These observations are based on my experience with the English Literature AP (teacher, exam reader, exam reading table leader), but I am sure that they apply to English Language, History, and to some degree the Free Response Questions on any AP test (especially the part on legibility).

Develop your own introduction. Do not simply restate the question. Consider specifically what the question is asking. Normally, the question has two or three parts to it. Make sure that it answers each and all of the parts.

Generally the question involves a “What?” and a “How?” Do both. Sometimes the “What?” or “How?” will be the thesis, though often they provide the evidence to support the thesis. Normally, out of the “What?” and “How?” comes the Purpose of the essay. The Purpose is your thesis.

What makes for a good essay? A good thesis and good supporting evidence. (Where have you heard that before?)

Keep the essay focused on your thesis. The old saw, “Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em; tell ’em; tell ’em what you told ’em” still works.

Appropriate illustrations, especially from other literary works, can help liven the essay and demonstrate that you know what you are talking about.

Unless you are being repetitious or saying nothing, try to fill 3 or 4 pages, if possible. If your handwriting is small, two pages may be sufficient.

Read with a pencil or pen. This is especially helpful on the essay questions.

Take time to do an outline first. An experienced test-taker should take 5-10 minutes to organize the essay and come up with examples. This should allow enough time to write a thorough essay and still leave time to review it. It might be worth practicing this once or twice in a forty-minute block of time to check yourself.

A good introduction will get the reader’s attention. Remember that the reader will probably be reading somewhere between 900 and 1800 essays in seven or eight days. You want to get the reader’s attention in a positive way. Our AP U.S. History teacher used to say, “Give them a hook.” Do not simply restate the question. Focus on what the question was asking.

Be accurate. Know the author, the title, the names of the main characters, and details from the plot. Quotations or paraphrases of quotations can help. If you do not recall these things, choose another work. I recommend avoiding all historical references unless you are absolutely sure about them. (Obviously, you need them in history and government tests.)

Spelling has an effect, especially with words that appear on the test. One or two “typos” are not a problem, but consistent misspellings, especially key terms, titles, authors, characters, and the like will be noted. Be assured that the same applies for specialized terms (like literary terms) in whatever subject you are taking. One of the questions on the test I was scoring was about tragedy. Even though the word tragedy appeared four times on the test, readers still found over a dozen ways that students spelled the word. On the other hand, no one is probably going to be too hard on you if you misspell the name of a character in a Russian novel, as long as it is close. Readers do give you the benefit of the doubt because they understand it is a first draft, but if the spelling or grammar becomes annoying or interferes with comprehension, your score will be lower.

Write legibly. Readers are not going to be bothered to try to decipher handwriting or spelling they can’t read. Avoid double writing or any kind of distinctive flourish that interferes with readability. Do not use pencil for essays, it is less readable. Find out which kind of pen makes your writing look good and bring that with you to the reading. Practice your handwriting. Sometimes it is not a matter of neatness as it is of legibility. Having said that, too many cross-outs can be a distraction, especially if they are sloppy. If your ink bleeds through the paper, just write on one side of the page. Remember what the Bible says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Believe me, some readers get very angry at writing that is hard to read.

Readers are told to give low scores to essays that are “vacuous,” i.e., empty, containing nothing. How do they find vacuous essays? (1) If the essay is irrelevant, if what is written does not relate to the question asked at all. (2) If the essay merely repeats or restates the question, but does nothing with it. Sometimes this may mean that the essay analyzes or defines key terms but does not relate them to the question asked. Essays that use a lot of baloney fall into this category. (3) If the essay misses a major point or significance in either the question or the work being analyzed. (4) If the reader shows ignorance about the work being analyzed. (5) If the “thesis” says something like “A and B are similar in some ways and different in other ways.” Duh! You could say that about any two things in the universe!

Pray for your readers. Not just that they will give your test a fair reading, but that they will be fair and that the Lord would work in their lives.

Choose the Best Work You Can Work With. There are a number of works that commonly appear in the free writing essay. It will be vary some year to year depending on the topic. In 2003 the topic was tragedy. The most commonly cited works were Macbeth, Hamlet, Crime and Punishment, Oedipus Rex, Death of a Salesman, and Beloved. Clearly, the work had to be a tragedy—one student who tried to write about The Lord of the Rings was not going to get many points on his essay. Choose an appropriate and relevant work. Occasionally, you may hear someone advise you to avoid writing on widely read works, like Hamlet. That advice may help a little if your essay is not that good. Readers would love to read a good essay on a work that they have already read about numerous times. The contrast could help you. Write about a work that you know well and love.

Avoid preaching. This annoys readers as well. This applies not only to religious preaching, though a lot of college teachers especially hate that, but anything that comes across as “lecturing” the reader. Avoid expressions like “people ought” or “society needs to.” Judging a character in a book can be OK, but beware of judging “society” or “America.” It is not wise to announce “I am a vegetarian,” “I supported Trump/Biden,” or “I am a born-again Christian.” Having said that, if something in the reading points to vegetarianism or makes a Biblical allusion, point it out if it helps you answer the question. Both the AP Review book and several of the Chief Readers remind us that an understanding of the Bible and classical mythology helps us interpret a lot of art and literature.

Anticipate questions. You will probably not be able to come up with exactly the question asked, but you can try. Especially consider using works that you are intimately familiar with—works that you have read in detail or done extra work for or done a paper on. Of course, it still has to be appropriate and relevant. That student who used The Lord of the Rings for the tragedy used some direct quotations and some good details, but he or she still had a tough time convincing the reader it was a tragedy!

What the Chief Reader Said

The Chief Reader, Gale Larson, provided the following advice after the 2001 English Lit. AP Reading:

• Tell students to read the prompt of each question very carefully. To think about the implications of the question, to begin thinking about how they will organize their responses, and to focus on what is asked of them are all important strategies in beginning the writing task.
• Often, students are asked to select a play or a novel to answer a particular question. Make sure they know that the work they have selected should be appropriate to the question asked. See to it that students have a fair range of readings that they feel familiar with, ones with which they can test the implications of the question and make the decision of the appropriateness of the work to the question asked. Without this flexibility they may force an answer that will come across as canned to the AP Reader. (Most teachers tell their students to review a minimum of four or five works—at least two novels and a comedy and a tragedy—to get refreshed on the details.)
• Remind students to enter into the text itself, to supply concrete illustrations that substantiate the points they are making. Have them take command of what they are writing with authority by means of direct quotation of pertinent information from the text, always writing into the question and never away from it. Help them to keep their point of view consistent, to select appropriate material for supporting evidence, and to write in a focused and succinct manner.
• Remind your students that films are not works of literature and cannot be used to provide the kind of literary analysis required on the exam. Beware of referring to a film version of a book for an example (e.g., the “library scene” in Hamlet, the assassination of Marlowe or Col. Kurtz, Hester and Dimmesdale in a hot tub, ad infinitum).
• Advise your students that, when starting an essay, they should avoid engaging in a mechanical repetition of the prompt and then supplying a list of literary devices. Instead, get them to think of ways to integrate the language of literature with the content of that literature, making connections that are meaningful and telling, engaging in analysis that leads to the synthesis of new ideas. Pressure them into using higher levels of critical thinking; have them go beyond the obvious and search for a more penetrating relationship of ideas. Make them see connections that they missed on their first reading of the text.