hey everyone welcome back to coach All rights in today's video we're going to be talking about how to pass the upcoming AP Lang exam in 2023. before we get started I would like to invite you to subscribe to my YouTube channel here and also over on Tick Tock you can find me at coach Hall rights starting in 2023 I'll be going live each week right now the tentative time is Sundays at 3 P.M eastern time where I'll be live on Tick Tock and YouTube to answer questions from teachers and students to help you prepare for the AP Lang exam so I hope you join me for one of those upcoming sessions also in this video I'm going to be mentioning a lot of tips that I've already covered in separate videos so please check out the description box below for links to other videos that might be helpful in case you want additional tips about any of the topics I cover in this video the first thing that we need to talk about is the test itself and how things are scored so first of all students are going to receive a composite score if you've never taken an AP class before when you get your scores in July you're going to get a number one through five typically most students aim for at least a three because this is considered a qualifying score now it does depend on which colleges or universities you're applying to which scores that they will actually accept but for many students the goal is at least a three some students are shooting for a four or even a five so it really kind of depends on your situation but just know that you'll be getting a composite score for the AP Lang test specifically there are two parts so the first part is multiple choice that's going to be 45 questions it's 45 of your composite score you have one hour to answer the 45 questions on test day there will be a short break in between the two sections so after multiple choice you'll have a quick break and then you'll move on to the second section which is the frqs that stands for free response question I like to call it the essays this is going to be 55 of your composite score you're going to have three essays synthesis rhetorical analysis and arguments I'll be talking about each of those essays specifically later on in the video because the multiple choice section has 45 questions and it's 45 of your composite score each question is worth one point now for the essays you're going to have a rubric that goes up to six points so if you're trying to figure out approximately what your overall score would be multiply each of your essay scores by 3.0556 there are some exam calculators online too that are pretty accurate if you'd like to use those but in case you're trying to figure out what your composite would be and you're using info from class maybe you've taken a multiple choice test or maybe you've written essays and you want to see where you stand at this point let me show you how to take these numbers and convert it to a composite score so once you know how many multiple choice questions you would have gotten right and know each of your essay scores and you've multiplied it by 3.0556 then you're going to take that number and you can round it if you want to and it should be between 0 and 100. so here's the breakdown if your number is between 0 and 35 points then it would be a one composite if it's between 36 and 51 points it would be a two 52 to 62 points is going to be a 3 63 to 72 points is a 4 and 73 to 100 points is a five there's a couple things to keep in mind with this breakdown though this is unofficial this is just the breakdown that I use for my students mock exam scores and I know several other teachers use a similar breakdown so you can use this information to figure out what your exam score would be if you've taken a mock exam or if you want to play around with the numbers and figure out what you would need to do in order to get a three a four or a five you can use this information unfortunately when you get your scores all you get is the composite though so you won't know how many multiple choice questions you answered correctly on the real test you also won't know your individual essay scores however this breakdown can help you figure out where you currently are performing and it can help you figure out exactly what you need to do to get to the score that you want generally speaking for students that are aiming for a three composite I recommend that they try to shoot for at least 23 out of 45 questions right on the multiple choice and a four out of six on their essays let's talk about the first section of the test the multiple choice here are some general tips that I think all students need to know the first is that you want to answer all questions even if it's just a guess if you are running out of time select one letter and bubble that letter for the remaining questions now as you're approaching the questions there are going to be five answer choices not four like on the SAT or the ACT usually two of the answer choices are automatic throwaway answer choices the remaining two to three answer choices though that's where it gets a little bit tricky so you really want to pay attention to the wording of the answer and really think about is this actually answering the question that I'm being asked use process of elimination it can help if you cross out answer choices that you know are wrong that way you don't look at them as you are deciding on the correct answer it's also important to know the layout of the multiple choice section so the first two passages that you are going to encounter are going to be reading passages so they're assessing your comprehension these passages are non-fiction passages and they're going to be a bit longer and they're going to have more questions the final three reading sets or passages are going to be shorter and these are going to be editing questions they're called the writing questions now of the 45 questions approximately half