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Expert's Guide to the AP Literature Exam

Advanced Placement (AP)

If you're planning to take the AP English Literature and Composition exam, you'll need to get familiar with what to expect on the test. Whether the 2023 test date of Wednesday, May 3, is near or far, I'm here to help you get serious about preparing for the exam.

In this guide, I'll go over the test's format and question types, how it's graded, best practices for preparation, and test-day tips. You'll be on your way to AP English Lit success in no time!

AP English Literature: Exam Format and Question Types

The AP Literature Exam is a three-hour exam that contains two sections in this order:

• An hour-long, 55-question multiple-choice section
• A two-hour, three-question free-response section

The exam tests your ability to analyze works and excerpts of literature and cogently communicate that analysis in essay form.

Read on for a breakdown of the two different sections and their question types.

Section I: Multiple Choice

The multiple-choice section, or Section I of the AP Literature exam, is 60 minutes long and has 55 questions. It counts for 45% of your overall exam grade .

You can expect to see five excerpts of prose and poetry. You will always get at least two prose passages (fiction or drama) and two poetry passages. In general, you will not be given the author, date, or title for these works, though occasionally the title of a poem will be given. Unusual words are also sometimes defined for you.

The date ranges of these works could fall from the 16th to the 21st century. Most works will be originally written in English, but you might occasionally see a passage in translation.

There are, generally speaking, eight kinds of questions you can expect to see on the AP English Literature and Composition exam. I'll break each of them down here and give you tips on how to identify and approach them.

"Pretty flowers carried by ladies" is not one of the question types.

The 8 Multiple-Choice Question Types on the AP Literature Exam

Without further delay, here are the eight question types you can expect to see on the AP Lit exam. All questions are taken from the sample questions on the AP Course and Exam Description .

#1: Reading Comprehension

These questions test your ability to understand what the passage is saying on a pretty basic level . They don't require you to do a lot of interpretation—you just need to know what's going on.

You can identify this question type from words and phrases such as "according to," "mentioned," "asserting," and so on. You'll succeed on these questions as long as you carefully read the text . Note that you might have to go back and reread parts to make sure you understand what the passage is saying.

#2: Inference

These questions ask you to infer something—a character or narrator's opinion, an author's intention, etc.—based on what is said in the passage . It will be something that isn't stated directly or concretely but that you can assume based on what's clearly written in the passage. You can identify these questions from words such as "infer" and "imply."

The key to these questions is to not get tripped up by the fact that you are making an inference—there will be a best answer, and it will be the choice that is best supported by what is actually found in the passage .

In many ways, inference questions are like second-level reading comprehension questions: you need to know not just what a passage says, but also what it means.

#3: Identifying and Interpreting Figurative Language

These are questions for which you have to either identify what word or phrase is figurative language or provide the meaning of a figurative phrase . You can identify these as they will either explicitly mention figurative language (or a figurative device, such as a simile or metaphor ) or include a figurative phrase in the question itself.

The meaning of figurative phrases can normally be determined by that phrase's context in the passage—what is said around it? What is the phrase referring to?

Example 1: Identifying

Example 2: Interpreting

#4: Literary Technique

These questions involve identifying why an author does what they do , from using a particular phrase to repeating certain words. Basically, what techniques is the author using to construct the passage/poem, and to what effect?

You can identify these questions by words/phrases such as "serves chiefly to," "effect," "evoke," and "in order to." A good way to approach these questions is to ask yourself: so what? Why did the author use these particular words or this particular structure?

#5: Character Analysis

These questions ask you to describe something about a character . You can spot them because they will refer directly to characters' attitudes, opinions, beliefs, or relationships with other characters .

This is, in many ways, a special kind of inference question , since you are inferring the broader personality of the character based on the evidence in a passage. Also, these crop up much more commonly for prose passages than they do for poetry ones.

#6: Overall Passage Questions

Some questions ask you to identify or describe something about the passage or poem as a whole : its purpose, tone, genre, etc. You can identify these by phrases such as "in the passage" and "as a whole."

To answer these questions, you need to think about the excerpt with a bird's-eye view . What is the overall picture created by all the tiny details?

#7: Structure

Some AP Lit questions will ask you about specific structural elements of the passage: a shift in tone, a digression, the specific form of a poem, etc . Often these questions will specify a part of the passage/poem and ask you to identify what that part is accomplishing.

Being able to identify and understand the significance of any shifts —structural, tonal, in genre, and so on—will be of key importance for these questions.

#8: Grammar/Nuts & Bolts

Very occasionally you will be asked a specific grammar question , such as what word an adjective is modifying. I'd also include in this category super-specific questions such as those that ask about the meter of a poem (e.g., iambic pentameter).

These questions are less about literary artistry and more about the fairly dry technique involved in having a fluent command of the English language .

That covers the eight question types on the multiple-choice section. Now, let's take a look at the free-response section of the AP Literature exam.

Keep track of the nuts and bolts of grammar.

Section II: Free Response

The AP Literature Free Response section is two hours long and involves three free-response essay questions , so you'll have about 40 minutes per essay. That's not a lot of time considering this section of the test counts for 55% of your overall exam grade !

Note, though, that no one will prompt you to move from essay to essay, so you can theoretically divide up the time however you want. Just be sure to leave enough time for each essay! Skipping an essay, or running out of time so you have to rush through one, can really impact your final test score.

The first two essays are literary analysis essays of specific passages, with one poem and one prose excerpt. The final essay is an analysis of a given theme in a work selected by you , the student.

Essays 1 & 2: Literary Passage Analysis

For the first two essays, you'll be presented with an excerpt and directed to analyze the excerpt for a given theme, device, or development . One of the passages will be poetry, and one will be prose. You will be provided with the author of the work, the approximate date, and some orienting information (i.e., the plot context of an excerpt from a novel).

Below are some sample questions from the 2022 Free Response Questions .

Essay 3: Thematic Analysis

For the third and final essay, you'll be asked to discuss a particular theme in a work that you select . You will be provided with a list of notable works that address the given theme below the prompt, but you can also choose to discuss any "work of literary merit."

So while you do have the power to choose which work you wish to write an essay about , the key words here are "literary merit." That means no genre fiction! Stick to safe bets like authors in the list on pages 10-11 of the old 2014 AP Lit Course Description .

(I know, I know—lots of genre fiction works do have literary merit and Shakespeare actually began as low culture, and so on and so forth. Indeed, you might find academic designations of "literary merit" elitist and problematic, but the time to rage against the literary establishment is not your AP Lit test! Save it for a really, really good college admissions essay instead .)

Here's a sample question from 2022:

As you can see, the list of works provided spans many time periods and countries : there are ancient Greek plays ( Antigone ), modern literary works (such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale ), Shakespeare plays ( The Tempest ), 19th-century English plays ( The Importance of Being Earnest ), etc. So you have a lot to work with!

Also note that you can choose a work of "comparable literary merit." That means you can select a work not on this list as long as it's as difficult and meaningful as the example titles you've been given. So for example, Jane Eyre or East of Eden would be great choices, but Twilight or The Hunger Games would not.

Our advice? If you're not sure what a work of "comparable literary merit" is, stick to the titles on the provided list .

You might even see something by this guy.

How Is the AP Literature Test Graded?

The multiple-choice section of the exam comprises 45% of your total exam score; the three essays, or free-response section, comprise the other 55%. Each essay, then, is worth about 18% of your grade.

As on other AP exams, your raw score will be converted to a score from 1-5 . You don't have to get every point possible to get a 5 by any means. In 2022, 16.9% of students received 5s on the AP English Literature test, the 14th highest 5 score out of the 38 different AP exams.

So, how do you calculate your raw scores?

Multiple-Choice Scoring

For the multiple-choice section, you receive 1 point for each question you answer correctly . There's no guessing penalty, so you should answer every question—but guess only after you're able to eliminate any answer you know is wrong to up your chances of choosing the right one.

Free-Response Scoring

Scoring for multiple choice is pretty straightforward; however, essay scoring is a little more complicated.

Each of your essays will receive a score from 0 to 6 based on the College Board rubric , which also includes question-specific rubrics. All the rubrics are very similar, with only minor differences between them.

Each essay rubric has three elements you'll be graded on:

• Thesis (0-1 points)
• Evidence and Commentary (0-4 points)
• Sophistication (0-1 points)

We'll be looking at the current rubric for the AP Lit exam , which was released in September 2019, and what every score means for each of the three elements above:

To get a high-scoring essay in the 5-6 point range, you'll need to not only come up with an original and intriguing argument that you thoroughly support with textual evidence, but you’ll also need to stay focused, organized, and clear. And all in just 40 minutes per essay!

If getting a high score on this section sounds like a tall order, that's because it is.

Practice makes perfect!

Skill-Building for Success on the AP Literature Exam

There are several things you can do to hone your skills and best prepare for the AP Lit exam.

Read Some Books, Maybe More Than Once

One of the most important steps you can take to prepare for the AP Literature and Composition exam is to read a lot and read well . You'll be reading a wide variety of notable literary works in your AP English Literature course, but additional reading will help you further develop your analytical reading skills .

I suggest checking out this list of notable authors in the 2014 AP Lit Course Description (pages 10-11).

In addition to reading broadly, you'll want to become especially familiar with the details of four to five books with different themes so you'll be prepared to write a strong student-choice essay. You should know the plot, themes, characters, and structural details of these books inside and out.

See my AP English Literature Reading List for more guidance.

Read (and Interpret) Poetry

One thing students might not do very much on their own time but that will help a lot with AP Lit exam prep is to read poetry. Try to read poems from a lot of eras and authors to get familiar with the language.

We know that poetry can be intimidating. That's why we've put together a bunch of guides to help you crack the poetry code (so to speak). You can learn more about poetic devices —like imagery and i ambic pentameter —in our comprehensive guide. Then you can see those analytical skills in action in our expert analysis of " Do not go gentle into that good night " by Dylan Thomas.

When you think you have a grip on basic comprehension, you can then move on to close reading (see below).

Hone Your Close Reading and Analysis Skills

Your AP class will likely focus heavily on close reading and analysis of prose and poetry, but extra practice won't hurt you. Close reading is the ability to identify which techniques the author is using and why. You'll need to be able to do this both to gather evidence for original arguments on the free-response questions and to answer analytical multiple-choice questions.

Here are some helpful close reading resources for prose :

• University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center's guide to close reading
• Harvard College Writing Center's close reading guide
• Purdue OWL's article on steering clear of close reading "pitfalls"

And here are some for poetry :

• University of Wisconsin-Madison's poetry-reading guide
• This guide to reading poetry at Poets.org (complete with two poetry close readings)
• Our own expert analyses of famous poems, such as " Ozymandias ", and the 10 famous sonnets you should know

Learn Literary and Poetic Devices

You'll want to be familiar with literary terms so that any test questions that ask about them will make sense to you. Again, you'll probably learn most of these in class, but it doesn't hurt to brush up on them.

Here are some comprehensive lists of literary terms with definitions :

• The 31 Literary Devices You Must Know
• The 20 Poetic Devices You Must Know
• The 9 Literary Elements You'll Find In Every Story
• What Is Imagery?
• Understanding Assonance
• What Is Iambic Pentameter in Poetry?
• Simile vs Metaphor: The 1 Big Difference
• 10 Personification Examples in Poetry, Literature, and More

Practice Writing Essays

The majority of your grade on the AP English Lit exam comes from essays, so it's critical that you practice your timed essay-writing skills . You of course should use the College Board's released free-response questions to practice writing complete timed essays of each type, but you can also practice quickly outlining thorough essays that are well supported with textual evidence.

Take Practice Tests

Taking practice tests is a great way to prepare for the exam. It will help you get familiar with the exam format and overall experience . You can get sample questions from the Course and Exam Description , the College Board website , and our guide to AP English Lit practice test resources .

Be aware that the released exams don't have complete slates of free-response questions, so you might need to supplement these with released free-response questions .

Since there are three complete released exams, you can take one toward the beginning of your prep time to get familiar with the exam and set a benchmark, and one toward the end to make sure the experience is fresh in your mind and to check your progress.

Don't wander like a lonely cloud through your AP Lit prep.

AP Literature: 6 Critical Test-Day Tips

Before we wrap up, here are my six top tips for AP Lit test day:

• #1: On the multiple-choice section, it's to your advantage to answer every question. If you eliminate all the answers you know are wrong before guessing, you'll raise your chances of guessing the correct one.
• #2: Don't rely on your memory of the passage when answering multiple-choice questions (or when writing essays, for that matter). Look back at the passage!
• #3: Interact with the text : circle, mark, underline, make notes—whatever floats your boat. This will help you retain information and actively engage with the passage.
• #4: This was mentioned above, but it's critical that you know four to five books well for the student-choice essay . You'll want to know all the characters, the plot, the themes, and any major devices or motifs the author uses throughout.
• #5: Be sure to plan out your essays! Organization and focus are critical for high-scoring AP Literature essays. An outline will take you a few minutes, but it will help your writing process go much faster.
• #6: Manage your time on essays closely. One strategy is to start with the essay you think will be the easiest to write. This way you'll be able to get through it while thinking about the other two essays.

