Truth be told, we’ve all had one of those moments while taking a test where you get to a question on a topic you had hoped wouldn’t be on it. Personally, I think it helps if you are able to tell what type of question it is; does it want the theme or the synonym for a word from a piece you read? Lucky for those of you like me, Mr. Decker has provided us with the usual categories that a poetry question may fall under on an AP test.
There are seven main categories: dramatic situation, structure, theme, grammar/meaning of words, images and figurative language, diction, and tone/literary devices/metrics. Possible questions from these categories are (in the same order):
“Who is speaking?”
“How are stanzas 1 and 2 related to stanza 3?”
“Which of the following best sums up the meaning of stanza 2?”
“Which of the following best defines the word ‘glass’ as it is used in line 9?” “To which of the following does the poet compare his love?”
“Which of the following words is used to suggest the poet’s dislike of winter?” “The meter of the last line in each stanza is...”
When looking at the question and the possible answers for it you should be able to identify the category type. For example, you’re given a question that looks like this:
In line 3, the phrase “pensive citadels” can best be paraphrased as
A. towers in which students are imprisoned
B. castles under siege
C. dreary fortresses
D. refuges for contemplation
E. strongholds that inspire thought
First let’s figure out what sort of question this is. It’s not asking about the content (speaker, audience, setting) of the poem which rules out dramatic situation, we can easily rule out structure, it’s not asking about a main idea so it’s not theme, is doesn’t really include figurative language or direct imagery, and it’s not asking you to identify the tone, used literary devices, or metrics of the piece. This leaves us with grammar/meaning of words and diction. The question states though that it was how the line can “best be paraphrased.” It’s not looking for the direct meaning of the words and there’s really nothing grammatically involved. This leaves us with diction, which makes sense also with the answers provided. Each answer includes another word for a citadel (A, B, C have different connotations) as well as pensive (A, B, C have different connotation). Now it’s just up to you to decide whether it’s D or E.
To understand more about the AP multiple choice questions I Googled and found a PDF article with all of the same information Decker has given us and more. They had a section on the difficulty of the questions which looked familiar. It started with the easiest category and worked its way up: Factual, Main Idea, and Hidden Idea. It’s different wording, but it’s basically noting that the AP tests are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy with questions ranging in difficulty (Knowledge all the way up to Evaluation).
I also really liked the reasons they gave for why answers are wrong. By now we’re all usually pretty good at ruling out an unreasonable choice, but extra pointers don’t hurt.
1) Irrelevant to the question
2) Contradictory to the passage
3) Unreasonable (the “Huh?” choice)
4) Too general or too specific
5) Never addressed in the passage
6) Look for the specific words that make the answer wrong
Whether you choose to use the help Mr. Decker has provided us doesn’t matter, but you’ve got to admit that it helps to understand where the questions are coming from.
Source: AP ENGLISH LITERATURE – Multiple Choice Testing
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4 comments:
I also think that it is beneficial to know which types of questions will show up on the AP lit test. It allows us, the test takers, to comprehend the questions more easily. I was overjoyed when Mr. Decker taught us this because this method is what I used to study for the ACT. After doing practice problems using this method for the ACT, I began to see patterns in answers, which led to a good score. I think that using this method when studying for the AP test will lead to the same results.
It really helps to know what kind of question it is, whether because it can rule out a choice or just to give you a little more confidence when answering. It's really nice that you put example questions, example answers, then ways to piece it all together. Very organized and dead on. This is going to be helpful on the ACT test.
Knowing these categories does help narrow down what we have to think about when we know what topic a question is dealing with. It also provides us a way to know what to think about for each piece we read in class as practice for when we actually take the test. For example, we can start, in our own minds, thinking about how each poem might be structured, why an author might have chosen one word instead of another, or what the "we's" or "they's" refer to in a poem. Elizabeth, I also like what you included for reasons why an answer can be wrong. Watching out for those things in answers would really help us if we choose to pay attention to those details as we are practicing now. All in all, I am thankful that we are taking the time to go through this in class.
I also thought that putting them in categorys helped but in a different way. It really showed me how well prepared i was for all of the literary technique questions. I feel that we have focused on them alot and that identifying them on ap questions is very easy. On the flip side though it shows that either we as a class or i myself need to work on the other sections such as theme and structure. I had no idea what to look for when i saw the first structure question. I tried looking for ideas and thing but i needed to look more at the punctuation. I think we need to almost take another week doing this stuff because it feels as if nothing but more practice can truly prepare us for the AP test.
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