AP® English Literature and Composition
Free-Response Questions (FRQs)
The AP® English Literature and Composition exam consists of two major sections: multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and free-response questions (FRQs). In this guide, we’ll take a look at the FRQ section of the exam.
We will start by examining the format of the writing section of the AP English Literature exam and give you tips to score well on the FRQs. In the following sections, we have also included a few examples of AP Literature FRQ writing prompts that have been used on the exam. By the end of this article, you will know how to approach the FRQs so you can score well on them. We’ll also share insights to help you prep for the literary argument essay portion of the AP Lit exam.
AP English Literature FRQ Section Format
So, how many FRQs are on the AP Lit exam? There are three FRQs: a poetry analysis question, a prose fiction analysis question, and a literary argument question. You have 2 hours to complete all three questions, which amounts to 40 minutes per essay, although you can use more or less time on each.
Essays are scored on a scale from 0 to 6. The entire writing section counts for 55% of the exam score, with each essay equally weighted.
How to Answer AP English Literature Free-Response Questions
Here are some general tips for approaching the AP Literature and Composition exam’s FRQ section:
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Before you start, look over all the prompts and begin with the easiest one.
Start with the easiest question. It’ll boost your confidence, helping you succeed on this exam. For some students, the literary argument question is the easiest because it allows you to choose a piece of literature to write about that you are already familiar with. However, the prose fiction analysis question is the easiest for others because they comprehend prose better than poetry. Many students answer the poetry question last because they prefer to write the easiest essays first to have more time for the harder ones.
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State your thesis in the introduction.
Your thesis must contain a defensible interpretation, not a summary or restatement of the prompt. A secure interpretation is the main idea you get from the passage or poem that applies to the prompt's focus. Don’t spend too much time on your introduction. Two or three sentences are sufficient. If you are running out of time, write a thesis for all essays because you will receive at least a point
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The word "complex" in a prompt simply means more than one.
When you analyze a character's complex reaction to events, show two different reactions. If needed, discuss a character's complex relationship to something. Write about two sides of the relationship, maybe past and present, love and hate, etc.
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Use evidence from the text to support your interpretation.
To score well on the FRQs, include quoted or paraphrased proof of all of your ideas in your essay. Focus on specific words and details that support what you have to say. Be sure to explain how the evidence illustrates your idea. Two pieces of evidence for each of your points are sufficient; only include lists of quotes if they explain how they support your interpretation.
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You do not need a conclusion to earn a high score.
However, if you have time to write a sentence that pulls your ideas together at the end to make your essay sound finished, you should write one.
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Don’t worry about making spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes.
The graders understand that you are writing under time pressure and that your essay is more like a rough draft. If you make a mistake or change your mind, draw a line through the mistake and keep going.
AP English Literature FRQ Examples
Here are some examples of AP English Lit FRQs from past exams to illustrate the questions you will see on the exam. These questions come directly from the College Board® course description guide and are an excellent source to use for practice.
FRQ 1 presents students with a poem of approximately 100 to 300 words. Here’s how you can expect it to look like:
Example 1
In the following poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson (published in 1867), the speaker reflects on the process of growing older. Read the poem carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Emerson uses poetic elements and techniques to convey the speaker’s complex perspective on aging.
In your response, you should do the following:
Terminus*
It is time to be old,
To take in sail:—
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Came to me in his fatal rounds,
And said: “No more!
No farther shoot
Thy broad, ambitious branches, and thy root.
Fancy departs: no more invent;
Contract thy firmament
To compass of a tent.
There’s not enough for this and that,
Make thy option which of two;
Economize the failing river,
Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.
Timely wise accept the terms,
Soften the fall with wary foot;
A little while
Still, plan and smile,
And,—fault of novel germs,—
Mature the unfallen fruit.
Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
Bad husbands of their fires,
Who, when they gave thee breath,
Failed to bequeath
The needful sinew stark as once,
The Baresark** marrow to thy bones,
But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
Inconstant heat and nerveless reins—
Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
Amid the gladiators,*** halt and numb.”
As the bird trims**** her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
“Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed.”
*the Roman god of boundaries
**A Baresark was an ancient Scandinavian warrior who fought without armor, was frenzied in battle, and
was thought to be invulnerable.
***In ancient Rome, gladiators fought to the death for the public’s entertainment.
****adjusts
Source: College Board
So, how do you write a good response to the Poetry Analysis question? Here are 5 tips to keep in mind to help you do well with this kind of FRQ:
- Read the poem and paraphrase the sentences – not the lines–in the poem. This will help you understand the message of the poem better. Look at how specific words, images, details, and contrasts contribute to the poem’s meaning.