And don't forget to eat breakfast! Apron optional.

AP Literature Exam: Key Takeaways

The AP Literature exam is a three-hour test that includes an hour-long multiple-choice section based on five prose and poetry passages and with 55 questions, and a two-hour free-response section with three essays : one analyzing a poetry passage, one analyzing a prose passage, and one analyzing a work chosen by you, the student.

The multiple-choice section is worth 45% of your total score , and the free-response section is worth 55% . The three essays are each scored on a rubric of 0-6, and raw scores are converted to a final scaled score from 1 to 5.

Here are some things you can do to prepare for the exam:

• Read books and be particularly familiar with four to five works for the student-choice essays
• Read poetry
• Work on your close reading and analysis skills
• Learn common literary devices
• Practice writing essays
• Take practice tests!

On test day, be sure to really look closely at all the passages and really interact with them by marking the text in a way that makes sense to you. This will help on both multiple-choice questions and the free-response essays. You should also outline your essays before you write them.

With all this in mind, you're well on your way to AP Lit success!

What's Next?

If you're taking other AP exams this year, you might be interested in our other AP resources: from the Ultimate Guide to the US History Exam , to the Ultimate AP Chemistry Study Guide , to the Best AP Psychology Study Guide , we have tons of articles on AP courses and exams for you !

Looking for practice exams? Here are some tips on how to find the best AP practice tests . We've also got comprehensive lists of practice tests for AP Psychology , AP Biology , AP Chemistry , and AP US History .

Deciding which APs to take? Take a look through the complete list of AP courses and tests , read our analysis of which AP classes are the hardest and easiest , and learn how many AP classes you should take .

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The English Literature and Composition exam is one of the most popular AP exams among self-studiers and enrolled students alike. In 2019, a total of 380,136 students took the AP Literature exam, making it the third most favored AP exam, trailing only English Language and U.S. History in popularity. If you are interested in taking the AP Literature exam—and are taking a class or self-studying—read on for a breakdown of the test and CollegeVine’s advice for how to best prepare for it.

When is the AP Literature Exam?

2020’s AP English Literature and Composition exam day is Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 8 AM. Check out our blog 2020 AP Exam Schedule: Everything You Need to Know to learn more about this year’s AP exam dates and times. 

What Does the AP Literature Exam Cover?

The AP Literature course engages students in careful reading and critical analysis of fictional literature, leading to a deeper understanding of the ways in which writers provide both meaning and pleasure to their readers—considering structure, style, theme, and smaller-scale elements such as figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone. 

Although there is no required reading list, the College Board formerly provided a list of prospective authors in its past AP Literature course description. Regardless of which specific titles are read in preparation for the exam, students should be familiar with works from both British and American authors written from the 16th century to the present. Ten of the commonly studied works in AP Literature courses are:

• Great Expectations , Charles Dickens 
• Invisible Man , Ralph Ellison
• Beloved , Toni Morrison 
• King Lear , William Shakespeare 
• Heart of Darkness , Joseph Conrad 
• The Portrait of a Lady , Henry James 
• Wuthering Heights , Emily Bronte 
• Their Eyes Were Watching God , Zora Neale Hurston 
• To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee 
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , James Joyce 

How Long is the AP Literature Exam? What is the Format?

The AP Literature exam is one of the longer AP exams, clocking in at 3 hours. It is comprised of two sections. 

Section 1: Multiple Choice

1 hour | 45 Questions | 45% of Score

The first section of the AP Literature exam is one hour long and consists of 45 multiple-choice questions—23-25 Reading questions and 20-22 Writing questions. The multiple-choice questions are grouped in five sets of questions, with each set linked to a passage of prose fiction or poetry that contains between 8 and 13 questions. Students receive two sets of questions about both prose fiction and poetry, with the fifth set varying between prose fiction and poetry. The function of the multiple choice section is to assess a student’s ability to: 

1. Understand and interpret word choice, comparisons, and figurative language

This is one of the most common questions types on the AP Lit exam. Students are frequently asked to infer the meaning of certain words and phrases, and how they impact the rest of the passage. You will also be asked to identify and interpret figurative language.

Source: The College Board

2. Understand the theme of the poem or passage

You should be able to summarize and articulate what the excerpt is about and what sort of message it conveys.

3. Paraphrase or reformulate selected lines from the passage

Students are tested on their reading comprehension by being asked to select the reformulated response that most closely aligns with the original excerpt.

4. Explain the function of…

• The narrator or speaker: Know how a narrator’s or speaker’s perspective controls the details and emphases that affect how readers experience and interpret a text.

• Characters : Grasp how characters allow the reader to explore values, beliefs, assumptions, biases, and cultural norms.

• The plot and structure : Understand what the author conveys by the arrangement of the sections of text, their relationship to each other, and sequence, along with how the reader’s interpretation of the text is affected by these choices.

• Symbols and motifs : Describe the purpose of symbols and motifs and how they contribute to the meaning of the passage.

5. Identify parts of speech, verse forms, and meters

You’ll occasionally need more technical knowledge of parts of speech (adjective, adverb, etc.) and verse forms (blank verse, free verse, sonnet, etc.). You should also have a basic knowledge of poetic meter (iambic pentameter, trochaic tetrameter, etc).

Section 2: Free Response

2 hours 15 minutes | 3 questions | 55% of Score

The second section of the AP Literature exam is two hours (plus a 15-minute reading period) and contains three free response questions. These prompts test three core abilities:

• A literary analysis of a poem
• A literary analysis of a piece of prose fiction (this may include drama) 
• An analysis that examines a specific concept, issue, or element in a meritorious literary work selected by the student. 

The free response essays are graded by college and AP Lit teachers following a standardized rubric.

Below are 3 example free response questions from 2019’s AP Literature Exam: 

1. “Carefully read P. K. Page’s 1943 poem “The Landlady.” Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the speaker’s complex portrayal of the landlady. You may wish to consider such elements as imagery, selection of detail, and tone.”

2. “Carefully read the following excerpt from William Dean Howells’ novel The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885). Then, in a well-constructed essay, analyze how the author portrays the complex experience of two sisters, Penelope and Irene, within their family and society.  You may wish to consider such literary elements as style, tone, and selection of detail.”

AP Literature Exam Score Distribution, Average Score, and Passing Rate

The AP Literature exam is extremely challenging, with less than half (49.7%) of students achieving a passing score of 3 or higher. The average student score is 2.62—only Physics (2.51) and Human Geography (2.55) have lower average scores. If you’re curious about other score distributions, see our post Easiest and Hardest AP Exams .

Best Ways to Study for the AP Literature Exam

One of the first steps you should take when preparing for the AP Literature exam is to look at its full course description . This will help guide your studying and understanding of the knowledge required for the AP Literature exam. Below are a few more steps you can take to ace the AP Literature exam. 

Step 1: Assess Your Skills

Practice Questions and Tests: Take a practice test to assess your initial knowledge. The College Board’s AP English Literature Course and Exam Description offers some sample multiple-choice questions, and the College Board also provides six sample AP Lit free-response questions with scoring commentaries . Older versions of the AP English Literature exam are also available; you can find a copy of the 2012 AP Lit exam and the 1999 AP Lit exam . Search around the web and you’ll likely turn up even more practice exams with answers keys —some will even have explanations of the questions. You’ll also find practice tests in many of the official study guides, and some even include a diagnostic test to act as your initial assessment.

Identify Areas in Need of Improvement: Once you have taken some kind of formative assessment, score it to identify your areas of strength and areas in need of improvement. It can be helpful to have a friend (or even better, a teacher) score your free-response essays, since they are more subjective than the multiple-choice section. With an accurate formative assessment, you’ll have a better idea of where to focus your studying efforts.

Step 2: Know Your Material

In the case of the AP Literature exam, this means focusing on your reading and writing skills.

Become an Active Reader: When reading, take care to go slowly and reread important or complex sections. Pause often to consider meaning, context, and intent. Become an active reader, underlining and taking notes as you go. Remember that the importance of the text comes not only from the author, but also from how the text affects you, the reader. Pay attention to how you feel and why you feel that way. Visit the College Board’s Reading Study Skills for more information.         

Write Frequently: Prepare for the writing section of your exam by writing frequently. According to the College Board, the goal is to become a “practiced, logical, clear, and honest” writer through the writing process. This means that you will plan, draft, review, redraft, edit, and polish your writing again and again. To be a successful writer on your exam, you will need to organize your ideas ahead of time, use your text wisely to support a clearly stated thesis, and provide a logical argument. Finally, you should pay close attention to your use of grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure. Visit the College Board’s Writing Study Skills for more information. 

Get Expert Advice: For more specific guidance about test preparation, consider using a formal study guide. One good choice is Barron’s AP English Literature and Composition, 6th Edition . This study guide contains a review of test topics covering details test takers need to know about poetry, fiction, and drama, and includes five full-length practice tests. Some users do criticize it for providing few examples of scored student essays, but plenty of those are available on the College Board scoring examples page . 

The Princeton Review’s Cracking the AP English Language & Composition Exam, 2020 Edition: Proven Techniques to Help You Score a 5 is another solid choice containing a summary of test strategies and a focused review of course content. 

Alternatively, there are many online study resources available. Some AP teachers have even published their own study guides or review sheets online. You can find one such guide here .

Consider using an app to study: A convenient way to study is to use one of the recently-developed apps for AP exams. These can be free or cost a small fee, and they provide an easy way to quiz yourself on-the-go. Make sure you read reviews before choosing one—their quality varies widely. One that does receive good reviews is the McGraw Hill 5 which also saves you some money by covering 14 different AP subjects.      

Step 3: Practice Multiple-Choice Questions

Once you have your theory down, test it out by practicing multiple-choice questions. You can find these in most study guides or through online searches. There are some available in the College Board’s course description.

Try to keep track of which concept areas are still tripping you up, and go back over this theory again. Keep in mind that the key to answering questions correctly is understanding the passage, so practice active reading skills as you’re tackling the multiple-choice questions. This includes underlining, mouthing words, and circling key points. Remember, the answer will always be found in the text, and often the question will tell you exactly where in the text to look for it.

Step 4: Practice Free-Response Essays

Focus on Writing Skills: Use a rich vocabulary, varied sentence structure, and logical progression of ideas. Make sure that your words flow easily from one to the next. According to the College Board’s scoring criteria , writing that suffers from grammatical and/or mechanical errors that interfere with communication cannot earn a the maximum score of a 6, no matter how strong your thesis, compelling your argument, or convincing your evidence is.  

Cultivate Cohesive Writing: You should also strive to write a thoughtful and persuasive analysis of the literature. Begin by writing a quick outline to structure your piece. Make sure that your introduction leads to a clearly stated thesis and use supporting paragraphs to build this argument. Use quotes judiciously in your answers and focus on writing with sophistication and clarity.

Practice, Practice, Practice: The best way to prepare for these free-response questions is through repeated exercises analyzing short prose passages and poems, and through practicing with open analytical questions. 

Understand Scoring: As you prepare for the writing portion of your exam, be sure to review how your free responses will be scored. Each free-response essay is graded on a scale from 0 to 6 with points awarded for three elements: Thesis (0-1 point), Evidence and Commentary (0-4 points), and Sophistication (0-1 point). A comprehensive explanation of the College Board’s scoring rubric is found on their website.  

Study the free-response questions and scored student responses with written explanations provided by the College Board . The most effective way to use these is to read and respond to the prompts first, then review the student samples and scoring explanations. Use this feedback to practice another prompt and repeat the cycle until you are confident that your responses are as strong as the top scorers’. 

Step 5: Take Another Practice Test

As you did at the beginning of your studying, take a practice test to see which areas you’ve improved in and which still require practice.

If you have time, repeat each of the steps above to incrementally increase your score.

Step 6: Exam Day Specifics

If you’re taking the AP course associated with this exam, your teacher will walk you through how to register. If you’re self-studying, check out CollegeVine’s How to Self-Register for AP Exams .

For information about what to bring to the exam, see CollegeVine’s What Should I Bring to My AP Exam (And What Should I Definitely Leave at Home)?

CollegeVine can’t predict how you’ll score on your AP Literature exam, but we can help take the guesswork out of college admissions. Our free chancing engine uses a data-driven algorithm taking into consideration criteria such as GPA, standardized test scores, and extracurricular activities to tell you your odds of acceptance at over 500 colleges and universities.

Check out these other Collegevine articles for more information about AP exams. 

• 2020 AP Exam Schedule
• How Long is Each AP Exam?

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AP English Literature and Composition

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About the Course

Learn how to understand and evaluate works of fiction, poetry, and drama from various periods and cultures. You’ll read literary works and write essays to explain and support your analysis of them.

