AP English Literature Exam

I had the AP English Literature and Composition exam. As per College Board rules, I cannot discuss the free response for 2 days, and I can NEVER say ANYTHING to ANYONE about the multiple-choice. (The punishment for breaking this sacred commandment is that a band of either ninjas or pirates will come and attack me, I think. I wasn't paying full attention to the 30 minutes of instructions).

Last evening, I was trying to study for the exam (reviewing literary terms, going over characters and themes of books I read years ago), when I realized that John would be doing a live chat. Although the chat wouldn't be considered studying by some, I think it was. Not only was poetry read, but iambic pentameter was discussed, and so I think it counts as studying.

After I finished my essays for the free response section, I had about 20 minutes left. I had already spent fifteen minutes during the multiple-choice section idly staring around the gym (they had about 100 of us in the gym of a nearby church to take this exam), and I had no particular urge to repeat that fun experience.

On an AP exam, if you cross something out (with just a single slash-through), it cannot be graded or considered by the readers. I wrote a two page letter to my reader, informing them about the Green brothers and the Nerdfighter community. I included my thoughts about how I would have loved to have used one of John's book for the third essay, but I wasn't sure that the AP graders would consider it of equal literary merit to, say, The Great Gatsby or The Grapes of Wrath.

Once my letter was finished, I still had three pages left in the book. I used a page writing down lyrics to a couple They Might Be Giants songs. I informed the reader that he or she was, in fact, older than he/she's ever been, and now he/she's older still. (Also, I let the reader know that time is marching on). Once that was concluded, I discussed how the sun and Hank are both masses of incandescent gas, gigantic nuclear furnaces.

With ten minutes and two pages to go, I was nearly out of ideas of what to write, and still refusing to sit in silence, staring blankly around the room until the time period had ended, I decided to jump start my preparations for the Spanish Literature exam next Friday by reciting (okay, writing, but I recited it in my head, so that counts for partial credit) a poem for the reader. ("A Roosevelt", by Ruben Dario, if you're interested). I didn't finish the poem, but I was able to cover just about 2/3 of the poem in the two pages I had left, and time was called before I could lament the lack of available writing space.

All in all, it was a good exam.