AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

Sample AP English Language and

Composition Exam Questions
The following multiple-choice and free-response exam questions are typical of those
used on past AP English Language and Composition Exams.

Sample Multiple-Choice Questions

Questions 111. Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers.
This passage is excerpted from an essay written in nineteenth-century England.
It has been well said that the highest aim in
education is analogous to the highest aim in
mathematics, namely, to obtain not results but
Line powers, not particular solutions, but the means by
5 which endless solutions may be wrought. He is the
most effective educator who aims less at perfecting
specific acquirements than at producing that mental
condition which renders acquirements easy, and leads
to their useful application; who does not seek to make
10 his pupils moral by enjoining particular courses of
action, but by bringing into activity the feelings and
sympathies that must issue in noble action. On the
same ground it may be said that the most effective
writer is not he who announces a particular discovery,
15 who convinces men of a particular conclusion, who
demonstrates that this measure is right and that
measure wrong; but he who rouses in others the
activities that must issue in discovery, who awakes
men from their indifference to the right and the
20 wrong, who nerves their energies to seek for the truth
and live up to it at whatever cost. The influence of
such a writer is dynamic. He does not teach men how
to use sword and musket, but he inspires their souls
with courage and sends a strong will into their
25 muscles. He does not, perhaps, enrich your stock of
data, but he clears away the film from your eyes that
you may search for data to some purpose. He does
not, perhaps, convince you, but he strikes you,
undeceives you, animates you. You are not directly
30 fed by his books, but you are braced as by a walk up
to an alpine summit, and yet subdued to calm and
reverence as by the sublime things to be seen from
that summit.

2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 4747

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

Such a writer is Thomas Carlyle. It is an idle

35 question to ask whether his books will be read a
century hence: if they were all burnt as the grandest
of Suttees1 on his funeral pile, it would be only like
cutting down an oak after its acorns have sown a
forest. For there is hardly a superior or active mind
40 of this generation that has not been modified by
Carlyles writings; there has hardly been an English
book written for the last ten or twelve years that
would not have been different if Carlyle had not lived.
The character of his influence is best seen in the fact
45 that many of the men who have the least agreement
with his opinions are those to whom the reading of
Sartor Resartus was an epoch in the history of their
minds. The extent of his influence may be best seen in
the fact that ideas which were startling novelties when
50 he first wrote them are now become common-places.
And we think few men will be found to say that this
influence on the whole has not been for good. There
are plenty who question the justice of Carlyles
estimates of past men and past times, plenty who
55 quarrel with the exaggerations of the Latter-Day
Pamphlets, and who are as far as possible from
looking for an amendment of things from a Carlylian
theocracy with the greatest man, as a Joshua who is
to smite the wicked (and the stupid) till the going
60 down of the sun.2 But for any large nature, those
points of difference are quite incidental. It is not as a
theorist, but as a great and beautiful human nature,
that Carlyle influences us. You may meet a man
whose wisdom seems unimpeachable, since you find
65 him entirely in agreement with yourself; but this
oracular man of unexceptionable opinions has a
green eye, a wiry hand, and altogether a Wesen, or
demeanour, that makes the world look blank to you,
and whose unexceptionable opinions become a bore;
70 while another man who deals in what you cannot but
think dangerous paradoxes, warms your heart by the
pressure of his hand, and looks out on the world with
so clear and loving an eye, that nature seems to reflect
the light of his glance upon your own feeling. So it is
75 with Carlyle. When he is saying the very opposite of
what we think, he says it so finely, with so hearty

1 A suttee is a now-obsolete Hindu funeral practice.

2 Carlyle believed that great men, or heroes, shaped history through their personal actions and divine
inspiration. Joshua, a military leader and successor to Moses, led the Jewish people to the Promised Land.

48 2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 48

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

convictionhe makes the object about which we

differ stand out in such grand relief under the clear
light of his strong and honest intellecthe appeals
80 so constantly to our sense of the manly and the
truthfulthat we are obliged to say Hear! hear! to
the writer before we can give the decorous Oh! oh!
to his opinions.