are going to be reading and the other half are going to be writing it's not exactly half but it's close does this mean that you should spend 30 minutes on reading and 30 minutes on the writing questions not necessarily sometimes it takes students longer to do the reading questions so it might be a 35-25 split it's also possible that it won't take you the full hour to answer all the questions but please make sure you don't leave any questions like for the reading multiple choice remember that it's going to be a non-fiction passage these are going to be longer passages with more questions and in most cases you will be provided with a little bit of info about the passage usually at the top so it might tell you who the speaker is or where the passage came from or the year that it was published be sure to read this information because sometimes it can help the passage make more sense for some students it may help to read the questions before reading the passage I recommend that you experiment with this before test day one way to do this is to use the released SAT test to practice so if you're used to reading the passage and then approaching the questions maybe try a couple practice tests where you read the questions first not the answers just the questions and then look at the passage sometimes students who struggle with their pacing or struggle with their focus do better if they read the questions first because it can help them zero in on what they're supposed to be thinking about with that Passage now please keep in mind that that approach does not work for everyone I have some students for whom it works really well and other students who do not like that approach so experiment with it and figure out which is the best method for you this might sound really obvious but it's going to be important that you determine what the paragraph is about sometimes this information is provided for you other times it becomes clear within the first couple paragraphs of the passage but you need to figure out what the topic is that you're reading about and as you're thinking about that you also might want to think about the tone because that's going to be the speaker's attitude toward the subject as far as the answer choices please remember that sometimes the answer choices have two different parts like it might say this and this if one of those things is incorrect then the whole answer choice is wrong don't try to rationalize an answer that is only partially right for questions about the meaning of a word don't just go to that one line that they're asking you about instead make sure you read the surrounding sentences especially what comes before it but also what comes after it the reason why is because there's usually a context clue in one of the preceding sentences that can help so if the question is what does this word in line 55 mean don't just go to line 55 and don't just read the one sentence containing that word read the whole paragraph if you have to but sometimes it helps to read the surrounding sentences not just the sentence that contains the word there have been many times where I've had students get an answer like this wrong simply because they didn't read the surrounding sentences they just went to that one sentence and answered based on that however if they had read the other sentences then it would have changed their answer so be sure to read the surrounding sentences if the passage you're reading is really confusing or if it's just very dense in general maybe it's one long wall of text sometimes that happens especially with older passages write a bullet point note for each one to two paragraphs for some students it's helpful to pause after each paragraph just to make sure that you're comprehending what you're reading writing a little bullet point note about what the paragraph is about can help you as you're going back through the passage and answering questions it's also a way for you to engage with the text meaningfully so you're not wasting too much time but you're also hopefully not forgetting what you're reading either but again find a test taking method that works for you as you're looking at the answer choices make sure to look at the word choice of the answer choices because sometimes it literally just takes one word to make an answer Choice incorrect it could be because the answer choice is too broad and it's talking about a different part of the passage not the part that the questions actually asking about or in some cases it could be that one answer choice is simply more precise than another so really pay attention to the word choice in the answer choices because again sometimes one word can change whether or not it's the right answer if you're deciding between two answer choices remember that there's usually the best answer which is the one they want you to choose and one that is almost right and so that's why it's helpful to look at the word choice as well now let's talk about the writing multiple choice so these are going to be the final three passages of the multiple choice section these are kind of like editing questions so above the passage it's going to say something about the passage being a draft this is different than the previous passages because those were actually published and it's reading comprehension this is more having you focus on the word choice and style things like that you're essentially being the editor these passages tend to be shorter and have fewer questions I do have some separate videos on writing multiple choice questions and I will be producing more as the exam approaches is but I wanted to give you some quick tips to help you with this section some of the questions you're going to be asked are going to deal with transitions either between paragraphs or within a paragraph there might be words underlined like therefore or however these are transition words make sure you look at the