APFIVE AP Spanish Literature Exam Info
Download PDFThe AP Spanish Literature and Culture Exam will test your understanding of the literary and cultural concepts presented in the course units, as well as your ability to apply what you learned from the required texts to interpret and analyze other non-required texts.
In this exam, you’ll complete the multiple-choice and free-response sections on paper.
AP Spanish Literature and Culture Exam
This is the regularly scheduled date for the AP Spanish Literature and Culture Exam.
Exam Components
Section IA: Multiple Choice Interpretive Listening
This section includes 3 sets of questions based on authentic audio texts including:
- An excerpt from an interview with an author
- A recited poem that is not on the required reading list
- A presentation on a literary topic related to course content
You will have time to skim the questions for each set before listening to the audio.
The interview and presentation will be played once; the recited poem will be played twice.
Section IB: Multiple Choice Reading Analysis
This section includes 6 sets of 7–10 questions based on readings from a variety of genres, periods, and places in the Spanish-speaking world.
Readings include:
- Works from the required reading list
- Works outside the required reading list
- A passage of literary criticism regarding a work or author from the list
One set will contain 2 passages that are related by theme—one of those passages is taken from the required reading list and the other is from a non-required text.
Section II: Free Response
The free-response sections includes two short-answer questions and two long-essay questions:
- 2 Short-Answer Questions: Suggested time: 15 minutes each (~30 minutes)
- Text Explanation: You’ll read an excerpt from a text on the required reading list, identify the author and period of the text, and explain the development of a given theme found within the excerpt in relation to the whole work from which the excerpt is taken.
- Text and Art Comparison: You’ll read an excerpt from a text on the required reading list and study an image of a work of art (e.g., a painting, photograph, sculpture, or drawing) related by theme to the text. You will compare how a particular theme is represented in both the text and the image, and then connect that theme to the genre, period, or movement of the text.
- 2 Essay Questions: Suggested time: 35 minutes each (~70 minutes)
- Analysis of a Single Text: You’ll read an excerpt from a text on the required reading list and then analyze how the text represents the characteristics of a particular genre as well as a particular historical, cultural, or social context.
- Text Comparison: You’ll read 2 excerpts related by theme—one from a text on the required list, the other from a text not on the list—and analyze the effect of literary devices that the authors use in the texts to develop a particular theme that is provided in the question prompt.
Skills You'll Learn
Interpreting, analyzing, and comparing literary works
Relating literary works to their cultural and historical contexts
Comparing literary works to works of art
Writing a literary analysis using correct literary terms
Discussing works of literature
Units
Unit 1 – La época medieval
As you read works of medieval Spanish literature, you’ll learn to understand the language patterns of the period while exploring how historical events, religious values, and customary cultural practices create the settings for the texts.
Topics may include:
- Identifying themes in texts
- Identifying the structural, stylistic, and rhetorical devices used in texts
- Identifying the genres of texts
- Identifying the aspects of texts that represent their period
Unit 2 – El siglo XVI en la literatura española
You’ll continue to build your skills in understanding and analyzing texts as you study literary works from the 16th century, which opened a period known as the Golden Age in Spanish literature.
Topics may include:
- Connecting themes to characters in and across texts
- Comparing texts’ themes and structural, stylistic, and rhetorical features
- Relating texts to their historical, geopolitical, and sociocultural contexts
Unit 3 – El siglo XVII en la literatura española
You’ll explore works from the second half of the Golden Age, a period which saw the production of several masterpieces of literature written in Spanish.
Topics may include:
- Comparing themes of texts from different eras
- Comparing texts to artwork
- Understanding how literary genres evolved over time
- Identifying cultural products, practices, and perspectives in texts
Unit 4 – Romanticismo, realismo y naturalismo
You’ll read and analyze works from the 19th century—two texts representing the literary movement of Romanticism and two representing the later movements of Realism and Naturalism.
Topics may include:
- How the literary features of texts communicate the author’s message
- Understanding implied meanings, ambiguities, and nuances
- Connecting texts to the literary movements of the period
Unit 5 – La Generación del 98 y Modernismo
You’ll learn about the works and philosophy of La Generación del 98—a group of writers active in Spain around the time of the Spanish-American War—and explore the related literary movement of Modernism.
Topics may include:
- Relating texts to contemporary global issues
- How texts reflect or challenge perceptions of a culture
- How behaviors and attitudes presented in texts reflect sociocultural, geopolitical, and historical contexts
Unit 6 – Teatro y poesía del siglo XX
You’ll begin your study of 20th-century literature by reading and analyzing works of poetry and drama that embody the movements of that period, such as the Vanguard and the Theater of the Absurd.
Topics may include:
- Perspective, attitude, and tone
- Linguistic features such as formal and informal language
- The relationship between a literary movement and cultural perspectives
- Identifying themes and features of artistic representations
Unit 7 – El Boom latinoamericano
You’ll continue your study of 20th-century literature as you learn about authors of the “boom” of the 1960s and 1970s, when Latin American novels and short stories won acclaim and popularity worldwide.
Topics may include:
- The relationship between the structure of a text and its content
- How cultural beliefs and attitudes affect the interpretation of a text
- Comparing texts in terms of structure and style
Unit 8 – Escritores contemporáneos: EE.UU. y España
You’ll read and analyze recent works that present the realities of life in the 1970s and 1980s in the United States and Spain.
Topics may include:
- How personal beliefs and opinions affect the interpretation of a text
- Relating literary texts to information from other disciplines
- Connections between primary and secondary texts