New for 2024-25: MCQs Will Have Four Answer Choices

Starting in the 2024-25 school year, AP English Literature and Composition multiple-choice questions (MCQs) will have four answer choices instead of five. This change will take effect with the 2025 exam. All resources have been updated to reflect this change. 

Skills You'll Learn

Read a text closely and draw conclusions from details

Identify the techniques used by an author and their effects

Develop an interpretation of a text

Present your interpretation and make an argument for it in writing

Equivalency and Prerequisites

College course equivalent.

An introductory college-level literature course

Recommended Prerequisites

Wed, May 7, 2025

AP English Literature and Composition Exam

This is the regularly scheduled date for the AP English Literature and Composition Exam.

About the Units

The course content outlined below is organized into commonly taught units of study that provide one possible sequence for the course. Your teacher may choose to organize the course content differently based on local priorities and preferences.

Course Content

Unit 1: short fiction i.

You’ll learn critical reading skills to help you critically read, interpret, and analyze prose.

Topics may include:

• Interpreting the role of character in fiction
• Identifying and interpreting setting
• Understanding how a story’s structure affects interpretations
• Understanding and interpreting a narrator’s perspective
• Reading texts literally and figuratively
• The basics of literary analysis

Unit 2: Poetry I

You’ll continue your critical reading exploration in poetry and learn to analyze similar elements within a wide variety of poems.

• Identifying characters in poetry
• Understanding and interpreting meaning in poetic structure
• Analyzing word choice to find meaning
• Identifying techniques like contrast, simile, metaphor, and alliteration

Unit 3: Longer Fiction or Drama I

You’ll observe how the literary techniques you’ve explored in prior units unfold over the course of longer works and analyze how characters develop and interact over the course of a narrative.

• Interpreting character description and perspective
• Character evolution throughout a narrative
• Conflict and plot development
• Interpreting symbolism
• Identifying evidence and supporting literary arguments

Unit 4: Short Fiction II

You’ll delve deeper into the roles of character and conflict in fiction and explore how a narrator’s perspective can color storytelling.

• Protagonists, antagonists, character relationships, and conflict
• Character interactions with setting and its significance
• Archetypes in literature
• Types of narration like stream of consciousness
• Narrative distance, tone, and perspective

Unit 5: Poetry II

You’ll study different forms of poetry and examine how structure and figurative language can create and impact meaning.

• Traits of closed and open structures in poetry
• Use of techniques like imagery and hyperbole
• Types of comparisons in poetry including personification and allusion
• Identifying and interpreting extended metaphors

Unit 6: Longer Fiction or Drama II

You’ll analyze how various literary techniques play out and shift over the course of longer works, charting how characters change (or don’t) as they’re affected by developments in the plot.

• Interpreting foil characters
• Understanding and interpreting character motives
• Understanding nonlinear narrative structures like flashbacks and foreshadowing
• The effect of narrative tone and bias on reading
• Characters as symbols, metaphors, and archetypes
• Developing literary arguments within a broader context of works

Unit 7: Short Fiction III

You’ll examine how works of fiction interact with and comment on the world around them and the society their authors live or lived in.

• Sudden and more gradual change in characters
• Epiphany as a driver of plot
• Relationships between characters and groups
• Character interactions with settings
• The significance of the pacing of a narrative
• Setting as a symbol
• Interpreting texts in their historical and societal contexts

Unit 8: Poetry III

You’ll develop your interpretation of poetry further by examining how contrasts, ambiguous language, and various other techniques can add layers of meaning to a poetic work.

• Looking at punctuation and structural patterns
• Interpreting juxtaposition, paradox, and irony
• How ambiguity can allow for various interpretations
• Identifying symbols, conceits, and allusions
• Learning proper attribution and citation in literary analysis

Unit 9: Longer Fiction or Drama III

You’ll consider longer narratives in the context of the various techniques and interpretations you’ve learned in prior units and build a nuanced analysis of each complex work as a whole.

• Looking at a character’s response to the resolution of a narrative
• Suspense, resolution, and plot development
• Narrative inconsistencies and contrasting perspectives

Credit and Placement

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Course Resources

Ap classroom resources.

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AP English Literature and Composition Reading Study Skills

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AP English Literature and Composition Writing Study Skills

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AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description

This is the core document for the course. It clearly lays out the course content and describes the exam and AP Program in general.

The Difference Between AP English Language and Composition and AP English Literature and Composition

Learn the similarities and differences between these two courses and exams.

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How to Write the AP Lit Prose Essay with Examples

March 30, 2024

AP Lit Prose Essay Examples – The College Board’s Advanced Placement Literature and Composition Course is one of the most enriching experiences that high school students can have. It exposes you to literature that most people don’t encounter until college , and it helps you develop analytical and critical thinking skills that will enhance the quality of your life, both inside and outside of school. The AP Lit Exam reflects the rigor of the course. The exam uses consistent question types, weighting, and scoring parameters each year . This means that, as you prepare for the exam, you can look at previous questions, responses, score criteria, and scorer commentary to help you practice until your essays are perfect.

What is the AP Lit Free Response testing? 

In AP Literature, you read books, short stories, and poetry, and you learn how to commit the complex act of literary analysis . But what does that mean? Well, “to analyze” literally means breaking a larger idea into smaller and smaller pieces until the pieces are small enough that they can help us to understand the larger idea. When we’re performing literary analysis, we’re breaking down a piece of literature into smaller and smaller pieces until we can use those pieces to better understand the piece of literature itself.

So, for example, let’s say you’re presented with a passage from a short story to analyze. The AP Lit Exam will ask you to write an essay with an essay with a clear, defensible thesis statement that makes an argument about the story, based on some literary elements in the short story. After reading the passage, you might talk about how foreshadowing, allusion, and dialogue work together to demonstrate something essential in the text. Then, you’ll use examples of each of those three literary elements (that you pull directly from the passage) to build your argument. You’ll finish the essay with a conclusion that uses clear reasoning to tell your reader why your argument makes sense.

AP Lit Prose Essay Examples (Continued)

But what’s the point of all of this? Why do they ask you to write these essays?

Well, the essay is, once again, testing your ability to conduct literary analysis. However, the thing that you’re also doing behind that literary analysis is a complex process of both inductive and deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning takes a series of points of evidence and draws a larger conclusion. Deductive reasoning departs from the point of a broader premise and draws a singular conclusion. In an analytical essay like this one, you’re using small pieces of evidence to draw a larger conclusion (your thesis statement) and then you’re taking your thesis statement as a larger premise from which you derive your ultimate conclusion.

So, the exam scorers are looking at your ability to craft a strong thesis statement (a singular sentence that makes an argument), use evidence and reasoning to support that argument, and then to write the essay well. This is something they call “sophistication,” but they’re looking for well-organized thoughts carried through clear, complete sentences.

This entire process is something you can and will use throughout your life. Law, engineering, medicine—whatever pursuit, you name it—utilizes these forms of reasoning to run experiments, build cases, and persuade audiences. The process of this kind of clear, analytical thinking can be honed, developed, and made easier through repetition.

Practice Makes Perfect

Because the AP Literature Exam maintains continuity across the years, you can pull old exam copies, read the passages, and write responses. A good AP Lit teacher is going to have you do this time and time again in class until you have the formula down. But, it’s also something you can do on your own, if you’re interested in further developing your skills.

AP Lit Prose Essay Examples 

Let’s take a look at some examples of questions, answers and scorer responses that will help you to get a better idea of how to craft your own AP Literature exam essays.

In the exam in 2023, students were asked to read a poem by Alice Cary titled “Autumn,” which was published in 1874. In it, the speaker contemplates the start of autumn. Then, students are asked to craft a well-written essay which uses literary techniques to convey the speaker’s complex response to the changing seasons.

The following is an essay that received a perfect 6 on the exam. There are grammar and usage errors throughout the essay, which is important to note: even though the writer makes some mistakes, the structure and form of their argument was strong enough to merit a 6. This is what your scorers will be looking for when they read your essay.

Example Essay 

Romantic and hyperbolic imagery is used to illustrate the speaker’s unenthusiastic opinion of the coming of autumn, which conveys Cary’s idea that change is difficult to accept but necessary for growth.

Romantic imagery is utilized to demonstrate the speaker’s warm regard for the season of summer and emphasize her regretfulness for autumn’s coming, conveying the uncomfortable change away from idyllic familiarity. Summer, is portrayed in the image of a woman who “from her golden collar slips/and strays through stubble fields/and moans aloud.” Associated with sensuality and wealth, the speaker implies the interconnection between a season and bounty, comfort, and pleasure. Yet, this romantic view is dismantled by autumn, causing Summer to “slip” and “stray through stubble fields.” Thus, the coming of real change dethrones a constructed, romantic personification of summer,  conveying the speaker’s reluctance for her ideal season to be dethroned by something much less decorated and adored.

Summer, “she lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,/ And tries the old tunes for over an hour”, is contrasted with bright imagery of fallen leaves/ The juxtaposition between Summer’s character and the setting provides insight into the positivity of change—the yellow leaves—by its contrast with the failures of attempting to sustain old habits or practices, “old tunes”. “She lies on pillows” creates a sympathetic, passive image of summer in reaction to the coming of Autumn, contrasting her failures to sustain “old tunes.” According to this, it is understood that the speaker recognizes the foolishness of attempting to prevent what is to come, but her wishfulness to counter the natural progression of time.

Hyperbolic imagery displays the discrepancies between unrealistic, exaggerated perceptions of change and the reality of progress, continuing the perpetuation of Cary’s idea that change must be embraced rather than rejected. “Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips/The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd”, syntax and diction are used to literally separate different aspects of the progression of time. In an ironic parallel to the literal language, the action of twilight’s “clip” and the subject, “the days,” are cut off from each other into two different lines, emphasizing a sense of jarring and discomfort. Sunset, and Twilight are named, made into distinct entities from the day, dramatizing the shortening of night-time into fall. The dramatic, sudden implications for the change bring to mind the switch between summer and winter, rather than a transitional season like fall—emphasizing the Speaker’s perspective rather than a factual narration of the experience.

She says “the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head/Against the earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost”. Implying pride and defeat, and the word “witched,” the speaker brings a sense of conflict, morality, and even good versus evil into the transition between seasons. Rather than a smooth, welcome change, the speaker is practically against the coming of fall. The hyperbole present in the poem serves to illustrate the Speaker’s perspective and ideas on the coming of fall, which are characterized by reluctance and hostility to change from comfort.

The topic of this poem, Fall–a season characterized by change and the deconstruction of the spring and summer landscape—is juxtaposed with the final line which evokes the season of Spring. From this, it is clear that the speaker appreciates beautiful and blossoming change. However, they resent that which destroys familiar paradigms and norms. Fall, seen as the death of summer, is characterized as a regression, though the turning of seasons is a product of the literal passage of time. Utilizing romantic imagery and hyperbole to shape the Speaker’s perspective, Cary emphasizes the need to embrace change though it is difficult, because growth is not possible without hardship or discomfort.

Scoring Criteria: Why did this essay do so well? 

When it comes to scoring well, there are some rather formulaic things that the judges are searching for. You might think that it’s important to “stand out” or “be creative” in your writing. However, aside from concerns about “sophistication,” which essentially means you know how to organize thoughts into sentences and you can use language that isn’t entirely elementary, you should really focus on sticking to a form. This will show the scorers that you know how to follow that inductive/deductive reasoning process that we mentioned earlier, and it will help to present your ideas in the most clear, coherent way possible to someone who is reading and scoring hundreds of essays.

So, how did this essay succeed? And how can you do the same thing?

First: The Thesis 

On the exam, you can either get one point or zero points for your thesis statement. The scorers said, “The essay responds to the prompt with a defensible thesis located in the introductory paragraph,” which you can read as the first sentence in the essay. This is important to note: you don’t need a flowery hook to seduce your reader; you can just start this brief essay with some strong, simple, declarative sentences—or go right into your thesis.

What makes a good thesis? A good thesis statement does the following things:

• Makes a claim that will be supported by evidence
• Is specific and precise in its use of language
• Argues for an original thought that goes beyond a simple restating of the facts

If you’re sitting here scratching your head wondering how you come up with a thesis statement off the top of your head, let me give you one piece of advice: don’t.

The AP Lit scoring criteria gives you only one point for the thesis for a reason: they’re just looking for the presence of a defensible claim that can be proven by evidence in the rest of the essay.

Second: Write your essay from the inside out 

While the thesis is given one point, the form and content of the essay can receive anywhere from zero to four points. This is where you should place the bulk of your focus.

My best advice goes like this:

• Choose your evidence first
• Develop your commentary about the evidence
• Then draft your thesis statement based on the evidence that you find and the commentary you can create.

