Multiple Choice Practice

Some more multiple choice practice with 1999 AP Literature and Composition Exam

Here are my answers:

  1. B

  2. B

  3. C

  4. E

  5. B

  6. D

  7. A

  8. C

  9. E

10. B

11. D

12. E

13. C

14. D

15. C

16. C

17. A

18. C

19. E

20. D

21. D

22. A

23. B

24. C

25. B

26. C

27. B

28. E

29. D

30. B

31. E

32. B

33. E

34. A

35. A

36. C

37. C

38. D

39. E

40. B

41. E

42. D

43. D

44. A

45. A

46. B

47. A

48. B

49. D

50. C

51. B

52. C

53. D

54. E

55. B

Question One (Poems)

I felt that the most trouble I have with essays is a strong intro so I decided to spend most of my effort on the intro

Question 1

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)

In the two poems below, Keats and Longfellow reflect on similar concerns. Read the poems carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two poems, analyzing the poetic techniques each writer uses to explore his particular situation.

When I Have Fears

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;

When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think 

Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

1818 —John Keats (1795-1821)

Mezzo Cammin

Written at Boppard on the Rhine August 25, 1842,

Just Before Leaving for Home

Half of my life is gone, and I have let

The years slip from me and have not fulfilled

The aspiration of my youth, to build

Some tower of song with lofty parapet.

Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret

Of restless passions that would not be stilled,

But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,

Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;

Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past

Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—

A city in the twilight dim and vast,

With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—

And hear above me on the autumnal blast

The cataract

of Death far thundering from the heights.

1842 —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

1 The title is from the first line of Dante’s

Divine Comedy: “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” (“Midway upon the journey of our life”).

2 A large waterfall

Death is imminent, there is no doubt about that and after death comes there is nothing we can do to check any unchecked boxes from our bucket list. There is always the fear of dying, yes, but the even greater fear is having regrets on how one lives his or her life and whether they lived it to the fullest or not. 

“When I Have Fears” by John Keats and “Mezzo Cammin” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are to poems that depict the fears and doubts of the choices of life and whether they have done what they have wanted in the little time that has been given to him. Each poem uses strong poetic and literary techniques to further accentuate this fear and uneasiness toward this theme. Keats has his own diction and Wadsworth Longfellow has his own tone and through each of these author’s unique diction, tone and form they are able to convey the situation and the theme of their respected poems.

Literature Analysis 3

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

General

1. So in the novel Pi is telling the story to an author who wants to document his experience and so he begins with the beginning. Piscine was born and was made fun of at school because his name sounded like “pissing” and that is why he changed his name to Pi. He grows up and he gets on a boat to travel with all the zoo animals his father owns. But something bad happens. A terrible storm sinks the boat except for Pi, a bengal tiger, an orangutang, a hyeina, and a zebra. The hyeina kills the zebra and the orangutang and the tiger eventually kills the hyena, leaving just Pi and the tiger on the boat, who Pi calls Richard Parker. Now Pi realizes in order to survive he has to tame the tiger which he for the most part successfully does and they go through many hardships. After a while at sea they eventually come across an island which has a weird feel to it. During the day it is an unlimited source of food, water and shelter but at night some chemical turns all the water into poison and makes it hard to live there so Pi and Richard Parker set sail again. They eventually make it to an island and Pi is interogatted on the events that occured during his journey. The Japanese interogators don’t believe this story and so Pi decides to tell a different one. The other one involves his mother, a cook, a sailor and himself that are trapped on the boat and only he survives. We are left wondering which is the true story and it is up to us to decide.
2. I believe the theme of this novel is somewhat odd and ill explain. I couldn’t think of a better word than belief. Our beliefs dictate who we are and there are two sides to this novel; one a believable one and one that is not so believable. So which one is the truth? The theme belief is the belief of religion and belief in what you believe to be true.
3. The tone in this book is very serious but also has something else that i can’t quite put a finger on. Its very serious in the fact that so many things go wrong and Pi has to go against his beliefs in order to survive and he has to kill and survive. But on the other hand it also has a “storytelling” tone and sometimes humorous tone to lighten the mood. 
4. The literary techniques I recongized most in this novel are symbolism, tone, figurative language, setting, theme, imagery, point of view, diction and i guess you could say personification.