1. What is the relationship between the two paragraphs in the passage?

(A) The first paragraph describes strengths of a writer that Carlyle exhibits, and the second
discusses his legacy.
(B) The first paragraph surveys various types of writers, and the second focuses on Carlyle.
(C) The first paragraph describes Carlyles critics, and the second depicts his supporters.
(D) The first paragraph considers who influenced Carlyle, and the second lists those he
influenced.
(E) The first paragraph explains Carlyles major ideas, and the second evaluates his predictions.

2. Which of the following best represents the authors intended audience?

(A) Individuals who are fairly well acquainted with Carlyles writing
(B) Readers who are having trouble understanding Carlyles prose
(C) Writers who hope to produce books that are like Carlyles
(D) Instructors looking for different ways to teach Carlyle
(E) Scholars seeking information about Carlyles personal life

3. Lines 512 (He is noble action) contrast

(A) the acquisition of skills and the possession of aptitude
(B) the labor of reasoning and the exhilaration of acting
(C) the dissemination of knowledge and the cultivation of intellectual and moral powers
(D) the traits of practical students and those of creative thinkers
(E) the benefits of learning and the rewards of teaching

4. The author uses the phrase On the same ground (lines 1213) to set up a comparison between
(A) the aims of mathematics and those of education
(B) conceptually powerful writers and exemplary educators
(C) intellectual challenges faced by writers and those faced by readers
(D) the formulation of solutions and the identification of problems
(E) scientific writing and inspirational writing

2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 4949

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

5. On the basis of the first paragraph, Thomas Carlyle is best characterized as a writer who is
(A) ambitious, seeking to increase the number of people buying his books
(B) revolutionary, agitating his readers to adopt a radically new worldview
(C) charismatic, enticing his readers to support his views and beliefs
(D) provocative, compelling his readers to reach their own conclusions
(E) masterful, overpowering his readers with a sense of awe and veneration

6. The acorns (line 38) represent

(A) Carlyles young children
(B) Carlyles less prominent contemporaries
(C) ideas in Carlyles books
(D) books written about Carlyle
(E) those who are critical of Carlyle

7. In lines 4748, the author refers to an epoch in the history of their minds to
(A) illustrate the ways in which other intellectuals disagreed with Carlyle
(B) define the meaning of the title Sartor Resartus
(C) question the continued relevance of Carlyles ideas
(D) describe the major impact that Carlyle had on other people
(E) characterize the arduous process of reading Sartor Resartus

8. The author mentions the Latter-Day Pamphlets (lines 5556) primarily to

(A) provide an example of what is indisputably good (line 52)
(B) identify the book that discusses past men and past times (line 54)
(C) acknowledge some of the concerns held by the plenty (line 54)
(D) justify Carlyles desire for an amendment of things (line 57)
(E) explain Carlyles inspiration for the theory of the greatest man (line 58)

9. Which rhetorical strategy does the author adopt in lines 4463 (The character
influences us)?
(A) She goes on the offensive, berating opponents of Carlyle for their absence of wisdom,
judgment, and foresight.
(B) She acknowledges but discredits other arguments, accusing Carlyles critics of
misunderstanding the originality of Carlyles ideas.
(C) She claims that most people do not recognize Carlyles genius, suggesting that only a
discerning few are capable of doing so.
(D) She cites facts to counter opposition to Carlyles eminence, claiming that all of Carlyles
judgments are unassailable.
(E) She gives examples of Carlyles far-reaching influence, noting that even criticism of Carlyle
implies praise.

50 2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 50

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

10. What purpose do lines 6374 (You may own feeling) serve?
(A) They contrast the appeal of a writer who merely confirms his readers views with that of a
writer who boldly challenges them.
(B) They develop an analogy between the kinds of individuals people are attracted to and the
kinds of writing they prefer.
(C) They challenge the idea that writers modify their ideas to appeal to a wide range of readers.
(D) They examine whether relationships based on shared ideas and interests are rewarding to
both parties.
(E) They provide examples from various writers in which the appearance of good and evil
is deceptive.