It will seem a little counterintuitive: like you’re writing your essay from the inside out. But this is a fundamental skill that will help you in college and beyond. Don’t come up with an argument out of thin air and then try to find evidence to support your claim. Look for the evidence that exists and then ask yourself what it all means. This will also keep you from feeling stuck or blocked at the beginning of the essay. If you prepare for the exam by reviewing the literary devices that you learned in the course and practice locating them in a text, you can quickly and efficiently read a literary passage and choose two or three literary devices that you can analyze.

Third: Use scratch paper to quickly outline your evidence and commentary 

Once you’ve located two or three literary devices at work in the given passage, use scratch paper to draw up a quick outline. Give each literary device a major bullet point. Then, briefly point to the quotes/evidence you’ll use in the essay. Finally, start to think about what the literary device and evidence are doing together. Try to answer the question: what meaning does this bring to the passage?

A sample outline for one paragraph of the above essay might look like this:

Romantic imagery

Portrayal of summer

• Woman who “from her golden collar… moans aloud”
• Summer as bounty

Contrast with Autumn

• Autumn dismantles Summer
• “Stray through stubble fields”
• Autumn is change; it has the power to dethrone the romance of Summer/make summer a bit meaningless

Recognition of change in a positive light

• Summer “lies on pillows / yellow leaves / tries old tunes”
• Bright imagery/fallen leaves
• Attempt to maintain old practices fails: “old tunes”
• But! There is sympathy: “lies on pillows”

Speaker recognizes: she can’t prevent what is to come; wishes to embrace natural passage of time

By the time the writer gets to the end of the outline for their paragraph, they can easily start to draw conclusions about the paragraph based on the evidence they have pulled out. You can see how that thinking might develop over the course of the outline.

Then, the speaker would take the conclusions they’ve drawn and write a “mini claim” that will start each paragraph. The final bullet point of this outline isn’t the same as the mini claim that comes at the top of the second paragraph of the essay, however, it is the conclusion of the paragraph. You would do well to use the concluding thoughts from your outline as the mini claim to start your body paragraph. This will make your paragraphs clear, concise, and help you to construct a coherent argument.

Repeat this process for the other one or two literary devices that you’ve chosen to analyze, and then: take a step back.

Fourth: Draft your thesis 

Once you quickly sketch out your outline, take a moment to “stand back” and see what you’ve drafted. You’ll be able to see that, among your two or three literary devices, you can draw some commonality. You might be able to say, as the writer did here, that romantic and hyperbolic imagery “illustrate the speaker’s unenthusiastic opinion of the coming of autumn,” ultimately illuminating the poet’s idea “that change is difficult to accept but necessary for growth.”

This is an original argument built on the evidence accumulated by the student. It directly answers the prompt by discussing literary techniques that “convey the speaker’s complex response to the changing seasons.” Remember to go back to the prompt and see what direction they want you to head with your thesis, and craft an argument that directly speaks to that prompt.

Then, move ahead to finish your body paragraphs and conclusion.

Fifth: Give each literary device its own body paragraph 

In this essay, the writer examines the use of two literary devices that are supported by multiple pieces of evidence. The first is “romantic imagery” and the second is “hyperbolic imagery.” The writer dedicates one paragraph to each idea. You should do this, too.

This is why it’s important to choose just two or three literary devices. You really don’t have time to dig into more. Plus, more ideas will simply cloud the essay and confuse your reader.

Using your outline, start each body paragraph with a “mini claim” that makes an argument about what it is you’ll be saying in your paragraph. Lay out your pieces of evidence, then provide commentary for why your evidence proves your point about that literary device.

Move onto the next literary device, rinse, and repeat.

Sixth: Commentary and Conclusion 

Finally, you’ll want to end this brief essay with a concluding paragraph that restates your thesis, briefly touches on your most important points from each body paragraph, and includes a development of the argument that you laid out in the essay.

In this particular example essay, the writer concludes by saying, “Utilizing romantic imagery and hyperbole to shape the Speaker’s perspective, Cary emphasizes the need to embrace change though it is difficult, because growth is not possible without hardship or discomfort.” This is a direct restatement of the thesis. At this point, you’ll have reached the end of your essay. Great work!

Seventh: Sophistication 

A final note on scoring criteria: there is one point awarded to what the scoring criteria calls “sophistication.” This is evidenced by the sophistication of thought and providing a nuanced literary analysis, which we’ve already covered in the steps above.

There are some things to avoid, however:

• Sweeping generalizations, such as, “From the beginning of human history, people have always searched for love,” or “Everyone goes through periods of darkness in their lives, much like the writer of this poem.”
• Only hinting at possible interpretations instead of developing your argument
• Oversimplifying your interpretation
• Or, by contrast, using overly flowery or complex language that does not meet your level of preparation or the context of the essay.

Remember to develop your argument with nuance and complexity and to write in a style that is academic but appropriate for the task at hand.

If you want more practice or to check out other exams from the past, go to the College Board’s website .

Brittany Borghi

After earning a BA in Journalism and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa, Brittany spent five years as a full-time lecturer in the Rhetoric Department at the University of Iowa. Additionally, she’s held previous roles as a researcher, full-time daily journalist, and book editor. Brittany’s work has been featured in The Iowa Review, The Hopkins Review, and the Pittsburgh City Paper, among others, and she was also a 2021 Pushcart Prize nominee.

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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., guide to the ap english language and composition exam.

Can you apply the rhetorical triangle to a piece of writing? Are you able to argue a position? The AP ® English Language and Composition exam tests topics and skills discussed in your Advanced Placement English Language course. If you score high enough, your AP English Language score could earn you college credit!

Check out our AP English Language Guide for what you need to know about the exam:

• Exam Overview
• Sections and Question Types
• How to Prepare

What’s on the AP English Language & Composition Exam?

The College Board is very detailed in what they require your AP teacher to cover in his or her AP English Language & Composition course. The exam tests your abilities to understand how authors use rhetoric and language to convey their purpose. Students are also expected to apply these techniques to their own writing and research projects. Some of the major skills tested include the ability to:

• Identify an author’s purpose and intended audience
• Recognize rhetorical devices and strategies in an author’s work
• Demonstrate understanding of citations in research papers
• Apply these skills and techniques to their own writing
• Create and organize an argument defended with evidence and reasoning
• Plan, write, and revise cogent, well-written essays

Check out our line of AP guides  for a comprehensive content review.

AP English Language Sections & Question Types

The AP English Language & Composition exam is 3 hours and 15 minutes long and consists of two sections: a multiple-choice section and a free response section.

Read More: Review for the exam with our  AP English Language Crash Course 

Multiple-Choice

For AP English Language multiple-choice questions, you are presented with two Reading Passages and three Writing passages. The two Reading passages are nonfiction passages taken from all sorts of works. The idea is to get you to focus on rhetorical devices, figures of speech and intended purposes, under rigid time constraints and with material you haven’t seen before. The three Writing passages are student-produced essays. The idea is to get you to revise the essay that help the writer accomplish his or her goal.

Free Response

The AP English Language section contains three essay prompts: a synthesis essay, a rhetorical analysis essay, and an argument essay.

• Synthesis essay: You’ll be given a scenario and tasked with writing a response using at least three of six or seven short accompanying sources for support.
• Rhetorical analysis essay: Asks you to analyze the techniques an author uses, and discuss how they contribute to the author’s purpose.
• Argument essay: Presents a claim or assertion in the prompt and then asks you to argue a position based on your own knowledge, experience, or reading.

How to Interpret AP English Language Scores

AP scores are reported from 1 to 5. Colleges are generally looking for a 4 or 5 on the AP English Language exam, but some may grant AP credit for a 3. Each test is curved so scores vary from year to year. Here’s how AP English Lang students scored on the May 2022 test:

Source: College Board

How can I prepare?

AP classes are great, but for many students they’re not enough! For a thorough review of AP English Language content and strategy, pick the AP prep option that works best for your goals and learning style.

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Much Ado About Teaching

8 things to know for the ap literature exam.

So many big test tips are generic. They include things like “get a good night of sleep the night before,” “read the questions before the passage,” and “eliminate wrong answers.” Rarely, does those tips provide a strategic plan to make a major jump in the days leading up to the exam.

Here are eight ways to maximize your score in the eight days leading up to the AP Literature and Composition exam.

• YOU CAN GET THE THESIS POINT

The thesis point is low-hanging fruit that is easy to reach on the exam. In 2021, 85% of students earned this point across all three essays, and that number would probably be higher if it were not for the hand turkeys, music lyrics, and College-Board-is-an-evil-monopoly letters written to AP Readers. Lots and lots of students get the thesis point and you can too.

Here’s the key — have an original and insightful idea about the prompt.

How do you do that?

Well, insight means to see into the nature of something or having a deep understanding. If you see what the poem or the prose passage is really about, your well on your way to the thesis point.

In 2017 with Q2’s prompt for Peregrine Pickle , if you saw how foolish the two men looked as their emotions escalated, you were well on your way to the thesis point.

Here’s are two examples that highlight this difference:

weak thesis: In the passage there is a complex interplay between emotions and social norms as Smollett uses a plethora of literary devices to point this out.

stronger thesis: As Godfrey Gauntlet intrudes on the relationship between Peregrine Pickle and his beloved Emilia, both men follow the social norms of the time to suppress their increasing rage, yet this suppression ultimately makes them look more like fools than gentleman.

2. THINK BIG TO SMALL

This strategy works for multiple choice as well as Q1 and Q2. Start with the biggest broadest idea that you can identify and refine your way to more specific and nuanced insights. These ideas will be your guiding principles when you tackle the multiple-choice questions and give you lots of things to write about for the essays.

What does it look like?

After reading and annotating a poem or passage, mentally say to yourself:

“This is really about ______.”

“But it also about __________.”

“And while it starts with _________, it ends with _____________.”

“And at this moment I see a subtle change when ___________ happens.”

There’s another subtle shift from _________ to _________ at this moment.”

If you do this over and over again, starting big and broad and refining your way to deeper understand, you will enter the multiple choice or the essay from a place of confidence.

3. UNDERLINE THE STRONG VERB ON PROSE PASSAGES

If you know the verbs, you know the action. Underlining the strong verbs keys your brain, it makes an impression on the mind, helping you understand what characters are doing, what is transpiring in the setting, or how things are being said.

4. STUDY SIX SCENES TO THEMES

My students complete Six Scenes to Themes for every major work we read during the year. There is an AP Literature mantra to “know few works well.” Reviewing key moment from the novels and plays that we read in the days leading up to the exam is their best preparation for Q3.

5. KNOW THE BIG 7

You can memorize a list of 55 literary terms, but these seven are the heart of the Q1 and Q2 on the exam. They will almost always be there in the passage or poem, which makes them wonderfully reliable. They are:

characterization

figurative language

6. CONJUNCTIONS = SOPHISTICATION

Ahh… the elusive sophistication point.

In 2021, 94 % of students DID NOT earn the sophistication point. It feels like the AP unicorn.

The most common way I’ve seen students earn the sophistication point is by “Identifying and exploring complexities or tensions within” the work. If something is complex, it is not one dimensional. There are layers to it. It is one thing and another. This happens but something else complicates it. While one moment a truth emerges, yet in another it is vanquished. These conjunctions show that things aren’t so simple. There are layers of meaning. The more a student can successfully incorporate conjunctions in their sentences without going overboard, the more they increase their chances of earning the sophistication point.

7. FIND YOUR FOOTHOLDS

In rock climbing, a foothold allows you to gain your security before you advance to a higher elevation. This is the analogy I use with my students for multiple-choice questions. Rather than focus on what you don’t know about a poem or passage, focus on what you do know by moving from big to small. Then use each multiple-choice question as a foothold. The questions on the exam typically move in chronological order, guiding you through an understanding. Each question should take you to a higher elevation of understanding.

8. GUSH YOUR INFERENCES

Body paragraphs (how you earn your evidence and commentary points) are really about making a case for the inferences you develop. Many students fall short of the total point value because they summarize what it literally said. To earn 3 or 4 points in evidence and commentary, you have to use your body paragraphs to discuss what is the author or poet implying, suggesting, hinting, or saying without actually saying in certain moments.

You have to convince AP Readers that those inference are valid based on the evidence that you present.

Look at each body paragraph as a opportunity to gush your inference. Make an effusive display of your idea and give all the evidence that exists to support it.

Brian Sztabnik is just a man trying to do good in and out of the classroom. He was a 2018 finalist for NY Teacher of the Year, a former College Board advisor for AP Lit, and an award-winning basketball coach.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, ap lit exam essay examples: where to find.

I want to check out some high-scoring essay examples to review for my upcoming AP Lit Exam. Where can I find these, and what should I focus on when analyzing them? Thanks!

You can find high-scoring essay examples for the AP Lit Exam on the College Board website. They provide samples of student responses along with the corresponding scores and commentary. Navigate to the year you want, and you'll find samples with detailed explanations. Here's the link to their resources: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition/exam/past-exam-questions

When analyzing these essays, focus on the following:

1. Thesis statement: Pay attention to how successful essays present a clear and concise thesis statement. The thesis should concisely answer the prompt and give a roadmap for the essay.