May 3 Journal Topic

I think the most i could like to improve on over the weekend is my multiple choice area because that is where i fell the most vulnerable during the accutal exam. This weekend i am planning on trying to practice pacing myself better because i found that on especially last years AP English Test, i was rushed and I really don't want to feel that way this year (for obvious reasons). So I am really going to try and focus on the pacing portion of my test taking skills.

Helen by H.D. and To Helen Edgar Allen Poe Essay

     Author’s speak their views through their work and through their work they are able to express themselves and those few authors that can create their views into a piece of work are the few that make it beautiful. An authors greatest weapon is the pen and with that pen authors can create pictures and beautiful poems through writing and their diction is their ammunition that feeds the work and makes it their own. With diction, imagery and tone Hilda Doolittle and Edgar Allan Poe show contrasting views on the iconic Helen who brought love and the start of the historic Trojan War. 

     “Helen, thy beauty is to me, Like those Nicean barks of yore”. In these first two lines of the poem Edgar Allan Poe is already starting to praise Helen through his diction and his choice of words like “beauty” in order to describe that she was a beautiful woman. His choice of words immediately lean toward the positive side of Helen and all her glory not much like H.D. though. In Helen by H.D it is the complete opposite and she begins with the lines “All Greece hates the still eyes in the white face,”. This is clearly showing her view of Helen as almost evil like and that she is the bringer of the war. She uses her choice of words and diction by instead of praising her for her beauty in order to show the ugly side of Helen by giving a clear image of Helen’s “still eyes in the white face”.

     Both authors give also give very different images of the great Helen or not so much through imagery and through this imagery they are able to imprint a picture in the readers head that sticks with them through the poem. Edgar Allan Poe describes Helen as a “brilliant window-niche”  and how she is like a statue. Since statues are usually sculpted of the beautiful and brilliant at that time we can easily interpret that be “statue-like” he means the beautiful and brilliant Helen. But on the other hand H.D. describes Helen as the center of hate of all of Greece and in fact she even goes to describe the Greeks feeling of her smile as making them “hating it deeper still”. 

     These two poems although they are about the same person, show very different view on said person whom is also known as Helen. H.D. describes Helen as evil and witch like and the bringer of death and war through her diction while Edgar Allan Poe describes her as a beautiful statue that was so beautiful that she started a war with her beauty. Both are very different view and just goes to show that through a brilliant authors diction and imagery he or she can express their views on something like the historic Helen.

BNW Essay Draft 1

We live in a world where we are different and that is normal, but what would happen if we were all pushed to act the same? And what if someone wasn’t like the rest? In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, each human is bred to do a task and they are expected to do that task and act in a certain manner that will benefit mankind. No one goes against it and no one questions it. Except a few like Bernard for example. He was meant to be taller for his “class” but wasn’t. He was meant to enjoy the erotic play, but he all and all really wasn’t. He felt alienated to the world because he was different than all the rest of society and had ideas that were looked down upon because they were taught to believe that they weren’t normal. But by being alienated from society its true assumptions and moral values are shown.

Bernard is smart like any other Alpha human in the society except for the fact that he is a little bit shorter than the rest of ALL the other Alphas. Because of this he feels different because in a world where everyone is made the same being different makes you stand out. So Bernard with his short stature and brilliance questions life in a different manner than everyone else. He isn’t interested in most of the other things that all the other humans are and because of this he is alienated from society. From this the readers begin to understand the moral values because they are expressed through Bernard’s alienation. 

