1. Multiple Choice Section
AP Exam – May 8, 2014

2. MULTIPLE CHOICE SECTION: STRATEGY
1. Note the time and the Number of Passages!
You have 60 minutes total
With 4 or 5 passages, so you have minutes per passage
2. Pick a Passage to Do First
Some passages on test are easier than others
You know what you’re good at: 20th century prose or Renaissance poetry = DO THAT FIRST!
3. Pick a Passage to DO LAST (put an x at top of page to remind yourself) – the one that will give you the most trouble
4. Answer the questions in the order YOU choose

3. DON’T LEAVE ANY QUESTIONS BLANK (there is no penalty)
USE Process of Elimination
Stop looking for the right answer – look for wrong answers and eliminate them!

4. A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head
A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once (7) Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap Ignatius Reilly’s supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the Holms department store, studying the crowd for signs of bad taste in dress.

5. Lines 7 – 10 of the passage best describe the author’s portrayal of Ignatius Reilly as
(A) a sympathetic portrait of an effete snob
(B) a comically ironic treatment of a social misfit
(C) a harshly condemnatory portrait of a bon vivant
(D) an admiring portrait of a great hunter
(E) a farcical treatment of an overly sensitive man

6. POE…HALF BAD = ALL BAD
(A) Sympathetic? Effete? He appears to be a snob, but I don’t know what effete means. He is not portrayed as sympathetic because the author describes Ignatius as “Looking down…on bad taste” = ELIMINATE THIS ANSWER. (B) He does seem to be a “social misfit” because of his odd appearance” and the description is comical in its exaggerations of detail…so hold on to this answer. (C) “Harshly” is too strong a word. Besides, he is not a bon vivant, a person who lives the good life. Eliminate this answer. (D) He is wearing a hunting cap, but there is no indication in lines 7-10 that he is a hunter. Don’t be distracted by a detail in the passage that does not provide info needed to answer the question. (E) The passage does seem farcical, but in these lines you can’t tell if he is “overly sensitive”……SO

7. ELIMINATE THE OBVIOUS FIRST
That leaves answers (B) and (E) Ask yourself: is he “overly sensitive”? Not really. He seems to be annoyed rather than sensitive. Can you find anything wrong with (B)? No, so CHOOSE IT!

8. TIPS FOR PROSE PASSAGES
SKIM (pre-read) THE PASSAGE
- read the first sentences of paragraphs or stanzas carefully and then glance over the rest to see if it’s about what you thought
- Read the last sentence of the passage
- should take no more than a minute
SKIMMING MAY FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE = do it anyway!
2. READ THE PASSAGE – plain old-fashioned reading
- Just read, without fixating on details or getting stuck on sentences you don’t understand
3. READ FOR THE MAIN IDEA (missing one little puzzle piece won’t stop you from getting the outline of the overall picture)
- to get the main idea, visualize what you are reading
Think of it as a short movie clip.

9. MAIN IDEA
You should be able to sum up main idea (general point) of the passage in a ten-words-or-fewer summary
Example: a passage about all the different ways a man is stingy, how he cheats his best friend out of an inheritance and scrimps on food around the house so badly that his kids go to bed crying from hunger every night…passage goes on for 60 lines describing this guy.
Main idea: This guy is an evil, greedy miser.
DON’T LOOK FOR THE MAGIC TOPIC SENTENCE = it has vanished
Writers of the AP test often don’t use any obvious clues like topic sentences

10. TYPES OF QUESTIONS GENERAL COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
The passage is primarily concerned with…?
What is the tone of the passage?
What is the narrator’s relationship to her mother?
How is the speaker’s attitude changing?

11. DETAIL QUESTIONS DETAIL QUESTIONS
What significant change occurs in speaker’s attitude toward her mother in lines 5-9?
How do the final words of the third paragraph, “but then, I should have known better than to trust him,” alter the rest of the passage?
What does the author mean by “formalist” (Line 19)?

12. FACTUAL KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONS
How does the author’s use of irony contribute to the effect of the passage?
How does the author’s use of symbolism contribute to the mystical tone of the passage?
What parallel structure helps to emphasize the attitude of the speaker?