literary argument) in 120 minutes, with task-specific scoring guidance.3 questions
- Practice Exam 2: Multiple ChoicePractice Exam 2 Section I: 55 multiple-choice questions on five passage sets, timed at 60 minutes, with rationales.55 questions
- Practice Exam 2: Free ResponsePractice Exam 2 Section II: three free-response essays (poetry, prose fiction, literary argument) in 120 minutes, with task-specific scoring guidance.3 questions