sentence or paragraph before the transition word and also read the sentence that contains the transition word determine the relationship between the two sentences so is it comparison is it contrast is it cause and effect this is going to help you figure out what type of transition word you need in some cases the underlined word is correct but in other cases it's not so it's helpful to kind of ignore that word as you're reading the surrounding sentences and figure out the relationship between those sentences because for example if you know that those sentences have a contrasting relationship then you're going to be looking for words like however or in contrast as your answer choice this is also going to help you eliminate other options so for instance if you know that the two sentences are showing a contrasting relationship you're not going to want a word like thus or therefore because that doesn't show contrast there's also going to be times when they're going to ask you if a sentence should be added so in these cases read the sentence that they want to add and read the paragraph that it would be added to I tell my students to determine yes or no and why before reading the answer choices because sometimes if you start looking at the answer choices they all sound good and it makes you second guess to yourself so read the sentence that they want to add read the paragraph that they want to put it in and ask yourself should they add this yes or no then ask yourself why when you say yes or no you've already eliminated at least two answer choices and then if you say why chances are whatever you said is going to be similar to one of the remaining answer choices it might not be the exact wording but it's going to be very close this can help you save a little bit of time and it also helps you make sure that you're being accurate so as far as what types of sentences should be added we want to make sure that we add sentences that are necessary so does it have a necessary definition does it add Clarity in those cases yes add the sentence but if the sentence is going to be adding repeated info or tangential info then don't edit a similar question that they might ask is should the writer delete a sentence so in these cases you want to ask yourself if the sentence that they want to delete adds value because we don't want to delete a sentence that is helping the paragraph but if it's not contributing to the main idea of the paragraph maybe because it's not on topic it's not relevant things like that then go ahead and delete it now as with the previous type of question it can help to determine yes or no and why before looking at the answer choices and if you are also studying for the SAT and ACT both tests have this type of question on it as well so as you're studying for those tests you're also studying for apline now let's talk about the frq section so remember these are the essays on the exam you're going to get two hours and 15 minutes total for the frq section it's very helpful to have students practice timed essays in advance and to create a plan I do have a video from last year about how to create a game plan for test day so I'll make sure I link that in the description box below because it can help students to know how to play to their strengths on exam day I'll also be talking about this topic at various lives that I'm doing on YouTube and Tick Tock as we prepare for the exam so please make sure you're following on both platforms that way I can answer your specific questions it's very important that you attempt all essays if time is running out at least try to write a thesis and one body paragraph that has a claim evidence and commentary doing so will at least ensure that you're earning some points for that essay so please don't skip an essay and please don't leave it blank the first essay that you're going to encounter in your test booklet is the synthesis essay this one is usually the one that most students do first not just because it comes first in the test booklet but because it's also the one that is the most time consuming a synthesis essay is essentially an argument Essay with sources you're going to be provided with six to eight sources most of them are going to be passages but you're also going to receive at least one visual text which could be something like a chart a graph a picture a cartoon something like that so how do you write a synthesis essay well there's going to be multiple pages that you need to look at in your exam booklet but the first page is kind of like a cover page that's going to tell you the issue that you're writing about in the first paragraph So read that information paragraph because it's going to tell you about the differing perspectives on the issue that's how you know what you're writing about the second paragraph on the synthesis cover page is going to have your prompt it's usually written as a statement but I have found that it helps if students turn it into a question so for these it's going to say something about developing a position on and it might say on the roll if any or the value if any and then they'll give you your topic be sure to read your prompts carefully because you want to make sure that the SAU writes actually addresses your prompt on that cover page there's also going to be the sources it's going to say Source a and in parentheses it might have the author's last name there's going to be a whole list of the sources and there's going to be some bullet point reminders I don't think students need to read these on test day because you're about to go read the sources anyway and as far as the bullet points those are reminders for the rubric things like have a thesis have specific evidence make sure you have commentary try to use correct grammar those bullet points do not change so if you've seen them once it's the exact same bullet points so that's why I don't think students