2. Organization: Study how the essay is organized and how the writer effectively uses transitions to guide the reader through their analysis. A well-structured essay should have a logical flow and strong topic sentences.

3. Textual evidence: Notice how high-scoring essays incorporate relevant textual evidence to support their arguments. Look for instances where the writer provides a direct quote or paraphrases the text and clearly connects it back to their main argument.

4. Commentary: Analyze how the writer provides thoughtful and thorough commentary. The commentary should interpret the textual evidence and demonstrate its relevance to the argument. It should also address any potential counterarguments or alternate interpretations.

5. Style and language: Finally, consider the writer's use of language, tone, and rhetorical devices. A strong essay will have varied sentence structure, formal diction, and demonstrate a command of literary terms and techniques.

By closely examining these elements in high-scoring essays, you can gain insight into what makes an effective response and how to approach the AP Lit Exam. Practice writing your own essays using similar techniques, and don't forget to have a peer or mentor review them to provide feedback. Good luck!

About CollegeVine’s Expert FAQ

CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

Here’s Why More Students Have Passed AP Exams in Recent Years

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Some Advanced Placement teachers might have noticed that a higher percentage of their students received passing scores on the program’s year-end exams in the last few years.

This year , 72 percent of students who took the AP U.S. History exam earned scores of 3, 4, or 5—scores that often allow exam takers to claim college credit—up from 48.3 percent in 2022 . On the AP Macroeconomics exam, 62 percent of students this year earned passing grades, up from 51.8 percent two years earlier, according to College Board data.

It’s not that the exams that determine whether students can receive college credit have become easier, or that there was a sudden shift in how students prepared—or in how AP teachers taught. It’s more of a course correction in exam scoring, according to the College Board, the nonprofit organization that runs the AP program.

Between 2022 and this spring, the nonprofit adjusted how it scores AP subject exams using a new, data- and numbers-based approach aimed at eliminating some of the subjectivity and inconsistency that had previously been part of AP exam scoring. This “recalibration” resulted in a higher percentage of students getting the 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s that qualify them for college credit in nine subjects.

The move by the College Board comes at a time when researchers have documented accelerating grade inflation, in particular since the start of the pandemic, at both the K-12 and college levels. In addition, dual credit programs , in which students don’t rely on an exam score to earn college credit, are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to AP courses.

In that context, the College Board’s move led some educators and researchers to question whether AP exams have become easier , or whether the College Board purposefully sought to boost the percentage of students receiving passing scores to compete against dual credit programs.

But neither one of those scenarios is true, said Trevor Packer, the head of the AP program.

Instead, he said, the adjustments came about because the use of a new data-based approach to setting cutoff scores led the AP program to find more students have actually been demonstrating the proficiencies required for college credit.

“We don’t have an agenda for AP scores to be harder or easier. Our objective is to reflect what the evidence shows,” Packer said.

Though experts don’t see an immediate need for AP teachers to change how they teach as a result of the scoring changes, there are some key takeaways from this recalibration for teachers.

How the AP program determines what’s a passing score and what changed

Every five to 10 years, the College Board reviews how to determine cutoff scores for each exam.

AP exams are scored on a 5-point scale, and students who score a 3 or higher qualify for cost-saving college credit depending on the college or university they ultimately attend.

For years, the College Board relied on panels of 10 to 18 higher education faculty members for each AP subject to determine what a student had to do to earn a 3 instead of a 2, or a 5 instead of a 4. These panels also estimated what percentage of students should get each score.

It’s a standard approach and the best methodology the College Board had on hand, Packer said. Historically, these panels estimated that about 60 to 80 percent of students should score a 3 or higher on most AP exams. But in some subjects, especially in the humanities, the passing rate had recently been lower than 60 percent.

College Board officials wanted to make sure the lower passing rates in those subject areas were fair and accurately reflected students’ understanding of the course material, Packer said.

In 2013, new research emerged on a methodology known as evidence-based standard setting that relies on exam data to determine score cutoffs.

For instance, on a U.S. History AP exam, a student earns a certain number of points on an open-ended essay response that becomes part of a composite score that is then converted to a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. The College Board uses its standard-setting methodology to determine which composite scores become which exam grades.

The new methodology also involves a detailed rubric that outlines how many points a student should earn for meeting the requirements of the open response question.

For example, in responding to an essay question on the American Revolution, did a student meet all the requirements, including explaining four causes of the war, crafting a thesis statement, and providing appropriate context?

College Board officials began developing those detailed rubrics for all AP exams in 2019.

Due to delays tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, it wasn’t until 2022 that the College Board officially began using the new approach to assess data from AP exams across the country, Packer said.

As a result of the analysis and switch to the new scoring methodology, the College Board determined that the 60- to 80-percent passing rate in most subjects should stay the same. It also found that the passing rates in nine subjects needed to rise:

• AP World History
• AP English Literature
• AP Macroeconomics
• AP Microeconomics
• AP Chemistry
• AP U.S. Government and Politics
• AP U.S. History
• AP European History

“The goal was not set up to say, ‘we’re going to set out to make AP scores better.’ Our goal was to use the largest evidence set possible to determine, are there reasons some of these subjects, the humanities subjects, should have lower success rates than the others?,” Packer said.

“When we did the evidence-based process, we didn’t find a reason for that. We found that they should have success rates very similar to the other APs.”

The College Board has been making these adjustments over the last three years and plans to rely on the new methodology, alongside college faculty expertise, moving forward.

What this means for teachers and school leaders

Some teachers have called for adjustments to passing rates in the past. Some felt, for instance, that students scoring a 2 should have qualified for a 3.

“These students were clearly outperforming students at the college level, and yet weren’t being given the credit of passing the exam,” said Noah Lipman, who teaches AP U.S. History, AP U.S. Government and Politics, and AP Macroeconomics at Highlands High School in San Antonio, Texas.

The College Board needed data to prove this hunch, he added, which the new methodology has provided.

As a result of the College Board’s adjustments this year, Lipman saw the passing rate for his AP U.S. History students rise from the typical rate of about 50 percent to about 70 percent this year.

He saw no change to the passing rate for his AP U.S. Government and Politics students.

Lipman, who consults for the College Board on history courses and is an AP exam grader, has changed nothing about how he teaches the courses nor has he noticed major changes to the rigor of the course curriculum. He hasn’t noticed a change on the student side, either, he added.

“All that’s changed is that more students are now passing the exam with a 3 or 4 than previously had,” he said.

An additional immediate benefit for some teachers—beyond the gratitude that more of their students are eligible for college credit—is potentially more pay.

Some districts pay bonuses to teachers with high AP exam passing rates, said John Moscatiello, founder and chief executive of Marco Learning, a consulting group that helps schools design AP programs.

Moving forward, Moscatiello recommends AP teachers and school leaders take the College Board’s new approach to scoring into account when analyzing their students’ performance.

For instance, if a school implemented a program in the 2023-24 school year to help raise students’ AP scores, and they saw a bump, how much of the growth can they attribute to their new program versus the scoring change?

And if the scoring for a subject changed, but the percent of students passing didn’t go up, what additional support can their school offer?

“This adjustment of AP scores, and more transparency, will give clarity to school leaders to make the right decisions about what’s working and what’s not for their AP programs,” Moscatiello said.

More students could be inspired to take AP courses

AP exams and dual-credit programs are two of the most popular pathways for students to earn college credit while in high school.

Now, given a statistically better chance of earning credit through an AP exam, Moscatiello and others say the College Board’s score adjustments could lead more students to choose AP courses.

On college applications, AP scores on a transcript are still one way students can distinguish themselves, said Christoph Guttentag, the dean of undergraduate admissions at Duke University, who is also a trustee of the College Board.

At Duke, individual university departments determine how much credit to award students for AP scores. It will take some time to see how these departments react to the AP adjustments, Guttentag said, though he suspects faculty may be encouraged by how the College Board relied on data to support these changes and set cutoff scores.

Guttentag also sees the potential for these changes to boost student participation in AP courses.

“If this change encourages more students to take AP courses, if it gives students the confidence that they can succeed in these courses, I think that’s a great thing,” Guttentag said. “I think that I worry more about not enough students taking APs than I do about too many students taking APs.”

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An Olympics Scene Draws Scorn. Did It Really Parody ‘The Last Supper’?

Some church leaders and politicians have condemned the performance from the opening ceremony for mocking Christianity. Art historians are divided.

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By Yan Zhuang

A performance during the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony on Friday has drawn criticism from church leaders and conservative politicians for a perceived likeness to Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of a biblical scene in “The Last Supper,” with some calling it a “mockery” of Christianity.

The event’s planners and organizers have denied that the sequence was inspired by “The Last Supper,” or that it intended to mock or offend.

In the performance broadcast during the ceremony, a woman wearing a silver, halo-like headdress stood at the center of a long table, with drag queens posing on either side of her. Later, at the same table, a giant cloche lifted, revealing a man, nearly naked and painted blue, on a dinner plate surrounded by fruit. He broke into a song as, behind him, the drag queens danced.

The tableaux drew condemnation among people who saw the images as a parody of “The Last Supper,” the New Testament scene depicted in da Vinci’s painting by the same name. The French Bishops’ Conference, which represents the country’s Catholic bishops, said in a statement that the opening ceremony included “scenes of mockery and derision of Christianity,” and an influential American Catholic, Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota, called it a “gross mockery.”

The performance at the opening ceremony, which took place on and along the Seine on Friday, also prompted a Mississippi-based telecommunications provider, C Spire, to announce that it would pull its advertisements from Olympics broadcasts. Speaker Mike Johnson described the scene as “shocking and insulting to Christian people.”

The opening ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, said at the Games’ daily news conference on Saturday that the event was not meant to “be subversive, or shock people, or mock people.” On Sunday, Anne Descamps, the Paris 2024 spokeswoman, said at the daily news conference, “If people have taken any offense, we are, of course, really, really sorry.”

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2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, as it happened

The cauldron rises by the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The cauldron is lit by torch bearers Marie-Jose Perec and Teddy Riner in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

The Olympic Flame rises on a balloon after being lit in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Singer Celine Dion performs from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

A light show is projected from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

IOC President Thomas Bach speaks as Tony Estanguet, president of 2024 Paris Olympics looks on in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

United States’ Coco Gauff and Lebron James take photos as they travel along the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis,Pool)

A performer rides a mechanical horse along the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

The Olympic flag is carried onto the stage in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Egypt athletes leap while participating in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Logan Edra, of the United States breakdancing team, dances as she travels along with teammates on the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

Athletes from the United States travel by boat down the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

A torchbearer carries the Olympic flame over a building along the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, Pool)

Ceremonial smoke in the colors of the France flag appear over the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Athletes travel by boat along the Seine River during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

Lady Gaga performs in Paris, France, ahead of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

A performer sits on a bridge in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Athletes from Spain travel by boat down the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

The Eiffel Tower gives backdrop to athletes riding on boats along the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, Pool)

Team Greece’s boat parades along the Seine river in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Visitors are seen on a bridge ahead of the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Zhang Yuwei/Pool Photo via AP)

Stephen Curry of the United States takes a photo prior to the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024.(Quinn Rooney/Photo Photo via AP)

Spectators wave French national flags while waiting at the Seine river front in Paris, France, for the start of opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Serena Williams arrives in Paris, France, before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Athletes of Israel take a selfie aboard a boat in the floating parade on the Seine River in Paris, France, before the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Nir Elias/Pool Photo via AP)

The boat carrying the Olympic Refugee team makes its way down the Seine in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Spectators wait for the start of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Security patrol by boat in Paris, France, before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Entertainers Ariana Grande, right, and Cynthia Erivo arrive in Paris, France, before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

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Today’s live coverage has ended, but there’s still plenty to catch up on. See what you missed below and find more coverage of the 2024 Olympics at apnews.com.

Paris kicked off its first Summer Olympics in a century on with a rain-soaked , rule-breaking opening ceremony studded with stars and fantasy along the Seine River.

Here’s what to know:

• Cauldron is lit: French judo champion Teddy Riner and three-time gold medal sprinter Marie-José Pérec carried the torch to light the cauldron , attached to a giant balloon, which then floated into the Paris night.
• Celine Dion makes a surprise appearance: The French-Canadian pop star serenaded from the Eiffel Tower after the cauldron was lit. Another surprise performance came from Lady Gaga , who dazzled in the ceremony’s first musical act.
• How to watch: In the U.S., the ceremony can be streamed on Peacock and NBC Olympics platforms and will re-air on NBC at 7:30 ET.

The floating Olympic cauldron is not only spectacular, it’s also eco-friendly. Paris 2024 organizers said in a statement its flame is 100% electric made of water and light, with no fuel.

Floriane Issert, a non-commissioned officer for the National Gendarmerie, carries the Olympic flag during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Cameron Spencer/Pool Photo via AP)

After a glittering metal horse galloped across the Seine, a woman wearing silver armor rode a real horse while carrying the official Olympic flag (which wound up being raised upside down ).