- You do not have to list two or three literary devices or techniques in your thesis to receive the point for the thesis. The defensible interpretation is all that is needed.
- Write convincingly on two or three devices. Don’t worry about knowing all the literary devices. You will not impress the grader if you try to write about all the literary devices in the passage.
- Organize your essay by the structure of the poem. Jumping around may make your writing seem disorganized. Essays that follow the passage’s organization tend to score higher than those that devote each paragraph to one literary device.
- Embed shorter quotes into your sentence structure when citing evidence, and blend the evidence with your commentary. This is more sophisticated and ensures you aren’t just writing long quotes with no commentary.
FRQ 2 presents students with a passage of prose fiction of approximately 500 to 700 words and may look like this.
Example 2
The following excerpt is from the novel Lucy by Caribbean-American author Jamaica Kincaid, published in 1990. In this passage, the narrator describes the beginning of a new phase in her life. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Kincaid uses literary elements and techniques to portray the complexity of the narrator’s new situation.
In your response, you should do the following:
I got into an elevator, something I had never done before, and then I was in an apartment and seated at a table, eating food just taken from a refrigerator. In the place I had just come from, I always lived in a house, and my house did not have a refrigerator in it. Everything I was experiencing—the ride in the elevator, being in an apartment, eating day-old food stored in a refrigerator—was such a good idea that I could imagine I would grow used to it and like it very much, but at first, it was all so new that I had to smile with my mouth turned down at the corners. I slept soundly that night, but it wasn’t because I was happy and comfortable—quite the opposite; it was because I didn’t want to take in anything else.
That morning, the morning of my first day, the morning that followed my first night, was a sunny morning. It was not the sort of bright sun-yellow making everything curl at the edges, almost in fright, that I was used to, but a pale-yellow sun as if the sun had grown weak from trying too hard to shine; but stil,l it was sunny, and that was nice and made me miss my homeless. And so, seeing the sun, I got up and put on a dress, a gay dress made out of madras cloth—the same sort of dress that I would wear if I were at home and setting out for a day in the country. It was all wrong. The sun was shining, but the air was cold. It was the middle of January, after all. But I did not know that the sun could shine and the air remains cold; no one had ever told me. What a feeling that was! How can I explain? Something I had always known—the way I knew my skin was the color brown of a nut rubbed repeatedly with a soft cloth, or the way I knew my own name—something I took completely for granted, “the sun is shining, the air is warm,” was not so. I was no longer in a tropical zone, and this realization now entered my life like a flow of water dividing formerly dry and solid ground, creating two banks, one of which was my past—so familiar and predictable that even my unhappiness then made me happy now just to think of it—the other my future, a gray blank, an overcast seascape on which rain was falling and no boats were in sight. I was no longer in a tropical zone and I felt cold inside and out. It was the first time such a sensation had come over me.
In books I had read—from time to time when the plot called for it—someone would suffer from homesickness. A person would leave a not very nice situation and go somewhere else, somewhere a lot better, and then long to go back to where it was not very nice. How impatient I would become with such a person, for I would feel that I was in a not very nice situation myself, and how I wanted to go somewhere else. But now I, too, felt that I wanted to be back where I came from. I understood it; I knew where I stood there. If I had to draw a picture of my future, then it would have been a large gray patch surrounded by black, blacker, blackest.
What a surprise this was to me, that I longed to be back in the place that I came from, that I longed to sleep in a bed I had outgrown, that I longed to be with people whose smallest, the most natural gesture would call up in me such a rage that I longed to see them all dead at my feet. Oh, I had imagined that with my one swift act—leaving home and coming to this new place—I could leave behind me as if it were an old garment never to be worn again, my sad thoughts, my sad feelings, and my discontent with life in general as it presented itself to me. In the past, the thought of being in my present situation had been a comfort, but now I did not even have this to look forward to, and so I lay down on my bed and dreamt I was eating a bowl of pink mullet and green figs cooked in coconut milk,* and my grandmother cooked it, which was why the taste of it pleased me so, for she was the person I liked best in all the world and those were the things I liked best to eat also.
* a Caribbean seafood dish
**“Poor Visitor” from LUCY: A NOVEL by Jamaica Kincaid. Copyright © 1990 by Jamaica Kincaid. Reprinted by ***permission of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, LLC.
****“Poor Visitor” from LUCY: A NOVEL by Jamaica Kincaid. Copyright © 1990 by Jamaica Kincaid, reprinted throughout the U.K. and British Commonwealth with permission by The Wylie Agency, LLC. All rights reserved.