really need to pay too much attention to those on test Day When approaching a synthesis essay it's important to have a system as you are reading through the sources some students like to make a t-chart or some kind of list on their cover page other students like to write the main idea of the passage in the top right corner do whatever works for you you won't be able to have a highlighter on the test unfortunately so you're limited to the pen that you're going to write your essay in yes you write your essays in pen you use pencil for the multiple choice your pen needs to be blue or black ink by the way so because of that you are limited to underlining circling or maybe putting a star by something so make sure that you have a system and do so meaningfully if you underline too much it can be really confusing as you're going back and trying to find evidence so to try to prevent clutter on your papers try to make sure that you are underlining short phrases that you think you could work into an essay it's possible that when you read the topic you might already know the position that you want to take but in many cases students wait until they read the sources before they truly solidify their position so if you're not sure which stance you want to take evaluate each source and figure out what what that person is saying and whether you agree or disagree with it and whether or not it might be helpful to your essay you'll notice that some of the sources might be about half a page whereas others are a full page don't skip sources just because they are long in many cases these sources might have valuable info now if you want to skim through the passage to see if it's something that you could use in your essay that's totally fine one method that might help with this is to read the first paragraph and then start looking at the topic sentences of the remaining paragraphs maybe read the conclusion paragraph and see if it's something that's going to fit with your argument as I said before you're also going to get a visual text remember this could be something like a cartoon a graph a chart they even had a schedule one year the benefit to having a visual text is that you don't have to really read anything you just have to interpret it however that's also the downside because sometimes students encounter a visual text and they're not really sure how to use it for their argument some prompts have one visual text some have to you are not required to use them so if it's something that doesn't make sense to you or if it doesn't fit your argument it's okay to skip it if the visual text is one of the first couple sources like let's say it's Source a or Source B it might be helpful if you skip it and then come back to it because sometimes you might look at the source and you might not really be sure how you could use it but if you read the other sources you might realize oh well this particular chart pairs well with this source so it is okay to skip a source and come back to it because you're going to need to cite three sources for a synthesis essay you're going to be given six to eight you must cite three different sources in your essay so as you're reading the sources try to figure out which sources pair well with each other because it usually helps to have two sources in a body paragraph to start to create a conversation among the sources before you actually start writing your essay I recommend that you plan your thesis so the position that you're going to argue and also your main ideas because we're trying to save time you can use shorthand you can use fragments you can use bullet points but it is helpful to have some sort of road map you want to know what you're trying to prove what your main ideas are and also which sources help you prove those main ideas this will help you as your writing because in case you get stuck or forget your idea you have something to turn back to if students try to write an essay without a tentative plan then they sometimes get stuck after the first body paragraph and they are kind of paralyzed as they're trying to figure out what they need to write next so for all your frqs make sure you have a tentative plan that you can follow I mentioned before that you want to create a conversation of sources so it helps to have two sources per paragraph because honestly in my opinion at least when you have one source per body paragraph it reads very choppily and your paragraphs might seem disjointed also as a pro tip and I've talked about this in a couple of recent videos about citing your sources if possible try not to say according to Source a use the original sources credentials instead and make sure you include a parenthetical citation it's not that it's wrong to call it Source a but if you could say something like according to a 2017 survey in Forbes Magazine that's going to sound better a parenthetical citation is when you put Source a in parentheses at the end of your sentence I'll link those videos about citations that I mentioned in the description box in case you want more examples and more information also be sure to embed your evidence I talk about that in those videos as well but basically don't just plop a quote into your essay you need to have at least one word before it to integrate it into a sentence of your own as you're planning your essay think about the order of your main ideas and your paragraphs make sure you put your main ideas in a logical order and as you're writing make sure that you create transitions between your paragraphs and also within your paragraphs so as you're writing make sure that you use appropriate transition words like therefore similarly conversely however and also you can use the topic sentences especially of body paragraph two and body paragraph three if you choose to do a third body paragraph to help you create a line of reasoning or links between your paragraph so make sure