hey guys it's john from marco learning in this video i'm going to walk you through the rubric for q1 the synthesis essay of the ap english language exam i'll walk you through point by point and explain how to improve your score on this part of the exam okay so let's take a look at this rubric this is our version of the rubric based on the official college board one except we added little check boxes to it this is available on our website we'll put the link in the description i want to start here in row a which is the thesis point this is by far the most important part of this rubric it's really the gateway to the other two rows evidence and commentary and sophistication so to get the thesis point you have to make sure that you respond to the prompt that you're given you offer the reader a clear interpretation a clear response ideally at the end of the first paragraph in one or two sentences now if you're going to get the thesis point it must be defensible must be a claim that can be supported and you must take a clear position in response to the prompt people who don't earn the thesis point make these mistakes let's take a look first they don't have a defensible thesis the claim that they're making cannot be supported by the evidence or by any evidence at all so remember on a synthesis prompt you're going to be given six sources are you really engaging with the sources in any way you could also not get the thesis point if you just restate the prompt so copying and pasting the word to the prompt adding a couple of little phrases and slapping a period at the bottom that's not a thesis statement that's a regurgitation of the prompt it could really get you into trouble another problem you could run into is that you just summarize the topic but don't make a claim and this really is the difference between a claim that people could argue against and a claim that no one would argue against for example if you say that historical monuments exist throughout the world no one could possibly disagree with that of course they do historical monuments are everywhere around the world if you say historical monuments are overrated they're unimportant and most of them should be taken down oh well now you have an argument people are going to agree and disagree with you they're going to want more information you need to make sure that the claim that you're making is disputable it would have somebody object to it and it will need evidence to support it it's not merely a description that's what stating an apparent fact rather than a defensible claim might look like right just listing out facts paris is the capital of france is not an argument it's a statement that no one would dispute but if you say paris should not be the capital of france well now you're starting an argument what else should be the capital of france why shouldn't paris be the capital of france people want evidence they want reasons they want support and they want to offer something in dialogue with you that's what synthesis is all about now of course you also need to make sure like i said that you are responding to the prompt if your thesis is off topic if you do any one of these things you'll end up with a zero on the thesis row and that's a huge problem for you because if you get a zero on the thesis row you cannot get any farther than two points on this row row b is all about evidence and commentary are you citing from the sources that they give you and are you using them as a springboard to make your own argument so let's take a look at three and four let's hope that you get three or four points on this row of the rubric so to get three or four points you must use at least three sources remember that's in the rules of the synthesis essay they give you six sources you must explicitly cite from three of them if you don't you won't earn the points in fact the max number of points you can get is only one out of four which is not going to give you a great score so to get the uh highest possible score on evidence and commentary you want to make sure you're using at least three sources so let's just say we do that try to get four points and then i need relevant evidence that supports all the claims in the line of reasoning i need evidence to support this so the question people always ask is should i quote from the sources and the answer is not really right those long quotations one whole sentence two whole sentences from the passages are not helpful that's your essay getting filled up with other people's words words that are already in front of the reader so grab short quotes tiny passages and use those only when you're really analyzing them to support your claims otherwise you can just reference that source b is a graph that shows something or source d is a photograph or a short speech excerpt that indicates another thing and stay in that more general vein rather than trying to quote things at length now in order to earn four points i've got to use at least three sources i need to have relevant evidence that really supports all the claims i'm making but i must also have a well organized line of reasoning now a line of reasoning is one of those fancy words that appears in college board speak appears in this rubric and people don't know what it means a line of reasoning simply refers to all of the reasons you're using to support your claim so if you make a mess of this in your essay the paragraphs are disconnected i'm getting confused as your reader i don't know your argument you don't really have a well-structured line of reasoning you want to make sure your essay is unified and organized and that each part of your argument each body paragraph each point within that connects to the broader argument and if you feel like there's some ideas you have that you want to get on paper remember you've only got 40 minutes to write this so maybe you just leave some of those side ideas to the side and focus on the essay you can write so that your line of reasoning all the reasons you use to support your argument is unified and that's why organization is key they also want you to consistently use evidence and support multiple key claims throughout each body paragraph you should be citing at least once or twice from sources that are given and from outside information that's what synthesis is all about guys synthesis means bringing everything together so if you bring the three sources you're citing from and the outside information together into a beautiful hole you will score highly on row b of this rubric now let's go to the last row this is sophistication and this is something that people love to talk about probably spend too much time worrying about because uh the sophistication point is only one of six points in this rubric and as i said above you really want to get that thesis point first you want to get as far as you can on row b with evidence and commentary and then if you've done well overall you have a chance at earning the sophistication point so let's take a look at some of the things that help earn the sophistication point one thing would be a nuanced thesis that's supported throughout the argument so if your thesis is more sophisticated than saying something like paris should not be the capital of france but is something like although paris has been the capital of france for centuries we should consider a new opportunity and identify a city in the south of france to serve as its new capital this would usher in a signal to the people of france that france has entered the 21st century and a bold new future well that's a much more sophisticated idea than just arguing against something and so think about how you can build your thesis to be more complex and then support it throughout the essay that might help you earn the sophistication point if you acknowledge the limitations and implications of an argument that and that examines the broader contest so for example i could say although it may seem far-fetched and difficult to manage paris should no longer be the capital of france we should move it to the south and then my argument will develop in a more sophisticated way because i'm showing that my idea is a little bit crazy right that that the ideas that we embrace sometimes are sometimes challenging or expensive or there are perfectly legitimate arguments that people on the other side of whatever spectrum i'm talking about that they could bring up that that disagree with me so it's just something important to remember that the synthesis essay is about complexity it's about a conversation of you and the sources and everyone else the third one third way to earn this point would be successful rhetorical choices made by the student so if you use a rhetorical question in your third body paragraph and you pull it off really well if you show a counter argument and do a particularly fine job of explaining that that points to a kind of complexity that might get you this point and finally it's just writing really well and i really do love this that the ap english language course is going to reward you right here on the rubric for writing really beautifully but like i said don't worry about this last row worry about the first two make sure your thesis answers the prompt make sure that you support that thesis with evidence from at least three sources and that you connect the evidence that you're bringing from the sources and from outside back to your thesis and with that you'll have a great synthesis essay