Source: College Board
The best advice on how to do well on this kind of essay is to follow the same tips for the Poetry Analysis question. Here’s a rundown of how to do well on the prose analysis question:
- Read the prose and take note of the important pieces of information the author is trying to convey.
- Pay attention to drafting a defensible interpretation of the passage.
- Remember to follow the sequence of the narrative while drafting your essay. It should be concise, with a good introduction, a body, and a solid conclusion stating your analysis.
- Refrain from investing time in literary devices or jargon. Focus on one or two literary devices and explain them in-depth with examples.
- Try to use sentences from the text as quotes to support your analysis or claim. That’s extra brownie points and shows your understanding of the passage.
FRQ 3 presents students with a literary concept or idea and a list of approximately 40 literary works. Students are required to select a work of prose fiction from their reading or the provided list and analyze how the literary concept or idea described in the question contributes to an interpretation of the work as a whole. In responding to Question 3, students should select a work of fiction appropriate to the question. A general rule is to use work similar in quality to those they have read in their AP class. Here’s a sample question:
Example 3
In many works of literature, characters who have been away from a home return and find that they no longer have the same feelings about home as they once did. As novelist James Agee writes in A Death In The Family, “You can go home, it’s good to go home, but you never really get all the way home again in your life.”
Either from your own reading or from the list below, choose a work of fiction in which a character’s return home is problematic: “home” is not what it once was perceived to be. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how the character’s response to his or her “home” contributes to an interpretation of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
In your response you should do the following:
- The Age of Innocence
- Americanah
- The Bell Jar
- The Bonesetter’s Daughter
- Breath, Eyes, Memory
- Brighton Beach Memoirs
- Ceremony
- Cold Mountain
- Death of a Salesman
- Exit West
- Great Expectations
- Gulliver’s Travels
- Home
- Homegoing
- The Hummingbird’s Daughter
- Kindred
- The Kite Runner
- Lonely Londoners
- The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
- Mansfield Park
- The Mill on the Floss
- Mrs. Dalloway
- My Ántonia
- The Namesake
- Native Son
- Paradise Lost
- The Piano Lesson
- The Poisonwood Bible
- Pudd’nhead Wilson
- Pygmalion
- Quicksand
- The Return of the Native
- The Scarlet Letter
- Song of Solomon
- Sons and Other FlammableObjects
- The Sound and the Fury
- The Tempest
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Where the Dead Sit Talking
- Wuthering Heights
Source: College Board
If you’re wondering how to write a good response to a literary argument question, below are two tips to help you do well with this kind of FRQ:
- To prepare for the exam, make sure you are thoroughly familiar with at least 3-5 novels or dramas. It might be helpful to read summaries online to refresh your memory of the characters, key events, conflicts, settings, etc.
- Always assume the grader has read the novel/drama you have chosen. You do not need to summarize large quantities of details. Summarize only the important details needed to support your claim. This will keep you from wasting precious time on optional details.
How can I practice AP English Literature free-response questions?
The best way to practice for the AP English Lit FRQs is to use released questions from the College Board’s previous exams.
If you are taking the AP English Lit class, your teacher will help you learn how to write effective responses throughout the year and give you feedback on your writing. However, if you want to practice on your own, look at the released questions, sample student responses, and explanations of their scores on the College Board website. By studying what makes high-scoring essays successful, you can use the same strategies in your essays. Be sure you are familiar with the rubrics the graders use to score each essay. They will tell you how much information you should include in your responses.
Practice writing essays at a slower pace at first to learn how to express your ideas skillfully. Gradually reduce your time on each practice essay until you can write a good essay in 40 minutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many FRQs are on the AP English Literature exam?
There are three FRQs on the AP English Literature exam: Poetry Analysis, Prose Fiction Analysis, and Literary Argument. The exam will present the FRQs in this order.
How are AP English Literature FRQs graded?
High school AP Lit teachers and college professors who teach freshman-level English courses will grade your FRQs. The College Board provides rubrics that tell graders what to look for in successful essays. Essays are primarily graded on the quality of their ideas and not on grammar, punctuation, or spelling accuracy. There are specially designated readers available to help score essays with unusual handwriting. Handwriting quality will not impact your score.
How long is the FRQ section of the AP English Literature exam?
Students have two hours to complete FRQs on the AP English Lit exam, which equals 40 minutes per essay. However, students can use more or less time on each essay if they choose to do so.
Where can I get the AP English Literature past exam released FRQs?
You can find released questions from past exams on the AP Central website.
References
- (2019). AP® English Literature and Composition - Free-Response Questions. College Board.
https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/apc/ap19-frq-english-literature.pdf - (2023). AP English Literature and Composition Past Exam Questions. College Board.
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition/exam/past-exam-questions