11. In lines 7583 (When he his opinions), the author develops her rhetorical purpose by
(A) contrasting he and we to set Carlyle apart and show how he is critical of everyone else
(B) inserting dashes to highlight Carlyles most influential ideas and opinions
(C) employing dramatically urgent adverbs to create a surprising conclusion for the reader
(D) delaying the conclusion of the independent clause to build up the readers sense
of anticipation
(E) utilizing the parallel Hear! hear! and Oh! oh! to imitate a chorus of approval for Carlyle

2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 5151

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

Questions 1224. Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers.
This passage consists of excerpts from an essay published in the 1940s.
It is the fate of actors to leave only picture postcards
behind them. Every night when the curtain goes down
the beautiful coloured canvas is rubbed out. What
Line remains is at best only a wavering, insubstantial
5 phantoma verbal life on the lips of the living.
Ellen Terry was well aware of it. She tried herself,
overcome by the greatness of Irving as Hamlet and
indignant at the caricatures of his detractors, to
describe what she remembered. It was in vain. She
10 dropped her pen in despair. Oh God, that I were a
writer! she cried. Surely a writer could not string
words together about Henry Irvings Hamlet and say
nothing, nothing. It never struck her, humble as she
was, and obsessed by her lack of book learning, that
15 she was, among other things, a writer. It never occurred
to her when she wrote her autobiography, or scribbled
page after page to Bernard Shaw late at night, dead
tired after a rehearsal, that she was writing. The
words in her beautiful rapid hand bubbled off her pen.
20 With dashes and notes of exclamation she tried to give
them the very tone and stress of the spoken word. It is
true, she could not build a house with words, one room
opening out of another, and a staircase connecting the
whole. But whatever she took up became in her warm,
25 sensitive grasp a tool. If it was a rolling-pin, she made
perfect pastry. If it was a carving knife, perfect slices
fell from the leg of mutton. If it were a pen, words
peeled off, some broken, some suspended in mid-air,
but all far more expressive than the tappings of the
30 professional typewriter.
With her pen then at odds and ends of time she has
painted a self-portrait. It is not an Academy portrait,
glazed, framed, complete. It is rather a bundle of loose
leaves upon each of which she has dashed off a sketch
35 for a portraithere a nose, here an arm, here a foot,
and there a mere scribble in the margin. The sketches
done in different moods, from different angles, some-
times contradict each other .
Which, then, of all these women is the real Ellen
40 Terry? How are we to put the scattered sketches
together? Is she mother, wife, cook, critic, actress,
or should she have been, after all, a painter? Each part
seems the right part until she throws it aside and plays
another. Something of Ellen Terry it seems overflowed

52 2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 52

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

45 every part and remained unacted. Shakespeare could

not fit her; not Ibsen; nor Shaw. The stage could not
hold her; nor the nursery. But there is, after all, a
greater dramatist than Shakespeare, Ibsen, or Shaw.
There is Nature. Hers is so vast a stage, and so
50 innumerable a company of actors, that for the most
part she fobs them off with a tag or two. They come
on and they go off without breaking the ranks. But
now and again Nature creates a new part, an original
part. The actors who act that part always defy our
55 attempts to name them. They will not act the stock
partsthey forget the words, they improvise others
of their own. But when they come on the stage falls
like a pack of cards and the limelights are extinguished.
That was Ellen Terrys fateto act a new part. And
60 thus while other actors are remembered because they
were Hamlet, Phdre, or Cleopatra, Ellen Terry is
remembered because she was Ellen Terry.

12. Which of the following statements is best supported by information given in the passage?
(A) Terry never focused on one career; she was skilled at so many things that she did not excel
in any one thing.
(B) Terry was so clever an actress that her portrayal of a role seemed to change every night.
(C) Shaw encouraged Terry to become a play-wright by carefully tutoring her in creating plots
and characters.
(D) Because Terry lacked confidence in certain of her skills, she never fully realized she was a
person of rare talents and gifts.
(E) Because Terry did not have natural talent for either writing or acting, she struggled to learn
her crafts and became great through sheer willpower.

