Useful Study Tools

Here are two sources that might help you with your studies:

This and This.

or if it takes too long and you can unzip .rar files (same as winzip):

This and This .

Mid-term Exam Follow Up

I was impressed with most of the rhetorical item analysis essays you wrote for the mid term, and think most would get at least a 6/9.  However, there is always room for improvement.

• Always attempt to use AP related vocabulary - especially the devices from our A to Z list.  Instead of using "word choice" use "diction." Instead of using "quotation" use "appeal to authority" or "ethos."  
• Memorize everything on that list.  If you reference a simile - make sure you know what a simile is.  If you encounter a metaphor, it might help to describe it as an "extended metaphor" or even an "allegory" if these terms are more accurate.
• Don't take the easiest path right away.  This signals to the AP reader that you might not have a good understanding of the text. 
• Avoid conjecture.  Interact with the text and embed it when doing so adds credible and specific context.    
• Avoid fluff or speculation. Stick to the prompt. If the prompt doesn't ask you to identify when or where or how the author wrote the text, don't comment on that.  Starting your essay with unnecessary misinformation isn't ideal.  As well, don't get too creative.  Get to the heart of the matter.  Padding with fluff signals to the AP reader "I'm not sure what to write about, but here's a quote from Benjamin Franklin I like to use which I'll somehow connect to something when an idea comes."

      Since you spent time writing the essay on Barry's "The Great Influenza," I think we should stick with it to get the most from it.  Here is a link to AP Collegeboard's criteria for this essay, with three examples (good, decent, not so great):

AP Scoring Guidelines

Here is a breakdown of the reading which offers more than enough explanation of the rhetorical devices you could have/may have discussed.

AP Strategies.org

Here is a further breakdown:

Strategy to write a good essay: Identify a passage that most exemplifies the writer's most dominant rhetorical strategy or strategies. Restate the author's question using different words. Create a list of his or her strategies, and prioritize and choose the one that is the strongest and most used - tracking the examples. Should you write your intro first or last? It might help to skip the intro, but leave space for it if you are uncertain how to best map your essay.  

In the following passage from The Great Influenza, an account of the 1918 flu epidemic, author John M. Barry writes about scientists and their research. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Barry uses rhetorical strategies to characterize scientific research.This is the focus of the question. Students should focus on the true intent of the prompt - it is not to identify the qualities of scientific research.  Turn the prompt into a question: How does Barry characterize scientific research? How does he use rhetoric to characterize it that way?

He is characterizing it as the quest for certainty - heroically embarking on a challenging quest.

To be a scientist requires not only intelligence and curiosity, but passion, patience, creativity, self-sufficiency, and courage. It is not the courage to venture into the unknown. It is the courage to accept—indeed, embrace—uncertainty. Use of dashes in the thesis. For as Claude Bernard, the great French physiologist of the nineteenth century, said, “Science teaches us to doubt.”

A scientist must accept the fact that all his or her work, even beliefs, may break apart upon the sharp edge of a single laboratory finding. And just as Einstein refused to accept his own theory until his predictions were tested, one must seek out such findings. Appeal to ethos by referring to Eintstein Ultimately a scientist has nothing to believe in but the process of inquiry. To move forcefully and aggressively even while uncertain requires a confidence and strength deeper than physical courage.

All real scientists exist on the frontier. Even the least ambitious among them deal with the unknown, if only one step beyond the known. The best among them move deep into a wilderness region where they know almost nothing, where the very tools and techniques needed to clear the wilderness, to bring order to it, do not exist. There they probe in a disciplined way. There a single step can take them through the looking glass reference to Lewis Carroll “Alice in Wonderland” into a world that seems entirely different, and if they are at least partly correct their probing acts like a crystal Crystal as simile to precipitate an order out of chaos, to create form, structure, and direction. A single step can also take one off a cliff. Use of Syntax, form follows the function.


In the wilderness the scientist must create . . .everything. It is grunt work, tedious work that
begins with figuring out what tools one needs and then making them. A shovel can dig up dirt but cannot penetrate rock. Would a pick be best, or would dynamite be better—or would dynamite be too indiscriminately destructive? If the rock is impenetrable, if dynamite would destroy what one is looking for, is there another way of getting information about what the rock holds? There is a stream passing over the rock. Would analyzing the water after it passes over the rock reveal anything useful? How would one analyze it? These questions mimic the scientific process. But are they there to elicit the obvious answer as strictly "rhetorical questions?" No.  They are genuine questions a scientist should ask. 