Who was the woman on horseback? Her name is Floriane Issert, a Gendarmerie noncommissioned officer. She was meant to be “the representation of the Olympic spirit and of Sequana,” the goddess of the Seine River.

Organizers for the Los Angeles Games in 2028 will have a hard time matching the scale of what Paris executed along the Seine.

LA’s bid included plans to split its opening ceremony between Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — also a host in 1932 and 1984 — and SoFi Stadium. Those plans could change in the next four years, though.

Speaking on French television, Paris 2024 director of design and costume for ceremonies Daphné Bürki spoke of how enthusiastic Dion and Lady Gaga were to take part.

“When we called Celine Dion one year ago, she said yes straight away,” Bürki said. “So did Lady Gaga. She trained for two months to do this.”

Now the games begin in earnest all across France.

There are plenty of gold medals at stake Saturday, the first full day of the Olympic slate. There’s swimming and tennis all day long. And several stars will be in action, including U.S. Open tennis champion Coco Gauff, NBA phenom Victor Wembanyama and Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.

▶ Here’s what to watch during Day 1 of the Paris Olympics

The 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony has officially come to a close.

Celine Dion shows her Eurovision Song Contest trophy, which she won for Switzerland, in 1998 (AP Photo/Peter Kemp, File)

No. Her English songs are much beloved and French is her first language but she is Canadian.

Born in Quebec, the French-speaking province of Canada, the singer does not have French nationality.

Somewhat confusingly, Dion represented Switzerland in the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest and won the whole thing. Eurovision doesn’t require singers to be citizens of the countries they’re representing.

She received a standing ovation at this year’s Grammys when she made a surprise appearance to present the final award. That was the beginning of a comeback, completed tonight.

Celine Dion’s Olympics performance marks her return to performing after years. She was diagnosed with stiff person syndrome in late 2022, causing her to postpone a tour.

The rare neurological disorder causes rigid muscles and painful muscle spasms, which were affecting Dion’s ability to walk and sing. In June, at the premiere of the documentary “I Am: Celine Dion” she told The Associated Press that returning required therapy, “physically, mentally, emotionally, vocally.”

“So that’s why it takes a while. But absolutely why we’re doing this because I’m already a little bit back,” she said.

Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec watch as the cauldron rises in a balloon in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The identity of the person who would light the Olympic cauldron (spoiler alert: Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner) was up in the air … and so, it turns out, was the cauldron itself: a ring of fire carried by a hot-air balloon.

The ring is 7 meters in diameter (about 23 feet), and the balloon is 30 meters (about 100 feet) tall and 22 meters (about 72 feet) wide.

Instead of the usual ground-bound cauldron used at most Summer and Winter Games, the special edition for the Paris Olympics is intended as a tribute to the first ride taken in a hydrogen-filled gas balloon — made in 1783 by two of that balloon’s French inventors. They departed back then from the Tuileries Garden, which is near the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris and where the Olympic cauldron was lit before floating into the sky.

Created by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur, the cauldron is meant as a symbol of liberty – an element in the national slogan of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”

Celine Dion has arrived! The French-Canadian pop star followed the lighting of the Olympic cauldron by performing from the Eiffel Tower.

Charles Coste, the oldest French Olympic champion at 100, took the Olympic flame from his wheelchair, then passed it on to French judo great Teddy Riner and sprinter Marie-José Pérec. They lit a cauldron attached to a giant balloon, which then floated into the Paris night.

Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec watch as the cauldron rises in a balloon in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Mauresmo and Parker handed off to a trio of French para-athletes, including Nantenin Keïta, who is the daughter of famed Mali musician Salif Keita. A series of handoffs followed to more than a dozen French athletes.

Torch bearers carry the torch in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

When the boat reached land, Nadal used the torch his group had to light one held by former tennis player Amelie Mauresmo. She won two Grand Slam titles, reached No. 1 in the rankings and coached Andy Murray; she is now the tournament director for the French Open.

Mauresmo handed her torch to former NBA player Tony Parker, and they began jogging together under a falling rain near the Louvre.

People still lining the Alexander III Bridge cheered with joy as the Olympic torch passed by on the boat.

Rafael Nadal carries the Olympic flame flanked by Serena Williams, right, in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Other athletes on the boat involved in the torch relay were retired track star Carl Lewis, an American with nine Olympic gold medals, and retired gymnast Nadia Comaneci, a Romanian with five golds.

Zinedine Zidane carries the Olympic flame in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The final torch relay late in the ceremony involved retired soccer star Zinedine Zidane, who led France to the 1998 World Cup title, and several non-French stars.

Zidane handed off to Rafael Nadal, a Spaniard who won 14 of his 22 Grand Slam tennis titles at the French Open. Then, on a boat along the Seine, Nadal gave the torch to Serena Williams, an American who collected three of her 23 major singles championships in Paris.

The Eiffel Tower is illuminated in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

After staring in awe at the Eiffel Tower light show, crowds once again jumping up and down and bopping to electronic music.

Lights from the monument can be seen as rays through the rain over the Seine, leaving the cloudy sky glowing.

France President Emmanuel Macron seeks pin Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

French President Emmanuel Macron has said the words that make it official: He has declared the Paris Games open.

Macron did so just before French flag bearers Florent Manaudou and Mélina Robert-Michon took the Olympic Oath on behalf of all the athletes taking part in the Olympic Games. The oath represents how athletes understand they must respect the rules of fair play.

The five-ring Olympic flag was raised upside down at Trocadero across the way from the Eiffel Tower.

The gaffe happened about three hours into the opening ceremony. Four officers of the Republican Guard were handed the flag, unfurled it and then moved it to the top of a pole. But the yellow and green rings that are supposed to be at the bottom were at the top; the blue, black and red rings that are supposed to be on top were underneath.

The flag was designed in 1914 by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics. The five rings represent continents: blue for Europe, black for Africa, red for America, yellow for Asia, green for Australia.

Tony Estanguet, president of 2024 Paris Olympics, specks in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Tony Estanguet, the president of Paris 2024 and a three-time canoe slalom gold medalist, offered the Olympic athletes a message of hope at the opening ceremony Friday night.

And he thanked them for being in Paris.

“Dear athletes, we can’t wait to live it all with you,” he said. “The joy. The tears. And the love that you will put in each moment. Thank you so much for being here. You made it. Bravo. I know what it means. I know what it took. I know the paths you have followed to be here. Paris will give back to you. It’s the city of love. And for the next 16 days, it is your city.”

Athletes from Algeria wave flags aboard a boat on the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Annegret Hilse/Pool Photo via AP)

Algeria reminded France of a dark chapter of its colonial past during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

Algerian athletes brought red roses on their boat as they paraded for the event, and then tossed them into the river to honor victims of an infamous 1961 police crackdown on Algerian protesters in Paris. Historians say some 120 protesters died and 12,000 were arrested as they demonstrated in support of independence from France, then Algeria’s colonial ruler. Some were thrown in the Seine River.

Algeria won its independence in 1962 after a long war.

In Friday’s Olympics parade, some athletes chanted ‘’Long live Algeria!’’ in Arabic after throwing the flowers.

Although organizers said 6,800 athletes would attend the parade, far fewer than that appear to have stayed after boats docked for the last part of the ceremony, held in a temporary arena facing the Eiffel Tower.

The crowd of athletes there, many wearing clear plastic ponchos, had thinned to a couple of thousand at most.

Four delegations have just one athlete competing at the Games. They are Belize, Liechtenstein, Nauru and Somalia.

None of them had their own boat for the opening ceremony on the Seine. Being the lone athlete has its perks, though: You are a sure thing to be the flag bearer. Mountain bike racer Romano Puentener of Liechtenstein is the youngest of the four — he’s 20.

The Eiffel Tower and the Olympics rings are lit up during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Lionel Bonaventure/Pool Photo via AP)

Three hours in, and the Paris Olympics opening ceremony has been a magnificent — if soggy — success. It’s almost hard to believe after the day began with arsonists attacking the French high-speed rail system.

The 90 boats carrying 6,800 athletes have completed the roughly 90-minute Seine River parade route. It’s been an unprecedented display of Olympic spirit, one that appears to have gone without a hitch.

There have been memorable musical performances from Lady Gaga , metal band Gojira and others. Stunning artistic displays utilized Paris’ many historical landmarks. And critically, no known interruptions despite concerns over safety and security across the sprawling Olympic stage — and no one’s fallen into the choppy Seine.

A performer rides a mechanical horse along the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Entertainer’s perform in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Floriane Issert, a non-commissioned officer for the National Gendarmerie, carries the Olympic flag during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Loic Venance/Pool Photo via AP)

A horsewoman galloped on her glittering metal horse on the waters of the Seine River, draped in a cape emblazoned with the Olympic rings. As she passed under Paris successive bridges, dove’s wings unfurled to symbolize a message of peace.

The tableau was then transformed into the horsewoman riding a real horse, accompanied by the Republican Guard, to bring the Olympic flag to the Trocadero stage, near the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower gets a blue color in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Sofia Cohen, 20, and her father Michael Cohen, 62, were among packs of people grinning and jumping up and down, pumping their fist to music after boats had already passed.

Calling the opening ceremony “electric,” the Nicaraguan-Americans chatted about their favorite moments, agreeing that the roar of applause the Ukrainian team got as it drifted by on boat was their favorite part.

“Every Olympics is different, and this one was very French. The ceremony started out very magestic and regal. And as the rain started pouring down and time went on, everything got a little more hectic and fun,” Sofia said. “Everyone was just going crazy.

French singer and actor Philippe Katerine, singing a song named “Naked,” is known for his irreverent sense of humor.

Aged 55, he became popular in France in the 2000s with his dance beat “Louxor, j’adore,” which he performed Friday almost naked with his body painted in blue to represent Dyonisus, the god of wine.

Up close, the waters of the Seine River looked choppy indeed. As boats approached the Alexander III Bridge, they all appeared to veer off to the side. And the smaller boats were clearly having a bumpy ride.

French athletes wave from a boat on the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

One of the ideals of the Olympics is peace, which makes John Lennon’s “Imagine” a natural fit for the opening ceremony.

It has become a tradition, one that continued Friday at the opening of the Paris Games, for Lennon’s peace anthem to be part of the opening.

“The Olympic Games must always build bridges. The Olympic Games must never erect walls. Imagine. You may say we are dreamers. We are not the only ones,” IOC president Thomas Bach said exactly one year ago Friday, borrowing from the song.

Olympic surfers competing in Tahiti, French Polynesia, got their own chance to shine about 10,000 miles (15,000 kilometers) away from Paris, when TV showed them gathering on a beach for a ceremony centered on Polynesian culture.

The 12-hour time difference from Paris means it was a little before 10 a.m. on Friday in Tahiti when the surfing athletes were briefly on screens around the world. Some held flags or scarfs showing their countries’ names.

It’s an ancestral tradition in Polynesian culture used as a prelude to important events to secure the peace and union of those in competition against each other.

Surfing is expected to begin Saturday, depending on when swales arrive and the angle and size of the waves.

This month some of the world’s best surfers will travel to Tahiti, French Polynesia, to compete for Olympic gold on what is known as one of the heaviest waves in the world. Called Teahupo’o, the wave has unique properties that make it difficult to ride, having claimed the life of at least one surfer. Here’s a look at the dynamics of the wave and the 2024 Paris Olympics surfing competition.

United States’ Coco Gauff and Lebron James in Paris, France, travel along the Seine River during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis,Pool)

Even LeBron James was moved by his experience at the opening ceremony.

By his company, too.

The four-time NBA MVP and tennis star Coco Gauff were the flag bearers for the U.S.

“For myself and Coco, for us to be able to represent our country,” James said, “us being Black kids as well, represent our culture and represent where we come from, it gives everybody so much hope where we come from, and that’s all we can ask for. We take it with the utmost responsibility and the utmost honor.”

James joined a large contingent of American athletes on a boat on the Seine River on a rainy night in Paris. With Gauff by his side — both clad in clear ponchos — James bobbed his head as he held the flag at the front of the boat.

“The rain can’t stop us,” James said.

Pins are currency at any Olympics: people trade them, people want them, people save them and it’s all been a tradition for decades.

And U.S. flag bearer and tennis star Coco Gauff is evidently a big player on the pin circuit since her selection to lead the American delegation into the opening ceremony alongside LeBron James.

“I can say it’s upped her pin game tremendously,” U.S. tennis coach Kathy Rinaldi said. “Just hanging around Coco, we’re getting the really good pins.”

About two dozen Olympic volunteers started to dance together in the rain in front of the bleachers at the Du Carosel viewing point. Fans who hadn’t been chased away by the downpour cheered as they bounced and jumped around.

“The rain made it more funny to be honest,” said Austrian marathon swimmer Jan Hercog, who’ll compete in the Seine, if it is clean enough.