13. The authors attitude toward Terry can best be described as

(A) superior and condescending
(B) unbiased and dispassionate
(C) sympathetic and admiring
(D) curious and skeptical
(E) conciliatory and forgiving

14. In line 1, picture postcards functions as a metaphor for the

(A) published text of a play
(B) audiences impressions of the actors performances
(C) critical reviews of plays
(D) plays in which the actors in the company have previously performed
(E) stage designers sketches of sets and scenes

2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 5353

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

15. The passage implies that the primary enemy of the beautiful coloured canvas and the
wavering, insubstantial phantom (lines 3 and 45) is the
(A) cost of producing plays
(B) whims of critics
(C) passage of time
(D) incredulity of audiences
(E) shortcomings of dramatists

16. The phrase a verbal life on the lips of the living (line 5) suggests that
(A) performances live only in the memories of those who witness and speak of them
(B) actors do not take the trouble to explain their art to the public
(C) the reviews of critics have a powerful influence on the popularity of a production
(D) dramatists try to write dialogue that imitates ordinary spoken language
(E) audiences respond to the realism of the theater

17. What is the relationship of the second and third sentences (lines 25) to the first sentence
(lines 12)?
(A) They are structurally less complex than the first.
(B) They are expressed in less conditional terms than the first.
(C) They introduce new ideas not mentioned in the first.
(D) They clarify and expand on the first.
(E) They question the generalization made in the first.

18. The pronoun it (line 6) refers to which of the following?

(A) fate (line 1)
(B) curtain (line 2)
(C) canvas (line 3)
(D) phantom (line 5)
(E) life (line 5)

19. The effect of italicizing the words nothing, nothing (line 13) is to
(A) emphasize Terrys sense of frustration
(B) indicate a sarcastic tone
(C) suggest the difficulty of writing great parts for actors
(D) link a clear sense of purpose to success in writing
(E) imply that Terrys weakness in writing is her tendency to exaggerate

54 2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 54

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

20. The words bubbled off (line 19) and peeled off (line 28), used to describe the way Terry
wrote, emphasize
(A) polish and sophistication
(B) thoughtfulness and application
(C) bluntness and indiscretion
(D) mystery and imagination
(E) ease and spontaneity

21. Which of the following stylistic features is used most extensively in lines 25-30 ?
(A) Inversion of normal subject/verb/object order
(B) Repetition of sentence structure
(C) Periodic sentence structure
(D) Sentence fragments for emphasis
(E) Use of connotative meanings that add complexity

22. The effect of mentioning an Academy portrait (line 32) is to

(A) imply that Terry deserved to have her portrait painted by a great artist
(B) suggest that Terry was adept at self-expression both in writing and in painting
(C) clarify the informal nature of Terrys self-portrait through contrast
(D) hint that Terrys self-absorption prevented her from writing about herself dispassionately
(E) blame Terry for her rebellion against the conventions of art forms

23. The sketches (line 36) are most probably

(A) responses to reviewers who have criticized Terrys acting
(B) paintings by Terry of other actors
(C) stage directions from playwrights
(D) self-revelatory remarks
(E) descriptions of characters Terry has portrayed

24. The author suggests that Shakespeare, Shaw, and Ibsen could not fit (line 46) Terry
chiefly because
(A) the parts they created did not allow Terry to make use of every aspect of her talents
(B) their dramatic talents were focused on plot rather than on character
(C) Terry was better at conveying certain kinds of characters and emotions than she was at
conveying others
(D) their plays were set in historical periods different from the one in which Terry lived
(E) the speeches they wrote for their female characters were written in accents and dialects
different from Terrys

2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 5555

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

Questions 2537. Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers.
This passage is taken from a book that examines Canadian book clubs.
So pronounced is the book-club phenomenon
that the format has spread to other venues and media,
the most famous of these being the book club
Line component of Oprah Winfreys television talk show.
5 Staged like an actual book-group meeting, with
invited discussants and a cozy living-room setting,
the Winfrey show can boost a featured title to instant
bestsellerdom and turn authors into stars. There
are now book clubs online, in bookstores, and
10 functioning as consumer focus groups for publishers.1
Colleges, bookstores, and resorts have recently
begun to develop readers retreats.2 Newsletters,
magazines, newspapers, and published guides advise
readers how to find, establish, and manage successful
15 clubs.3
The widespread popularity of these reading groups
has even occasioned a form of book-club backlash.
In a newspaper opinion piece titled Why I Wont
Join the Book Club, one contributor expressed alarm
20 that reading was becoming another scheduled activity
to be slotted in like the trip to the gym and the
grocery store; self-improving readers pop books as
they would vitamin tablets. But books are not about
schedules, author Stephanie Nolen argues; rather,
25 they are about submerging yourself about getting
lost, about getting consumed.4 Considerable attention
was garnered by another article, detailing the darker
side of some New York City reading groups.
Headlined Book-Club Lovers Wage a War of Words
30 when reprinted by the Globe and Mail, it could
equally well have been titled When Book Clubs Go
Bad: No longer just friendly social gatherings with
a vague continuing-education agenda, many of
todays book groups have become literary pressure
35 cookers, marked by aggressive intellectual one-
upmanship and unabashed social skirmishing. In