Ultimately, if the researcher succeeds, a flood of colleagues will pave roads over the path laid, and those roads will be orderly and straight, taking an investigator in minutes to a place the pioneer spent months or years looking for. And the perfect tool will be available for purchase, just as laboratory mice can now be ordered from supply houses. Not all scientific investigators can deal comfortably with uncertainty, and those who can may not be creative enough to understand and design the experiments that will illuminate a subject—to know both where and how to look. Others may lack the confidence to persist. Experiments do not simply work. Regardless of design and preparation, experiments—especially at the beginning, when one
proceeds by intelligent guesswork—rarely yield the results desired. An investigator must make them work. The less known, the more one has to manipulate and even force experiments to yield an answer. The final sentence essentially answers the long awaited position on the questions posed in the beginning where we expect a firm thesis.  Track the writer's opinions when clearly and firmly stated.  When are sentences simple and when are they complex sentences? Use plus(+)/minus(-) to identify how the writer feels about their topic at the end of each paragraph. It can show how an argument turns in a different direction. It can be a shift in the view that the author has on the topic. Signals a shift in idea from what I believe to what I now want you to believe.

Sythesis Essay Feedback

Hello Students,

Hopefully mid-terms have gone well, and you'll have some fresh ideas for the second drafts of your synthesis essays.  Yes, it does sound painful, but I spent quite a bit of time working through them providing feedback, so I'd like to see something truly polished where issues of content and grammar are truly addressed.

We all know how the synthesis essay works, and we all know that solid opinion is built on a foundation of solid sources.  How we use and interact with these sources separates good writers from great writers, and hard working writers from lazy writers.  A lazy writer thinks they can be vague and avoid opening a book, bloating up an essay full of fancy terms and nice sounding generalizations that only someone with a PHD is supposedly allowed to attempt.   How do I know this?  Because I used to be that writer, and during my first semester at university I got a lot of C's on essays which I thought were brilliant (and no, I didn't write them a week before class and develop a plan or outline.  I wrote them at 2 am and handed them in at 8 am).  I learned that my "BS" wasn't good enough, and in AP that's what we are trying to improve.  A second draft will add to this learning process and eliminate traces of what I just said.

Below are the scores.  Lateness was factored in, and I was clear that there would be a penalty.  Keep in mind that in university, many or most professors won't accept papers even if they are 1 minute late.  I am being generous.  "Source Contribution" is a score out of 5 for what you posted on your blog, and how relevant it was, and whether or not you added some commentary as I requested.  I am also being generous here.  Some sources were very useful and were featured heavily in many essays.  If you didn't post any sources before the essays were written, then I wasn't able to give a score.  I also thought about grading your contribution to "class discussion," but only a few of you would have benefited.   Point to be taken: stay on the ball, participate, and take things more seriously. If you want to bump these scores up, please produce a much improved second draft, which we will discuss in class.  You each have unique strengths and weaknesses as writers, so I encourage you to learn from one another.

	Alias	Content/10	Mechanics/10	Structure/5	Source Contribution/5	TOTAL
	Stitch	9.3	9.3	4.7	4.5	27.8/92.6%
	Gingerbread	9.2	9.4	4.5	4.4	27.5/91.6%
	Pooh	8.7	9.2	4.5 (-2 late)	0	20.4/68.0%
	Tom the Cat	9.2	9.4	4.5	4.7	27.8/92.6%
	Simba	9.2	9.3	4.5 (-1 late)	4.6	26.6/88.6%
	Peekachu	9.2	9.3	4.5 (-3 late)	4.5	24.5/81.6%
	Nemo	9.4	9.4	4.6	4.8	28.2/94.0%
	Elmo	9.0	9.1	4.5	0	22.6/75.3%
	Modapi	9.3	9.2	4.5	4.7	27.7/92.3%

On a side note, I found this article, which you may want to read for advice I hope you'll never need, never accept, and never become good at.  It might even make you laugh.

