APFIVE AP English Language Exam Info
Download PDFThe AP English Language and Composition Exam will test your understanding of the concepts covered in the course units, as well as your ability to analyze texts and develop written arguments.
This is a fully digital exam. You’ll complete multiple-choice and free-response questions in the Bluebook testing app, with all responses automatically submitted at the end of the exam.
AP English Language and Composition Exam
This is the regularly scheduled date for the AP English Language and Composition Exam.
Exam Components
Section 1: Multiple Choice
Excerpts from nonfiction texts are accompanied by several multiple-choice questions:
- 23–25 Reading questions: You’ll be asked to read and analyze nonfiction texts.
- 20–22 Writing questions: You’ll be asked to read like a writer and consider revisions to the text.
Section 2: Free Response
The 2 hour and 15 minute time limit for this section includes a 15-minute reading period.
In the free-response section, you’ll respond to three questions with written answers. This section tests your skill in composition in three areas:
- Synthesis: After reading 6 texts about a topic (including visual and quantitative sources), you will compose an argument that combines and cites at least 3 of the sources to support your thesis.
- Rhetorical analysis: You will read a nonfiction text and analyze how the writer’s language choices contribute to the intended meaning and purpose of the text.
- Argument: You will create an evidence-based argument that responds to a given topic.
Skills You'll Learn
Reading closely, analyzing, and interpreting a piece of writing
Evaluating a source of information
Gathering and consolidating information from different sources
Writing an evidence-based argument
Drafting and revising a piece of writing
Units
Unit 1 – Claims, Reasoning, and Evidence
You’ll learn to identify and analyze the claims in a text and determine whether the writer backs up their assertions with reasoning and evidence.
Skills you will practice may include:
- Identifying the purpose and intended audience of a text
- Examining how evidence supports a claim
- Developing paragraphs as part of an effective argument
Unit 2 – Organizing Information for a Specific Audience
You’ll learn about how writers organize information and evidence to support a specific argument and appeal to a particular audience.
Skills you will practice may include:
- Analyzing audience and its relationship to the purpose of an argument
- Building an argument with relevant and strategic evidence
- Developing thesis statements
- Developing structure and integrating evidence to reflect a line of reasoning
Unit 3 – Perspectives and How Arguments Relate
You’ll explore the range of perspectives around a topic and how various arguments can relate and respond to one another.
Skills you will practice may include:
- Identifying and describing different claims or lines of reasoning
- Identifying and avoiding flawed lines of reasoning
- Introducing and integrating sources and evidence
- Using sufficient evidence for an argument
- Attributing and citing references
- Developing parts of a text with cause-effect and narrative methods
Unit 4 – How writers develop arguments, intros, and conclusions
You’ll examine how a writer makes choices about methods of developing arguments, introductions, and conclusions.
Skills you will practice may include:
- Developing and connecting thesis statements and lines of reasoning
- Developing introductions and conclusions
- Developing parts of a text with comparison–contrast and definition–description methods
Unit 5 – How a writer brings all parts of an argument together
You’ll focus on the very specific and minute choices a writer makes to bring all the parts of an argument together.
Skills you will practice may include:
- Developing commentary throughout paragraphs
- Maintaining ideas throughout an argument
- Using modifiers to qualify an argument and convey perspective
- Using transitions
Unit 6 – Position, Perspective, and Bias
You’ll work to understand the difference between position and perspective, how to consider bias, and how to integrate and address multiple perspectives in an argument.
Skills you will practice may include:
- Incorporating multiple perspectives strategically into an argument
- Recognizing and accounting for bias
- Adjusting an argument to address new evidence
- Analyzing tone and shifts in tone
Unit 7 – Successful and Unsuccessful Arguments
You’ll consider the breadth and complexity of arguments around a topic and what makes each successful or unsuccessful.
Skills you will practice may include:
- Examining complexities in issues
- Considering how words, phrases, and clauses can modify and limit an argument
- Examining how counterargument or alternative perspectives affect an argument
- Exploring how sentence development affects an argument
Unit 8 – Stylistic Choices
You’ll explore the stylistic choices a writer can make and how those choices affect an argument.
Skills you will practice may include:
- Choosing comparisons based on an audience
- Considering how sentence development and word choice affect how the writer is perceived by an audience
- Considering how all choices made in an argument affect the audience
- Considering how style affects an argument
Unit 9 – Developing a Complex Argument
You’ll consider a wide range of perspectives as you develop a complex argument.
Skills you will practice may include:
- Strategically conceding, rebutting, or refuting information
- Crafting an argument through stylistic choices like word choice and description