that your ideas progress well now as far as your evidence we want to make sure that we follow evidence with commentary so don't just summarize the quote that you've provided don't just restate the exact same thing in different words and consider that commentary instead we want you to analyze that so tell us why how or so what commentary is going to be very important you want more commentary than evidence so make sure you're actually analyzing why this issue matters to help with this you can consider the broader implications of the issue so why is this issue relevant to our society now and in the future who is helped or harmed by the issue another way to say that would be who benefits and who faces a disadvantage you could also ask yourself if you have any relevant specific personal experience or observations that can contribute to the conversation this does not mean that you should always include personal experience in a synthesis essay however if it is truly relevant and it's going to help your commentary then perhaps that might be a good idea now let's talk about the second essay that you'll encounter in your exam packet the rhetorical analysis essay this is my favorite of the three essays I have several videos and multiple playlists about rhetorical analysis so if you're looking for additional tips be sure to check out all of those videos but let's start with what the essay should look like first of all you're going to need an intro paragraph I recommend that you have one to two sentences that convey the rhetorical situation and you have a defensible thesis so in case you're unfamiliar with rhetorical analysis rhetorical analysis is when you're given a passage perhaps it's a speech or a letter or maybe an excerpt from a longer work of non-fiction you're looking for rhetorical choices and you're going to be talking about how that helps the writer convey a message achieve a purpose or develop an argument you do not need a long intro for any of your frqs because they are a timed essay so for the rhetorical analysis essay have your intro introduce the passage that you're talking about and make sure you have a defensible thesis that references specific rhetorical choices and ideally the specific message argument and purpose most students tend to write two or three body paragraphs for an essay like this it is okay to have two body paragraphs in fact I recommend quality over quantity it also helps if students analyze the passage chronologically so think about it as either first half second half and no those halves don't have to be equal or beginning middle and end you want to follow the writer's line of reasoning which is their progression of ideas that's going to help give your essay a stronger line of reasoning rather than just jumping around throughout the passage for your body paragraphs I recommend having a topic sentence layers of evidence and commentary and a concluding sentence ideally you're going to want more commentary than evidence but you should be incorporating either direct quotes or paraphrased evidence and that concluding sentence wraps up your paragraph don't use the concluding sentence to try to preview the main idea of your next body paragraph instead the concluding sentence should wrap up your paragraph kind of restating the main idea or tying back to the thesis one of the key skills that students need to have as they're writing a rhetorical analysis essay is they need to understand rhetorical choices so a rhetorical choice is what the writer is doing ideally we're going to convey this with strong verbs as opposed to nouns however you can still include nouns in your essay and score well one of the questions I'm most frequently Asked is which choices do students really need to know and I think it's helpful to have a short list of rhetorical choices that you're familiar with at the same time it's also important to recognize that those choices won't always be present in every passage so you want to make sure that you're reading the passage and figuring out what is the writer doing not just trying to figure out if the 10 to 12 rhetorical choices that you're familiar with are somehow in the passage some common rhetorical devices or choices would be Compares contrast defines provides examples recalls a time when that's a way to say that they're giving an anecdote instead of saying he uses an anecdote alludes to repeats you can also look at the word choice and tone so those are some that come up more frequently but that is not an inclusive list it's just a way to get you started it's important to try to use rhetorically accurate verbs so you could say acknowledges asserts argues justifies we want to try to avoid weaker verbs like says shows and uses it's also important to remember that choices create appeals a lot of times students want to write about the rhetorical appeals logos ethos and Pathos and looking for those three rhetorical appeals is not necessarily wrong but it does help if you recognize that the choices create those appeals so for instance let's say you notice logos you notice that it's logical ask yourself what is the writer doing to make it logical are they providing facts or statistics or examples those are the choices that create the logical appeal so focusing on the choice and the appeal that it creates is usually going to lead to deeper analysis as opposed to just focusing on the appeal I do have a video that explains this more in depth and I'll link that in the description box below a rhetorical analysis essay is going to need specific evidence of the choices that you're analyzing so it helps to select short quotes that you can embed into a sentence of your own like I said with synthesis you don't want to just drop a quote in your essay it's very jarring for your reader if you do that so you need to integrate it into a sentence of your own make sure that the quote clearly demonstrates the