First of all, IF I bake cupcakes tonight, it'll be one of the following:
Red Velvet
Cookies and Cream
Lemon
If you have a preference, let me know before 6pm, I'll try to accommodate the best I can.
On the eve of the big test day, here are some helpful hints...I know, it's nothing you didn't already know, but I figured I'd put it in writing.
1. Review the Literary Terms from the beginning of the year (scroll back to the post from September 28, 2008). I know it looks like a lot but if you look it over you'll see that you already know most of it. The main reason I still want you to know this isn't because I think they're necessarily going to ask you what a "chiasmus" is. Knowing it will come in handy more as a way to eliminate the WRONG answer, it'll give you confidence to know it IS wrong and choose the right answer with assurance.
Ultimately, if these (and the poetic meters) are the only things you don't know, you'll probably be fine, they only take up a few questions on the multiple choice section. The thing is, running across a cluster of questions you're completely lost about can shake your confidence and throw you off for the rest of the test even if you DO know all the other questions.
Know yourself and how you respond in a test situation.
2. Review the online practice tests at collegeboard.org. I've been saying this all year, and I get the feeling almost no one has taken this advice seriously. You should. It's a FREE resource that gives you the best possible insight on what to expect.
They even have sample student essays for the latest tests...that can be very helpful in determining how to raise YOUR essays to the next level.
3. Review all EIGHT of the practice tests you've taken this year. Compare how you've done, and try to figure out WHY you did better or worse on each one. Identify your strengths and weaknesses and USE this information on the real thing.
4. Review your cram sheet!!
Make sure you know the author...maybe the year published? Refresh your memory of the plot, the character's NAMES, setting, etc...don't get your information mixed up on the test, it'll make you look careless.
Don't even TRY to write an essay on a book you haven't read. It'll show. And don't get too hung up on the suggested list, use the book that you're most familiar with, that is also relevant to the topic. The more you liked a book, the more likely you'll be able to write well about it.
However, make sure it's a LITERARY WORK...don't take unnecessary risks if you're not sure, or if you're not totally comfortable writing coherently and intelligently about the piece.
5. Get a good night's sleep. Don't get all nervous and strung out and get insomnia. It's an 8am test, you need to be rested.
6. Have a solid, healthy breakfast...make sure you have protein, not just carbs, and watch the sugar. If you normally drink coffee, don't skip it...if you don't, this is not the time to start. Be hydrated.
Most importantly, remember that mental preparation is the bulk of the challenge. If you're well prepared, you know it, and everyone who followed the curriculum this year SHOULD be well prepared. Don't get caught up in second-guessing yourself and lose that confidence.
I genuinely believe that this is the most useful AP exam, in terms of getting you out of an often tedious college requirement. Everyone has to take freshman comp. A pass on this exam will get you out of that class, and that means you get to tackle more interesting challenges sooner.
And life is all about the challenges.
Good luck.
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"I genuinely believe that this is the most useful AP exam, in terms of getting you out of an often tedious college requirement."
Unless you're at UCSD, in which case they require that you take their writing program(s), and AP Eng Lit counts for nothing at all! :D Or unless you didn't get above 680 on the writing (or reading?) portion of the SAT, though I think doing that is more simple than scoring well on the AP Exam.
cookies n cream!:D
Lemon if its not too much trouble.
Take a look at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/educators/counselors/adminfo/freshman/advising/credit/sandiego.html
I think with UCSD, because of all the different colleges, they may have the listing simplified. The key sentence is probably, "Students in all colleges may also qualify for course exemptions by major."
Hopefully, what this means is that if you're going into a writing intensive major, like English (do they even offer just plain English at UCSD?), they'll take your performance on the AP into consideration when they decide whether you have to jump through the lower hoops. You may still be able to skip up to a higher placement writing course with a higher AP score.
I know this looks discouraging:
http://www.ucsd.edu/catalog/front/APCredit.html
But I can't think of any reason UCSD would be the only UC that doesn't recognize that a student who scores well on the AP should be in a more challenging writing class. It just doesn't make sense.
And yeah, I baked. Cookies and cream...that seemed to be the overwhelming response in 6th period.
In my major, I'd consider Calculus BC to be more important; it takes off 2 of the 5 Math courses that are required to transfer...
...101A, 101B, 101C, 103, 104.
And they expect us to get through all this in 2 years.
Doesn't mean I won't tank this test though.
Thanks in advance for the cupcakes :)
Why are you still awake at quarter to midnight?
And yeah, of course different majors will have different emphasis. My point is that EVERYONE has to take freshman comp or waive out of it. Even math majors. Whereas a humanities major can take the most boneheaded math and science classes and still graduate (as I know from firsthand experience), even the most brilliant engineering student will not get a diploma if he doesn't fulfill his basic writing reqs.
This test will get you out of stuff everyone has to take. I don't think there is another test that will cover a universal requirement. I'm not even sure there IS another universal requirement besides English. It's like how it's the only four year subject in high school...English is a baseline competency.
By the way, I've had math and engineering students tell me high school calc wasn't enough to get them up to speed for upper div college math (and these were kids who scored 5s on the BC). They either had to retake it, thus negating their AP credits, or they skipped ahead, struggled with the higher level classes and wished they'd retaken calculus in college.
It's the difference between life and death...you need engineers and doctors to be held to a higher standard of precision because when they make mistakes, people die. No one gets hurt if you miss the Christ symbolism in Batty's puncturing his hand with a spike...it's just fun.
@mst: What you said for calc may also apply to English, too--about testing out and then wishing you hadn't, I mean. Like, I took the calc exam in the hope that I will never have to take another math class again. Calculus with Mrs. Browne is really fun, but I'd get big money that calculus in college is not so endearing/forgiving. But even if the AP English exam allowed me to skip out of a basic English class, I don't know that I'd do so, for want of establishing a strong base in a subject I plan to devote most of my schooling to.
Skipping out of Entry Level Writing, sure, definitely. But the core writing sequences for the colleges seem very demanding, as they'll likely be the ONLY writing prep most of UCSD's predominantly science/psych majors are going to get.
(Apparently the exam WILL let you substitute it for one of your Upper Division electives for your major [but not lower division--what?] but that's not particularly useful, seeing as if you're majoring in a subject, you'd WANT to be taking upper division college courses rather than relying on credits you earned in high school three years ago!)
And no, they don't actually offer straight up English at UCSD. The closest are Literature/Writing and Literatures in English (which is basically just English, except you need to be able to pass at least one UD class in a foreign language's literature--original, not in translation. Which seems to me like a reasonable--and cool--requirement. Like a toes-in-the-water form of comparative lit, rather than taking the full plunge).
I suppose some people may feel that way about English 1A & 1B, but I was definitely NOT one of them.
Being a first generation college student in the US, I was pretty clueless signing up for classes as a freshman, so even though I'd passed the AP, I signed up for Comp Lit 1A in my first semester.
The class sucked giant spiky poisonous nuts.
I was practically shellshocked by the tedious requirements, the instructor sans personality, the texts (Annie Hall? Really?).
After the first class, I went running down to the office to change my schedule (this was in the days before online course scheduling). Much to my relief, I drew a competent counselor who told me I could drop the class altogether as I'd already fulfilled my entire R&C by acing the AP English Lit test.
Yay!
But you're right, UCSD seems to approach this from a completely different angle...waiving an UPPER div class? WHY? That's the fun stuff!
I'd be curious to know what pedagogical philosophy drives UCSD's policies, especially as they seem completely out of line with every other UC.
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