AP Lang Practice Test

What is the AP Language Exam?

When a student takes an AP course, they have the option to take a test at the end of the year to receive college credit for that class. The AP language exam is the exam students have to take to receive an English or composition credit for their AP lang class.

AP Language Exam Breakdown

There are eight skills that your teacher will cover with you throughout the course of your AP course whether they are grouped or taught in a different order than below. You can be certain these eight skills will also be tested on the exam:

• Skill one: Rhetorical Situation, Reading – reflect on a rhetorical passage and explain how a writer’s choice made an impact on it (11-14%)
• Skill two: Rhetorical Situation, Writing – make strategic choices when writing a text to discuss a rhetorical situation (11-14%)
• Skill three: Claims and Evidence, Reading – find, analyze, and describe the claims and evidence in argumentative text (13-16%)
• Skill four: Claims and Evidence, Writing – analyze evidence and select the best pieces to develop and support a claim (11-14%)
• Skill five: Reasoning and Organization, Reading – describe the reasoning, development, and organization of an argument (11-14%)
• Skill six: Reasoning and Organization, Writing – be able to use organization in a commentary to highlight the reasoning of an argument (11-14%)
• Skill seven: Style, Reading – when analyzing an argument, understand how a writer’s stylist choices affect the tone of the argument (11-14%)
• Skill eight: Style, Writing – with careful word choice, use elements of composition to support and advance your argument (11-14%)

As you can see, this test will not only force you to know your writing skills but also your reading skills. The thinking behind having you utilize reading skills is to help you understand the mind of a writer by reading many diverse forms of writing throughout the AP English test.

One of the best ways to learn how to become a better writer is to be a good reader. By reading different forms and styles of writing, you learn the grammatical techniques associated with each and how to emulate the types of writing based on your word choice and sentence structure.

What Percent of AP Lang is Multiple-Choice?

There are a total of forty-eight questions you must answer on the AP language exam. This test is divided into two main sections, the multiple-choice question section, and the free-response answer question. In both portions, you will be asked to analyze a passage and write well-detailed pieces.

First, you have sixty seconds to answer forty-five multiple-choice questions on the exam, which means there will be a little more than a minute to answer. So, you should make sure you are adequately prepared for the AP English test. We will describe how to do so below.

In the second portion of the exam, you have one hundred thirty-five seconds or two hours and fifteen minutes to complete this. This means you have large chunks of time about forty-five minutes to answer each question in the section.

To do well on this exam, you will need to be well-written as well as well-read. Since both sections of it will be asking you questions about writing and reading. You will want to practice both well before you take the AP English test.

Both of the sections on the AP language exam carry a different score percentage, so here is what you should focus on and to what degree you should study it:

How Can I Practice AP Lang Multiple-Choice?

One of the best ways to become a more efficient studier and a faster test-taker is to use AP language practice tests, especially for the multiple-choice section. There are two main reasons why a practice test is the best way to prepare.

The first part is that you can understand how the skills are broken up on the exam. When taking a practice test, you get a good feel for how many questions focus on the eight skills listed above. Even though the percentages are listed there, it makes it easier to see them rather than just a number.

This makes you more of an efficient studier because you can learn which skills you need to spend more time brushing up on and which ones you need to study more based on which ones appear more on the AP language exam.

An AP lang practice exam can also make you a faster test-taker. Like all standardized tests, the AP lang exam uses a certain language to ask questions. This language can be confusing at times, so it is good that most practice tests are comprised of questions from previous versions of the exam.

This can make you a faster test-taker by helping you understand what a question is asking faster. Once you can do that, you can answer the question faster. This is important since the test is timed and you have just over a minute to answer each of the questions.

How Do I Prepare for AP English Test?

One thing you can do to help prepare for the multiple-choice section of the AP lang is to use flashcards. Whether you make them on your own based on topics you know that you’ll see on the exam or use one that was made for online purposes, be sure to take them with you to study on the go.

Flashcards are a great option for the AP language and composition exam because you can often find ones that have multiple-choice questions on them. Also, if they are online, there are often fun games you can play to study them. However, it can be difficult to know what information to put on flashcards.

Another excellent way to study is to take practice tests. This is the closest you can get to the real test, so it is considered the best way to study. Make sure to find tests that have answers with detailed explanations to best learn from them and time yourself while taking them to make them more realistic.

Your final option for studying for the AP English language and composition exam is to use a study guide that your teacher provides you with. Typically, at the end of the course, your teacher will give you some sort of review with vital information to study by yourself or with your peers.

AP Language FAQs