1 For an example of an online book clubthis one produced by a mass-market circulation

womens magazinesee Conversations (Book Club) on Chateleine Connects at
http://www.chatelaine.com/living/chatelaine-book-club/.

2 For example, Vancouver bookseller Celia Duthie is developing such retreats at a country inn. There are
discussion periods and visits by authors and, most importantly, time to read. See Keyes, Out of the Woods.

3 Some popular guides are Greenwood et al., The Go on Girl!; Jacobson, The Reading Group Handbook; and Saal, The
New York Public Library Guide to Reading Groups. A new entry to the field, developed with a particular eye to the
needs of Canadian clubs, is Heft and OBrien, Build a Better Book Club.

4 Nolen, Why I Wont Join the Book Club.

56 2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 56

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

living rooms and bookshops, clubs are frazzling under

the stress, giving rise to a whole new profession: the
book-group therapist.5 The clubs that Elaine Daspin
40 describes here seem to be functioning as
unconsciousness- rather than consciousness-raising
sessions, where competitive readers battle for
interpretive supremacy. While book-club therapists
may well be confined to the rarefied worlds of the
45 Upper East Side or Long Island, authors of recent
book-club guides reiterate the need to establish
common purposes, regular routines, and guidelines
for thorough preparation.
Clearly, the positives outweigh the pitfalls; book
50 clubs are in demand because they offer individual
readers an extra dimension of appreciation and
understanding. Yet despite the fact that shared
discussion of literary texts is also the foundation
of literary study in school, college, and university
55 classrooms, literary theorists and reader-response
critics have yet to devote much attention to such
shared and synergistic study, instead construing
readers as isolates or abstractions. (Studies tend
to focus on the emotional responses or cognitive
60 activities of individual readers, or to infer such
reactions by examining the properties of a literary
text.) But club and classroom participants know that
there is something different, something added, about
sharing and discussing literature with other people.

25. The organization of the passage can best be described as

(A) personal narrative followed by analysis
(B) empirical data followed by conjecture
(C) nonjudgmental explanation of a current phenomenon followed by a question
(D) descriptive analysis followed by a final judgment
(E) condemnation of a practice followed by partial acceptance

26. In context, the author places the term book club in quotation marks in lines 3 and 9
in order to
(A) show that these are humorous examples
(B) highlight how formal some of these clubs are
(C) reveal that the book clubs that appear online or on television are unsatisfactory
(D) suggest that the term is being broadened beyond its original meaning
(E) imply that many book club members do not like the term

5 Daspin, Book-Club Lovers Wage a War of Words. The piece originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 5757

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

27. The first paragraph (lines 115) serves to

(A) explain why the author enjoys one way of reading
(B) describe the extension of a particular activity into nontraditional areas
(C) make generalizations that will be developed later
(D) explore ways in which people can structure free time
(E) detail the power of media and mass marketing to censor

28. According to lines 2326, Stephanie Nolens primary criticism of book clubs is that they
(A) are too programmed
(B) do not offer enough variety
(C) cause readers to be anxious
(D) overlook many classics
(E) forego quality for quantity

29. The clubs referred to in line 39 are discussed in

(A) the online discussion group of a particular book club
(B) a study sponsored by book club participants
(C) an editorial in a Canadian magazine
(D) a guide written by Elaine Daspin
(E) an article published in the Wall Street Journal

30. The recent book-club guides (lines 4546) tend to emphasize

(A) how book clubs need to be structured and regular in order to succeed
(B) how difficult it is to start a book club in New York
(C) how often even the best book clubs fail
(D) the variety of reasons that people have for starting book clubs
(E) the challenges of selecting books for discussion