choice that you are analyzing and as you are writing your commentary it can help if you look at the word choice or details within the quote so for example let's say that you notice repetition maybe the writer repeats the word perseverance instead of just saying the writer repeats the word perseverance explain why repeating that word is helpful so what effect does that have on the audience how does repeating that word help them with their message or their purpose so as you are analyzing rhetorical choices in your body paragraphs make sure that each body paragraph has a clear main idea you don't want to jam pack each body paragraph with three or four or five rhetorical choices don't list every single choice that you see choose the most prominent ones the most prominent two to three and discuss those in your body paragraphs and each choice that you analyze make sure you connect it to the message argument or purpose your prompt is going to ask you about one of those three so make sure that you are addressing your prompt all passages should have a purpose so if you're asked about the message it is okay to also analyze the purpose but make sure that you also reference the message purpose is going to be why the writer does it to inform to persuade to entertain and chances are you're going to want to be more specific than that but you get the idea message is going to be the lesson or the takeaway and an argument is usually when they're trying to persuade so typically with an argument the speaker is arguing for or against something in your commentary it helps to connect to the rhetorical situation the acronym that I use for that is space speaker purpose audience context and exigence so you want to ask yourself why is the speaker making this choice for this audience on this occasion I've done several other videos on this particular topic but I wanted to give you some sentence frames here that might help if you're not sure how to connect to the rhetorical situation in your essay so feel free to screenshot this and use it in your essays if you think it would be helpful also check out the description box below for links to those other videos that talk about this concept in more detail because again this is meant to be more of an overview video and I have other content that addresses these topics much more specifically it is not necessary to have a conclusion paragraph but it can be helpful to write one a lot of times students just kind of recap their main ideas or rewrite their thesis and sometimes that actually kind of Falls flat so if you're looking for some Alternatives you could use this particular sentence frame when considering blank it becomes clear that so you could say something like when considering speakers use of and then the choices that you were analyzing it becomes clear that or you can say maybe the topic so when considering the idea of perseverance it becomes clear that and you can finish the sentence that's a way to start without saying in conclusion you could also use this sentence frame elsewhere in your essay if you want to but a lot of my students like to use this sentence frame for a conclusion I have a separate video about how to write a rhetorical analysis conclusion but here are a couple things that you might consider thinking about instead of just restating your main ideas one is why is the past historically relevant this won't work for all passages but it does help with some you also might want to ask yourself why or how the message is relevant today that's going to help you situate the issue in a broader context and of course I'll link the video about rhetorical analysis conclusions in the description box as well the third essay on the AP Lang exam is going to be the argument essay now on exam day you don't have to answer them in that provided order on the paper test so if you are stronger at synthesis and argument and you want to do it synthesis argument rhetorical analysis that is perfectly fine on your paper there's going to be these little Bubbles at the top of the page that'll say q1 Q2 and Q3 it used to be a box but now it's bubbles you're going to bubble in q1 if you're answering q1 so for each page that you're writing question one the synthesis essay you bubble in q1 try not to have two essays on the same page so when you're done with your essay start your next essay on a clean page also because I haven't addressed it yet AP readers won't read what you cross out so you don't have to like reject it like it's a CIA document you can just strike through something and they won't read it if you need to add in words you can do a little carrot and put the words above it you can draw an arrow you can do an asterisk make sure it's clear where you want it to go but they will read it in the way that you intend so it's okay to add stuff in after if you forget something or if you're revising and you need to put something at the end of your essay you want to add in a couple sentences or something that's totally fine okay so back to the argument essay for this you're going to have a topic and you have to assert a position on the topic many of the prompts have a quote you don't have to copy the quote in your essay the quote was just to kind of give you a perspective some students like to plan their position or their thesis and then brainstorm evidence other students like to work backwards and they like to think of evidence and figure out what their thesis would be based on that evidence both methods work honestly I think it just depends on how your brain works but I think it's helpful to brainstorm regardless so you want to come up with a list of possible evidence and if you have have more ideas than what you could reasonably write about in one essay narrow it down eliminate ideas that you cannot write about specifically sometimes it helps to write down everything that comes to mind as you brainstorm and then