From the very beginning in the teenage years of life the genetically engineered humans are taught to like erotic play, but Bernard isn’t as interested as everyone else. This shows the society’s interest and its push toward erotic play and sexual behavior because Bernard’s ideology toward it amplifies it. Bernard is also alone because he is alienated from society and because he is also exceptionally smart for even an Alpha he begins to question his society and its teachings. Because of this he is casted away. Society’s ideology about perception of new ideas is brought forth here because it shows that they don’t want the Alphas, Betas or anyone to have an outside influence that could possible “corrupt” the way of life that has been so carefully molded into a routine into work, sex, and Obstacle Golf. 

In conclusion it is apparent that through Bernard’s perception of the society he lives in us as readers get an understanding of the society’s morals and values through the comparison between Bernard’s ideology and the ideology of society’s larger figures in the grand scheme of things. Society wants everything to be perfect without outside influence and children Epsilon and Deltas are taught from the start to dislike books to keep them from reading. But Bernard questions the society as he isn’t born like a normal Alpha and questions its values.

Literature Analysis 2

Lord of the Flies

General

1.     Lord of the Flies by William Golding is about a group of boys whose plane crash lands on a deserted island and they find themselves alone. A boy named Ralph is elected their leader and holds the conch which is a symbol for power. The seem to believe that there is a monster on the island and are afraid of it. Ralph decides that they should build a signal fire in case a ship passes and so each boy is assigned the duty of guarding the fire. The boys soon kill their first pig and they are thrilled with their kill and from then on out they are obsessed with killing. Soon all the boys leave Ralph and Piggy and form their own group. They kill another of the boys, Simon, out of fear of him being a beast. They then kill Piggy and soon they decide to kill Ralph. He runs away from the other boys and runs into a Navy Officer and are saved.

2.     One of the main themes of the article is loss of innocence. This is shown through the boys adaptation to savagery and death.

3.     The tone of the story is dark, violent and depressing. “The ground beneath them was a bank covered with sparse grass, torn everywhere buy the upheavals of fallen trees, scattered with decaying coconuts and palm saplings. Behind this was the darkness of the forest proper and the open space of the scar.”

4.     Symbolism – In the story the “conch” represents the item of power and whoever is in control of the conch has the power.

Tone –  “The ground beneath them was a bank covered with sparse grass, torn everywhere buy the upheavals of fallen trees, scattered with decaying coconuts and palm saplings. Behind this was the darkness of the forest proper and the open space of the scar.”

Diction – “A kind of glamour was spread over them and the scene and they were conscious of the glamour and made happy by it. They turned to each other, laughing excitedly, talking, not listening. The air was bright.”

Metaphor – “The tide was low and there was a strip of weed strewn beach that was almost as firm as a road.”

Allusion – The title of the book is an allusion to the title given to Beelzebub and Simon is an allusion to Simon Peter or Saint Peter.

Setting – “The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers…Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island.”

Forshadowing – Roger whom threw stones at Henry is a foreshadow to him killing Piggy with a giant boulder.

Irony – The scene where they climb up to the top of the mountain and find “the beast” which in reality is just a dead man.

Imagery – “there was a strip of weed-strewn beach that was almost as firm as a road.”

Dialogue – “I ought to be chief [Jack said] because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.”

Characterization

1.     “I ought to be chief because I’m chorister and head boy, I can sing C sharp.” The author uses both direct and indirect characterization in order to get a full characterization on by boys on the island. “[Piggy] My auntie told me not to run on account of my asthma.”

2.     Yes the diction does change because when he is describing the events with Simon they are more mysterious and profound because he is the on of the wiser boys in the group. But when he is talking about the events of Jack he writes in a more dark and savage tone because Jack becomes a beast. This helps in bringing out the full intensity of different characters and their actions.

3.     I would have to say that the protagonist is Ralph and he doesn’t really change that much through the story because he doesn’t become savage and keeps to his virtues in life unlike the other boys.

4.     After reading the book I didn’t really feel like I met one of the boys. But I did feel like I was there on the island with them experiencing the thunderstorm and the killing and all the rest of the events that took place.