31. The last paragraph (lines 4964) marks a shift from

(A) popular to academic contexts
(B) supported to unsound generalizations
(C) impersonal to personal examples
(D) subtle irony to explicit sarcasm
(E) neutral to negative characterization of book clubs

32. The function of lines 5258 (Yet despite abstractions) is to

(A) argue for the value of a particular literary theory
(B) explain how important it is not to make abstract judgments
(C) point out a discrepancy between teaching practices and literary theory
(D) highlight the demand for a way to measure emotional responses to texts
(E) explore the authors views about reading in isolation

58 2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 58

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

33. The final sentence (lines 6264) serves to

(A) conclude an argument begun in the first paragraph
(B) suggest a probable cause for an ongoing phenomenon
(C) argue that publishers need to pay more attention to book clubs
(D) offer a final analysis of the phenomenon described in the second paragraph
(E) explain why the author has chosen a particular field of study

34. One function of sentence 3 (lines 810) and footnote 1 is to

(A) give an example of a group that earns money by reading
(B) show that book clubs are not intended for literary scholars
(C) note the connection between marketing and book clubs
(D) cite one book club as a particular model of excellence
(E) suggest the benefits of online discussion groups

35. It can be inferred from footnote 2 that Out of the Woods is

(A) an article about a type of retreat
(B) an expos about fee-based book clubs
(C) an essay about book club protocol
(D) a meditation on favorite works by famous authors
(E) an article about how to start a traditional book club

36. The function of footnote 3 is to

(A) offer specific examples of one of the types of resources mentioned
(B) convince the reader of the value of book clubs
(C) test whether the reader is interested in particular books
(D) evaluate tips on how to set up book clubs
(E) compare the strengths and weaknesses of certain books

37. The information in footnote 2 is different from that in footnote 3 in that footnote 2
(A) is critical while endnote 3 is neutral
(B) assumes that readers do not like research while endnote 3 assumes that readers
like research
(C) is concerned with local book clubs while endnote 3 relates to global issues
(D) primarily provides an illustration of a phenomenon while endnote 3 primarily lists
resources
(E) relates mostly to marketing while endnote 3 relates mostly to cultural conflicts in
book clubs

2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 5959

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

Questions 3850. Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers.
This passage is excerpted from a nonfiction book published in the late twentieth century.
Climatologists speak of thunderstorms pregnant
with tornadoes, storm-breeding clouds more than twice
the height of Mount Everest; they speak of funicular
Line envelopes and anvil clouds with pendant mammati and
5 of thermal instability of winds in cyclonic vorticity,
of rotatory columns of air torquing at velocities up to
three hundred miles an hour (although no anemometer
in the direct path of a storm has survived), funnels that
can move over the ground at the speed of a strolling
10 man or at the rate of a barrel-assing semi on the turn-
pike; they say the width of the destruction can be the
distance between home plate and deep center field and
its length the hundred miles between New York City
and Philadelphia. A tornado, although more violent
15 than a much longer lasting hurricane, has a life
measured in minutes, and weathercasters watch it
snuff out as it was born: unnamed.
I know here a grandfather, a man as bald as if a
cyclonic wind had taken his scalpsomething wit-
20 nesses claim has happened elsewherewho calls
twisters Old Nell, and he threatens to set crying
children outside the back door for her to carry off.
People who have seen Old Nell close, up under her
skirt, talk about her colors: pastel-pink, black, blue,
25 gray, and a survivor said this: All at once a big hole
opened in the sky with a mass of cherry-red, a yellow
tinge in the center, and another said: a funnel with
beautiful electric-blue light, and a third person: It was
glowing like it was illuminated from the inside. The
30 witnesses speak of shapes: a formless black mass, a
cone, cylinder, tube, ribbon, pendant, thrashing hose,
dangling lariat, writhing snake, elephant trunk. They
tell of ponds being vacuumed dry, chickens clean-
plucked from beak to bum, water pulled straight up
35 out of toilet bowls, a wife killed after being jerked
through a car window, a child carried two miles and set
down with only scratches, a Cottonwood Falls mother
(fearful of wind) cured of chronic headaches when a
twister passed harmlessly within a few feet of her
40 house, and, just south of Chase, a woman blown out of
her living room window and dropped unhurt sixty feet
away and falling unbroken beside her a phonograph
record of Stormy Weather.