eliminate things that you can't write about specifically because that's going to be the key to a stronger essay you need specific examples a mnemonic that I give my students to help with this is chores it stands for current events history outside knowledge reading experiences in science now there are other mnemonics out there I don't think it really matters which one you use but I do think it's helpful to have something kind of guide you as you're planning now when my students are doing this in class we go through each letter and they try to generate ideas but if they're doing a timed essay if they can't come up with an example in the category for reading that's okay like it does not matter this is just a way to help you realize that there are different types of examples you could include it's important that you select evidence that you can write about specifically and knowledgeably so you need to be able to provide specific names details dates or or time periods it also helps to stick with real world examples not hypotheticals so whether it's a historical example a current event a personal experience those are going to read better than saying something like imagine a high school student who or suppose somebody did this one question that students often ask though is can I write about fiction and the answer is yes but oftentimes there might be a real world example that you could pair it with or possibly write about instead so it's not that we don't want you to write about movies or fiction but make sure that that is the best example for your essay Under Pressure if that's the only thing that you can come up with then go for it but try to take a second to ask yourself is there a similar example that I know about in the real world if there's not then go for the fictitious example I've had students write about Disney I've had students write about The Hunger Games and honestly if that was the best example they could give me in the moment for a timed essay my only ask of them was that they write about it well which brings me to my next tip play to your strengths you want to write about what you know those essays are always so much more interesting for example a couple years ago at our State mock exam I was reading an essay that a student wrote in response to the overrated prompt and the student wrote about how this one particular basketball player I think it was Russell Westbrook was overrated and I am not a basketball fan in that regard so I did not know who this person was but the way this student wrote the essay they should have been a sports reporter because they were giving statistics and they were proving their points like when I was done reading that essay I was convinced I didn't even know who the guy was but I was like yep he's got to be overrated because it was such a convincing essay the student clearly knew about that basketball player they wrote the essay in a way that had specifics that helped me the reader even though I didn't know anything about the person so play to your strengths some of them most interesting essays I've read have been about topics that students clearly knew about well so if you're an expert on a particular sports figure or a specific style of art or maybe a famous musician and it's relevant to your argument sometimes those are the best examples because they're unique it's not what everybody else is writing about for the argument essay you can write about personal experience I have a separate video on this again I'll link it in the description box below the key to writing about personal experience though is to make sure that it is Meaningful and that it clearly proves your claim sometimes it's difficult to write about personal experience because there's a lot of context that you need to provide and you don't want to waste too much time so you have to make sure that the example is something that you can write about in a way that an outsider will understand you also want to make sure that there's some sort of lesson or maybe personal growth related to the example but yes you can write about personal experience one question that students sometimes ask is can I make it up like can I write about something and say it's true even though it isn't AP readers aren't going to know so technically yes you can make it up but I'm not necessarily saying that you should you have to ask yourself is that what's best for your essay and your integrity but AP readers won't know whether it's true or not however I have read examples that were very dramatic and they seemed to be fake examples whether they were or weren't I don't know but you want to make sure that what you're writing truly proves your argument and you want to make sure that you're evaluating your evidence asking yourself is this the best evidence I can use to prove my point you might have one example per paragraph you might have two related examples in your paragraph either approach is fine just make sure that your evidence proves your arguments and make sure that you have commentary that explains why that example is Meaningful how does it prove your thesis all right there you have it that was kind of like a crash course and understanding the AP Lang exam I gave you lots of tips for each of the different components of the test in order to help you hopefully earn the score that you are shooting for on test day please remember that I am going Live on YouTube and Tick Tock each Sunday leading up to the test so feel free to come hop on those lives and ask questions also be sure to check out the description box because all of the topics that I talked about in today's video I have separate videos on that go into more detail so if I mention something that you want more info on start by looking in the description box for those videos thank you so much for watching if you found the video helpful please give it a thumbs up and until next time happy writing