A Useful Link - "AP Rhetorical Devices" always at arm's length!

HERE is a useful .pdf with all of the rhetorical devices listed, as well as rubrics, strategies, and useful info you might need to better navigate the AP universe.  Read it over from start to finish to have some of these things in mind.

AP Exam Prep Scores Updated - MC#3

Here are the updated scores - pretty decent results.  I noticed the higher scoring tests have a lot more pencil on them (underlining, ruling out potential answers etc.), so we should talk about strategy.  In class I give you very generous time to really think about the answers, but on the official exam you won't be able to spend much more than one minute per question.  

Here is some advice from AP on the official site.  We've been doing some of this.  

To quote: 

"Remind students that the multiple-choice section always presents a combination of easy, medium, and hard questions for each passage. These questions generally follow the chronology of the passage rather than transition from easiest to hardest or vice versa. The most important factor, however, is that they all are worth the same points. Therefore, a sound strategy for students is to make sure they get credit for all the easy and medium answers first. That means choosing which questions to answer and which ones to skip and then returning to answer if time allows. A student who spends too much time on a single, hard question may not get to answer two or three easy questions in a later part of the exam."

Interesting point of contention we've discussed:

"If students have no idea of what the correct answer might be, instruct them to leave it blank, as there is a quarter-point penalty for guessing. This is the same process used on the SAT exam. Students who guess incorrectly actually lose the point that they would have received for a correct answer and an additional quarter-point as a penalty. This means that for every incorrect answer, students lose 1.25 points. When the exam is scored, these points are totaled and deducted from the number of correct answers."

ALIAS

APMC#1

APMC#2

APMC#3

In-Class Stythesis

Stitch

15/22

8/11

14/17

9.3/10

Gingerbread

14/22

10/11

15/17

9.1/10

Pooh

13/22

6/11

14/17

9.3/10

Tom the Cat

20/22

9/11

16/17

9.1/10

Simba

19/22

10/11

16/17

9.1/10

Peekachu

19/22

8/11

15/17

9.0/10

Nemo

22/22

11/11

16/17

9.6/10

Elmo

11/22

7/11

11/17

9.2/10

Modapi

21/22

9/11

13/17

9.1/10

AP Multiple Choice and Synthesis Essay Results

Hello Students,

Below are the updated and ongoing score totals so we can try and mimic the actual AP Exam piece by piece.  I've given you scores for the Synthesis Essay out of 10, but for AP scores most of you would probably get a 4 or 5 (if you scored just over 9).  I told you lower in my comments as a joke to make you angry (and therefore more inspired to try harder)  and see if you guys actually read what I put here.  Bonus marks to whoever calls me on it on Monday.: )

Check out the official AP Grading Guidelines for this essay HERE.  

Here are some tips from AP as to how to write the AP Synthesis.

The main things to keep in mind when writing these on the official exam:

1. Don't get fancy.  Get to the point - and maintain it.

2. Quality is important - but quantity to best serve a 5 paragraph structure is your best bet.  40 minutes isn't a lot.  Don't waste it on a fancy intro, padding, or meanderings.  The AP readers know you have limited time and don't expect a polished product.  They'd rather have a well developed essay than a witty yet incomplete read. 

3.  The prompt asks for "direct and indirect citations."  Clearly and effectively reference the sources and try to "quote" at least one source/expert directly.  The AP Reader is your intended audience, so don't summarize things for them.  They've read the materials hundreds of times and are well familiar.  They want to see how you can effectively work in the sources (at least 3) to support your argument (something they want to clearly find in your first few sentences).  I think it's best to use (Shaw) or (Red Cross) at the end of the sentence rather than (A) or (D).  In any case, use either one of them instead of none of them.  

ALIAS	APMC#1	APMC#2								In-Class Stythesis
Stitch	15/22	8/11								9.3/10
Gingerbread	14/22	10/11								9.1/10
Pooh	13/22	6/11								9.3/10
Tom the Cat	20/22	9/11								9.1/10
Simba	19/22	10/11								9.1/10
Peekachu	19/22	8/11								9.0/10
Nemo	22/22	11/11								9.6/10
Elmo	11/22	7/11								9.2/10
Modapi	21/22	9/11								9.1/10