60 2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 60

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

38. The author develops the passage primarily through

(A) accumulation of detail
(B) pro-and-con argument
(C) thesis followed by qualification
(D) assertion supported by evidence
(E) analysis of the ideas of other

39. The author is best described as

(A) a curious individual who seeks out diverse information from a variety of sources
(B) a serious scientist who is determined to learn more about the causes of these storms
(C) an excited eyewitness who is too distracted to fear for personal safety
(D) a confused novice who is unable to decide which claims are accurate
(E) an ironic interpreter who comments on the failures and follies of others

40. Compared with that of the rest of the passage, the diction of lines 18 (Climatologists
survived) is
(A) informal and straightforward
(B) technical and specialized
(C) subjective and impressionistic
(D) speculative and uncertain
(E) understated and euphemistic

41. The statement although survived (lines 78) is an admission that

(A) details about technical equipment are of interest only to specialists
(B) some tornadoes are so powerful that scientists cannot quantify them precisely
(C) scientists have abandoned the effort to measure the wind speed of tornadoes
(D) predicting the path a tornado will take is extremely difficult
(E) precise measurement of wind speed will aid climatologists in categorizing tornadoes

42. Which of the following is true of the comparisons in lines 1114 (they say Philadelphia)?
(A) They emphasize the unpredictable nature of tornadoes.
(B) They exaggerate the danger of tornadoes in order to make people cautious of them.
(C) They use technical terminology in order to ensure accuracy of description.
(D) They draw on familiar information to particularize an aspect of tornadoes.
(E) They clarify the distinctions between the language of climatologists and that of
weathercasters.

2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 6161

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

43. The first sentence of the passage (lines 114) employs all of the following to convey the power
and variety of tornadoes EXCEPT
(A) abstract generalization
(B) the jargon of climatologists
(C) metaphor
(D) parallel construction
(E) varying degrees of formality

44. The passage implies that unlike hurricanes, tornadoes are not given human names because
(A) there are too many of them
(B) their destruction is not as great as that of hurricanes
(C) they last too short a time
(D) they move too erratically to be plotted
(E) they can appear in any area of the world

45. When the passage moves from the first paragraph to the second, it also moves from
(A) overview to illustration
(B) analysis to argumentation
(C) narration of the past to analysis of the past
(D) assertion to definition
(E) objective presentation to ad hominem argument

46. The phrase as bald as if a cyclonic wind had taken his scalp (lines 1819) does all of the
following EXCEPT
(A) describe the grandfather with an image related to the cyclone
(B) suggest a lighter tone for the paragraph
(C) particularize the first of several sources of information mentioned in the paragraph
(D) suggest the power of the tornado
(E) express concern about the condition of the grandfather

47. In context, the image of being up under Old Nells skirt (lines 2324) is meant to suggest
(A) safety
(B) confusion
(C) domesticity
(D) familiarity
(E) imprisonment

62 2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 62

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

48. Which of the following best describes the images in the last sentence of the passage
(lines 3243)?
(A) A disdainful rehearsal of other peoples experiences
(B) A random listing of repulsive or frightening occurrences
(C) A thorough review of absurd legends
(D) A series of increasingly detailed and implausible events
(E) A chronological account of major storms

49. The second paragraph of the passage relies especially on the use of
(A) cautionary advice
(B) colorful anecdotes
(C) self-deprecating humor
(D) extended analysis
(E) terrifying juxtapositions

50. The passage ends on a note of

(A) utter exhaustion
(B) genuine relief
(C) catastrophic destructiveness
(D) ominous warning
(E) lighthearted irony

2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 6363

 AP English Language and Composition Course Description, Effective Fall 2014

Answers to Multiple-Choice Questions

1A 14 B 27 B 40 B
2A 15 C 28 A 41 B
3C 16 A 29 E 42 D
4B 17 D 30 A 43 A
5D 18 A 31 A 44 C
6C 19 A 32 C 45 A
7D 20 E 33 B 46 E
8C 21 B 34 C 47 D
9E 22 C 35 A 48 D
10 A 23 D 36 A 49 B
11 D 24 A 37 D 50 E
12 D 25 D 38 A
13 C 26 D 39 A

64 2014 The College Board Return to the Table of Contents 64