“There were people standing on the roofs and on famous buildings that I have just seen in books and on TV. ... I was like, ‘Woah, that’s crazy.’ They were cheering. I was nearly crying.”

He said he was “really worried” about the potential that the wet evening could impact his performance. He said he’d take vitamin C and some supplements to pep him up after the ceremony.

Britain’s flagbearers Helen Glover, left and Thomas Daley pose while riding in a boat along the Seine River during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Naomi Baker/Pool Photo via AP)

Tom Daley and Helen Glover inserted a scene from “Titanic” into the opening ceremony.

Luckily for Daley and Glover, there was no iceberg in sight.

Daley and Glover — the flag bearers for Britain — put their own little twist on the blockbuster 1997 movie while floating on their country’s boat on the River Seine.

Daley, a diver, held his arms out as he stood near a railing, and Glover, a rower, had her arms wrapped around his waist while holding the British flag.

Britain’s team account posted a picture of the scene. The caption read: “Near, far, wherever you are..”

At 6-foot-9, U.S. flag bearer and NBA icon LeBron James is pretty easy to spot. And there are no shortage of Olympians trying to find him at the Paris Games.

“I want to take a picture with a few guys from tennis and from NBA — LeBron James and Steph Curry,” Angola handball player and flag bearer Azenaide Carlos said.

Added Italian tennis player Sara Errani, when asked which athlete she wants to most meet: “LeBron James. Why? I don’t think there’s any need to add a reason, but for sure because I am a big basketball fan.”

James was selected in a vote among Team USA’s captains. Other nations use different methods for choosing flag bearers; Australia chef de mission Anna Meares revealed her nation’s picks — canoe-kayak Olympic champion Jessica Fox and field hockey’s Eddie Ockenden — earlier this week, and said James having the same honor piqued even more interest in the flag bearer role.

“There’s also a lot of excitement in the Australian team that LeBron James is their flagbearer,” Meares said.

The Palestinian delegation sails along the Seine River during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Jack Guez/Pool Photo via AP)

Palestine’s entrance was met with cheers. Like many crisis-stricken nations, the country’s delegation is small and many of the athletes are Palestinian descendants or trained in other countries to be here.

▶ Read more about the Palestinian Olympic team

The ceremony celebrated women, including by featuring 10 gold-colored statues of great French female figures.

During a performance of the national anthem “La Marseillaise,” the statues arose from giant pedestals along the river near France’s lower house of parliament.

Among the pioneering women honored was Olympe de Gouges, who drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen in 1791 during the French Revolution. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery and was guillotined in 1793.

The others: Simone de Beauvoir, a philosopher and writer; Gisèle Halimi, a lawyer and activist; Paulette Nardal, a writer; Jeanne Barret, an explorer and botanist; Christine de Pizan, a writer; Louise Michel, a feminist activist; Alice Guy, a movie director and producer; Alice Milliat, organizer of the first Women’s World Games; Simone Veil, a politician and magistrate. The statues will be given to the City of Paris – which currently has 260 statues of men and just 40 or so of women.

France only recently has started honoring its great female figures. Until 2015, the Pantheon monument, which is the final resting place of dozens of national heroes, had only one woman among them: Marie Curie. Since then, four other women have been inducted.

These Summer Games aim to be the first Olympics with equal numbers of women and men competing.

France team parades along the Seine river in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024.. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Last but certainly not least, the French delegation has joined of the opening ceremony’s athletes’ parade.

It passed under the Austerlitz Bridge shortly after 9:15 p.m. to huge cheers from the rain-soaked crowd lining the riverbanks and watching from nearby apartment windows. Fans chanted “Allez les Bleus, Allez les Bleus” — a famed chant for the nation’s various sports teams.

Athletes on the first boats began to arrive at the Trocadero around 9 p.m., most of them wearing clear ponchos over their uniforms. They could be here for more than 2 1/2 more hours as the other nations disembark before the ceremonies began official elements, including the athletes’ oath.

A general view of athletes of Norway passing bridges aboard a boat on the Seine River, in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Peter Cziborra/Pool Photo via AP)

Spectators sit in the rain in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Some people don’t want to leave the ceremony despite the rain and are trying to find cover so they can keep watching.

“I like the show, but I don’t want to be out in the rain for three hours,” said Guillermo Saez, who found shelter under a small bridge in the viewing area. “It’s unfortunate that it’s raining, it (the ceremony) was promising,” he added, noting that the French had bad luck.

Spectators wait in the rain at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

More seats are being left empty along the parade route as the rain picks up in Paris. The athletes are still floating down the Seine, and many fans have still stuck around with umbrellas and ponchos.

The section of the opening ceremony featuring Paris-based animation studio Illumination’s Minions characters nodded to French writer Jules Verne’s 1870 adventure novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas” and began with a visual reference to actor and filmmaker Georges Méliès’s influential 1902 short film “A Trip to the Moon,” also based on a Verne book.

The mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel just performed a reimagined version of “The Marseillaise,” which is France’s national anthem, in a downpour as the opening ceremony moves along.

It coincided with the raising of the French flag at the Trocadero. As has been the case at the last few Olympics at least, the flagpole came equipped with fans that extended the flag out full horizontally.

Loud cheers could be heard for the majority of the anthem.

Athletes from Haiti flow down the Seine River, in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

A small delegation from Haiti is floating down the Seine. Like other crisis-stricken nations in the Olympics, many in the delegation are from other countries and have parents or grandparents that migrated from Haiti.

The Caribbean nation — a French and Creole-speaking country that shares a long, troubled history with France, its former colonizer — has largely become too dangerous for athletes to train there.

That said, for some in the delegation who spoke to the AP, representing their family’s country is a point of pride for a nation that has long been spoken down to.

Germany’s Dennis Schroder and Anna-Maria Wagner hold the German flag as they parade along the Seine river in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Basketball player Dennis Schroder says it’s “insane” that he was picked to be Germany’s flag bearer. And he loved every second of it, with a big smile on his face as the boat carrying his team made its way down the River Seine.

“With my background as well, my mom’s from Gambia, me being dark skinned in Germany, been tough sometimes growing up but now to be able to represent Germany, it’s insane,” Schroder said. “It’s great for my family, not just for me, but people who have similar background. It’s a big, a huge, statement in Germany.”

Schroder, a member of Germany’s reigning World Cup champion team who plays for the Brooklyn Nets, is one of three flag bearers from the NBA in Friday’s opening ceremony. Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James of the U.S. are the others.

The Nigeria women’s basketball team wasn’t allowed to board the delegation’s boat for the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics by one of the country’s officials, said a person familiar with the situation.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the Nigeria delegation has not publicly commented.

Once the team made it to the area where they were supposed to board the boat and be a part of the ceremony, they were denied entry by a Nigerian official who told them that there were too many people on board. The team made its way to the athletes village after being turned away.

▶ Read more about the Nigeria women’s basketball team

Athletes from Japan travel by boat down the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

The weather is getting worse at the opening ceremony. And there’s now a new challenge: waves.

OK, they’re not enough for surfing, but if anyone in the athletes’ procession is prone to seasickness, here’s hoping they have a remedy nearby.

The boats are seeming to bounce on the Seine River a bit more than they did when the ceremony began — amid a break in the rain.

It’s been raining steadily for about a half-hour now. Most athletes have pulled transparent ponchos over their snazzy opening-ceremony outfits.

A small trickle of spectators have begun to file out of the ceremony. The vast majority of people continue to brave the rain.

A few fans just jeered Israel as it went past on a shared boat, but not many. The Italian delegation on the same boat quickly chanted “Italia! Italia!”

Israel’s Andrea Murez and Peter Paltchik carry their country’s flag in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Athletes on some of the larger boats had to lower the flags they were waving while passing through some of the smaller bridges on the Seine River. The steady rain in Paris made some of the athletes stay under cover during parts of the parade.

South Africa, left, and other countries move on a boat along the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Introducing Question 3 in AP® English Literature

by Michelle Lindsey

I love teaching Question 3, the Literary Argument Essay, of the AP English Literature Exam . I thoroughly enjoy seeing one beautifully written novel wrapped into a pretty little package that is the essay. My students always tell me my enthusiasm is nauseating, but to be able to eloquently condense a rich novel into such a narrow lens, is an art form.

I never want to wait until an entire novel is read before introducing this prompt. Sure, the students read novels in AP English Language so I could always pull from last year’s texts to introduce this question, but sometimes I get new kids that didn’t take AP English Language… or who haven’t read a novel recently enough to remember it.

Because of this, I turn to movies so that I can jump into question 3 early in the year and satisfy my hopes and dreams.

Here’s why:

• Context  My go-to is Jurassic Park. Although now, with all the remakes, the students get very upset when I don’t pinpoint one particular film title. Or I let them choose. Either way, the students have enough context to write this essay. One person I know (and by “know” I mean me) has watched, “The Greatest Showman” more than 14 times and can recite every line. Quiz me, it’s an addiction. The soundtrack is in my CD player in my car. I can honestly say I have not read any novel 14 times, not even 4 times. Ok, I have probably read Life of Pi 4 times. But I don’t need to rely on students reading an entire novel, I can offer them a list of movies (like the suggested list on the AP Exam) or, they can pull from their brain. It’s fast and easy and the students enjoy debating which movie would be best for the given prompt.
• Memory  I always spring this activity on them. I don’t want them to study a film in order to do this activity. Instead, I want to see how well they remember the nuances within these films from their memories. I want to see how well they remember the complex relationship like that between Dory and Marlin in “Finding Nemo.” Do they remember that Dory teaches Marlin to enjoy life just a little more even though he is on this frantic hunt to find his son? And, if they can manage to remember that, can they remember specific enough details within the plot to prove their point?
• Scaffolding  Movies are great scaffolding tools. Some of my students say (more like complain rather loudly) that tackling an entire novel in an essay sounds daunting. I suppose it is why movies are an excellent stepping stone. It offers them solid practice without the burden of adding rich literature to it. When I ask my students to recall a character from a book with a complicated family life, they just stare at me. If I ask them to recall a character with a complicated family life within a movie and I can’t get them to stop providing examples, it’s beautiful chaos that I embrace.
• Analysis vs. Summary This is one of the biggest reasons why I start with movies. This rationale paired with the scaffolding technique is key. Writing about movies is an excellent way to move those kids beyond summary. I always tell them, “Don’t you dare explain the plotline of ‘The Greatest Showman’ to me. I know that plot better than anyone.” That’s when I direct them to teach me something. Teach me a perspective or interpretation or significant theme that I may have missed.

Introducing the Literary Argument Essay to AP English Literature students can be challenging. Using movies helps them to practice a new skill with a medium they may be more comfortable with.

For more advice on creative ways of teaching AP English Literature, check out this article about great digital tools for teaching this course.

Michelle Lindsey has been a high school teacher in Florida for nine years, and currently teaches AP ® Capstone as well as literature and writing courses .

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You understand and acknowledge that you are responsible for any User Contributions you submit or contribute, and you, not the Company, have full responsibility for such content, including its legality, reliability, accuracy, and appropriateness.

For any academic source materials such as textbooks and workbooks which you submit to us in connection with our online tutoring services, you represent and warrant that you are entitled to upload such materials under the “fair use” doctrine of copyright law. In addition, if you request that our system display a representation of a page or problem from a textbook or workbook, you represent and warrant that you are in proper legal possession of such textbook or workbook and that your instruction to our system to display a page or problem from your textbook or workbook is made for the sole purpose of facilitating your tutoring session, as “fair use” under copyright law.

You agree that we may record all or any part of any live online classes and tutoring sessions (including voice chat communications) for quality control and other purposes. You agree that we own all transcripts and recordings of such sessions and that these Terms of Use will be deemed an irrevocable assignment of rights in all such transcripts and recordings to us.

We are not responsible or liable to any third party for the content or accuracy of any User Contributions posted by you or any other user of the Website.

Monitoring and Enforcement: Termination

We have the right to:

• Remove or refuse to post any User Contributions for any or no reason in our sole discretion.
• Take any action with respect to any User Contribution that we deem necessary or appropriate in our sole discretion, including if we believe that such User Contribution violates the Terms of Use, including the Content Standards, infringes any intellectual property right or other right of any person or entity, threatens the personal safety of users of the Website or the public, or could create liability for the Company.
• Disclose your identity or other information about you to any third party who claims that material posted by you violates their rights, including their intellectual property rights or their right to privacy.
• Take appropriate legal action, including without limitation, referral to law enforcement, for any illegal or unauthorized use of the Website.
• Terminate or suspend your access to all or part of the Website for any or no reason, including without limitation, any violation of these Terms of Use.

Without limiting the foregoing, we have the right to cooperate fully with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing us to disclose the identity or other information of anyone posting any materials on or through the Website. YOU WAIVE AND HOLD HARMLESS THE COMPANY AND ITS AFFILIATES, LICENSEES, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS FROM ANY CLAIMS RESULTING FROM ANY ACTION TAKEN BY ANY OF THE FOREGOING PARTIES DURING, OR TAKEN AS A CONSEQUENCE OF, INVESTIGATIONS BY EITHER SUCH PARTIES OR LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.

However, we do not undertake to review material before it is posted on the Website, and cannot ensure prompt removal of objectionable material after it has been posted. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any action or inaction regarding transmissions, communications, or content provided by any user or third party. We have no liability or responsibility to anyone for performance or nonperformance of the activities described in this section.

Content Standards

These content standards apply to any and all User Contributions and use of Interactive Services. User Contributions must in their entirety comply with all applicable federal, state, local, and international laws and regulations. Without limiting the foregoing, User Contributions must not:

• Contain any material that is defamatory, obscene, indecent, abusive, offensive, harassing, violent, hateful, inflammatory, or otherwise objectionable.
• Promote sexually explicit or pornographic material, violence, or discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age.
• Infringe any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other intellectual property or other rights of any other person.
• Violate the legal rights (including the rights of publicity and privacy) of others or contain any material that could give rise to any civil or criminal liability under applicable laws or regulations or that otherwise may be in conflict with these Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy .
• Be likely to deceive any person.
• Promote any illegal activity, or advocate, promote, or assist any unlawful act.
• Cause annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety or be likely to upset, embarrass, alarm, or annoy any other person.
• Impersonate any person, or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person or organization.
• Involve commercial activities or sales, such as contests, sweepstakes, and other sales promotions, barter, or advertising.
• Give the impression that they emanate from or are endorsed by us or any other person or entity, if this is not the case.

(collectively, the “ Content Standards ”)

Copyright Infringement

If you believe that any User Contributions violate your copyright, please contact us  and provide the following information:

• An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest;
• A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed;
• A description of where the material you claim is infringing is located on the website (and such description must reasonably sufficient to enable us to find the alleged infringing material);
• Your address, telephone number and email address;
• A written statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
• A statement by you, made under the penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf.

We may terminate the accounts of any infringers.

Reliance on Information Posted

From time to time, we may make third party opinions, advice, statements, offers, or other third party information or content available on the Website or from tutors under tutoring services (collectively, “Third Party Content”). All Third Party Content is the responsibility of the respective authors thereof and should not necessarily be relied upon. Such third party authors are solely responsible for such content. WE DO NOT (I) GUARANTEE THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS OR USEFULNESS OF ANY THIRD PARTY CONTENT ON THE SITE OR ANY VERIFICATION SERVICES DONE ON OUR TUTORS OR INSTRUCTORS, OR (II) ADOPT, ENDORSE OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY OPINION, ADVICE, OR STATEMENT MADE BY ANY TUTOR OR INSTRUCTOR OR ANY PARTY THAT APPEARS ON THE WEBSITE. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL WE BE RESPONSBILE OR LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE RESULTING FROM YOUR RELIANCE ON INFORMATION OR OTHER CONENT POSTED ON OR AVAILBLE FROM THE WEBSITE.

Changes to the Website

We may update the content on this Website from time to time, but its content is not necessarily complete or up-to-date. Any of the material on the Website may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update such material.

Information About You and Your Visits to the Website

All information we collect on this Website is subject to our Privacy Policy . By using the Website, you consent to all actions taken by us with respect to your information in compliance with the Privacy Policy.

Online Purchases and Other Terms and Conditions

All purchases through our site or other transactions for the sale of services and information formed through the Website or resulting from visits made by you are governed by our Terms of Sale, which are hereby incorporated into these Terms of Use.

Additional terms and conditions may also apply to specific portions, services, or features of the Website. All such additional terms and conditions are hereby incorporated by this reference into these Terms of Use.

Linking to the Website and Social Media Features

You may link to our homepage, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it, but you must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval, or endorsement on our part without our express written consent.

This Website may provide certain social media features that enable you to:

• Link from your own or certain third-party websites to certain content on this Website.
• Send emails or other communications with certain content, or links to certain content, on this Website.
• Cause limited portions of content on this Website to be displayed or appear to be displayed on your own or certain third-party websites.

You may use these features solely as they are provided by us, and solely with respect to the content they are displayed with and otherwise in accordance with any additional terms and conditions we provide with respect to such features. Subject to the foregoing, you must not:

• Establish a link from any website that is not owned by you.
• Cause the Website or portions of it to be displayed on, or appear to be displayed by, any other site, for example, framing, deep linking, or in-line linking.
• Link to any part of the Website other than the homepage.
• Otherwise take any action with respect to the materials on this Website that is inconsistent with any other provision of these Terms of Use.

The website from which you are linking, or on which you make certain content accessible, must comply in all respects with the Content Standards set out in these Terms of Use.

You agree to cooperate with us in causing any unauthorized framing or linking immediately to stop. We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.

We may disable all or any social media features and any links at any time without notice in our discretion.

Links from the Website

If the Website contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties (“ Linked Sites ”), these links are provided for your convenience only. This includes links contained in advertisements, including banner advertisements and sponsored links. You acknowledge and agree that we have no control over the contents, products, services, advertising or other materials which may be provided by or through those Linked sites or resources, and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them. If you decide to access any of the third-party websites linked to this Website, you do so entirely at your own risk and subject to the terms and conditions of use for such websites.

You agree that if you include a link from any other website to the Website, such link will open in a new browser window and will link to the full version of an HTML formatted page of this Website. You are not permitted to link directly to any image hosted on the Website or our products or services, such as using an “in-line” linking method to cause the image hosted by us to be displayed on another website. You agree not to download or use images hosted on this Website or another website, for any purpose, including, without limitation, posting such images on another website. You agree not to link from any other website to this Website in any manner such that the Website, or any page of the Website, is “framed,” surrounded or obfuscated by any third party content, materials or branding. We reserve all of our rights under the law to insist that any link to the Website be discontinued, and to revoke your right to link to the Website from any other website at any time upon written notice to you.

Geographic Restrictions

The owner of the Website is based in the state of New Jersey in the United States. We provide this Website for use only by persons located in the United States. We make no claims that the Website or any of its content is accessible or appropriate outside of the United States. Access to the Website may not be legal by certain persons or in certain countries. If you access the Website from outside the United States, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws.

Disclaimer of Warranties

You understand that we cannot and do not guarantee or warrant that files available for downloading from the internet or the Website will be free of viruses or other destructive code. You are responsible for implementing sufficient procedures and checkpoints to satisfy your particular requirements for anti-virus protection and accuracy of data input and output, and for maintaining a means external to our site for any reconstruction of any lost data. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PROVIDED BY LAW, WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE CAUSED BY A DISTRIBUTED DENIAL-OF-SERVICE ATTACK, VIRUSES, OR OTHER TECHNOLOGICALLY HARMFUL MATERIAL THAT MAY INFECT YOUR COMPUTER EQUIPMENT, COMPUTER PROGRAMS, DATA, OR OTHER PROPRIETARY MATERIAL DUE TO YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE OR ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE OR TO YOUR DOWNLOADING OF ANY MATERIAL POSTED ON IT, OR ON ANY WEBSITE LINKED TO IT.

YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE, ITS CONTENT, AND ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE WEBSITE, ITS CONTENT, AND ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. NEITHER THE COMPANY NOR ANY PERSON ASSOCIATED WITH THE COMPANY MAKES ANY WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION WITH RESPECT TO THE COMPLETENESS, SECURITY, RELIABILITY, QUALITY, ACCURACY, OR AVAILABILITY OF THE WEBSITE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, NEITHER THE COMPANY NOR ANYONE ASSOCIATED WITH THE COMPANY REPRESENTS OR WARRANTS THAT THE WEBSITE, ITS CONTENT, OR ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE WILL BE ACCURATE, RELIABLE, ERROR-FREE, OR UNINTERRUPTED, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, THAT OUR SITE OR THE SERVER THAT MAKES IT AVAILABLE ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS, OR THAT THE WEBSITE OR ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE WILL OTHERWISE MEET YOUR NEEDS OR EXPECTATIONS.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PROVIDED BY LAW, THE COMPANY HEREBY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND FITNESS FOR PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

THE FOREGOING DOES NOT AFFECT ANY WARRANTIES THAT CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.

Limitation on Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PROVIDED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL THE COMPANY, ITS AFFILIATES, OR THEIR LICENSORS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, OFFICERS, OR DIRECTORS BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, UNDER ANY LEGAL THEORY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE WEBSITE, ANY WEBSITES LINKED TO IT, ANY CONTENT ON THE WEBSITE OR SUCH OTHER WEBSITES, INCLUDING ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PERSONAL INJURY, PAIN AND SUFFERING, EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, LOSS OF REVENUE, LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF BUSINESS OR ANTICIPATED SAVINGS, LOSS OF USE, LOSS OF GOODWILL, LOSS OF DATA, AND WHETHER CAUSED BY TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), BREACH OF CONTRACT, OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF FORESEEABLE.

THE FOREGOING DOES NOT AFFECT ANY LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.

Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Company, its affiliates, licensors, and service providers, and its and their respective officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, licensors, suppliers, successors, and assigns from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, judgments, awards, losses, costs, expenses, or fees (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or relating to your violation of these Terms of Use or your use of the Website, including, but not limited to, your User Contributions, any use of the Website’s content, services, and products other than as expressly authorized in these Terms of Use or your use of any information obtained from the Website.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

All matters relating to the Website and these Terms of Use and any dispute or claim arising therefrom or related thereto (in each case, including non-contractual disputes or claims), shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the internal laws of the State of New Jersey without giving effect to any choice or conflict of law provision or rule (whether of the State of New Jersey or any other jurisdiction).

Any legal suit, action, or proceeding arising out of, or related to, these Terms of Use or the Website shall be instituted exclusively in the federal courts of the United States or the courts of the State of New Jersey in each case located in the County of Monmouth although we retain the right to bring any suit, action, or proceeding against you for breach of these Terms of Use in your country of residence or any other relevant country. You waive any and all objections to the exercise of jurisdiction over you by such courts and to venue in such courts. You may not under any circumstances commence or maintain against us any class action, class arbitration, or other representative action or proceeding.

Arbitration

By using this Website, you agree, at Company’s sole discretion, that it may require you to submit any disputes arising from the use of these Terms of Use or the Website, including disputes arising from or concerning their interpretation, violation, invalidity, non-performance, or termination, to final and binding arbitration under the Rules of Arbitration of the American Arbitration Association applying New Jersey law. In doing so, YOU GIVE UP YOUR RIGHT TO GO TO COURT to assert or defend any claims between you and us. YOU ALSO GIVE UP YOUR RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION OR OTHER CLASS PROCEEDING. Your rights may be determined by a NEUTRAL ARBITRATOR, NOT A JUDGE OR JURY. You are entitled to a fair hearing before the arbitrator. The arbitrator can grant any relief that a court can, but you should note that arbitration proceedings are usually simpler and more streamlined than trials and other judicial proceedings. Decisions by the arbitrator are enforceable in court and may be overturned by a court only for very limited reasons.

Any proceeding to enforce this arbitration provision, including any proceeding to confirm, modify, or vacate an arbitration award, may be commenced in any court of competent jurisdiction. In the event that this arbitration provision is for any reason held to be unenforceable, any litigation against Company must be commenced only in the federal or state courts located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. You hereby irrevocably consent to the jurisdiction of those courts for such purposes.

Limitation on Time to File Claims

ANY CAUSE OF ACTION OR CLAIM YOU MAY HAVE ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OF USE OR THE WEBSITE MUST BE COMMENCED WITHIN ONE (1) YEAR AFTER THE CAUSE OF ACTION ACCRUES, OTHERWISE, SUCH CAUSE OF ACTION OR CLAIM IS PERMANENTLY BARRED.

Waiver and Severability

No waiver by the Company of any term or condition set out in these Terms of Use shall be deemed a further or continuing waiver of such term or condition or a waiver of any other term or condition, and any failure of the Company to assert a right or provision under these Terms of Use shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.

If any provision of these Terms of Use is held by a court or other tribunal of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable for any reason, such provision shall be eliminated or limited to the minimum extent such that the remaining provisions of the Terms of Use will continue in full force and effect.

Entire Agreement

The Terms of Use, our Privacy Policy, and Terms of Sale constitute the sole and entire agreement between you and Marco Learning LLC regarding the Website and supersede all prior and contemporaneous understandings, agreements, representations, and warranties, both written and oral, regarding the Website.

Communications and Miscellaneous

If you provide us your email address, you agree and consent to receive email messages from us. These emails may be transaction or relationship communications relating to the products or services we offer, such as administrative notices and service announcements or changes, or emails containing commercial offers, promotions or special offers from us.

Your Comments and Concerns

This website is operated by Marco Learning LLC, a New Jersey limited liability company with an address of 113 Monmouth Road, Suite 1, Wrightstown, New Jersey 08562.

Please contact us   for all other feedback, comments, requests for technical support, and other communications relating to the Website.