Q and A after Practice AP Essay Exam

• What was easy/expected?
• What was difficult/unexpected?
• What did you learn about the AP questions?
• What did you learn about your own performance under pressure?
• How will this experience influence your preparation for the actual exam?

I am happy that we became well acquainted with the books enough to draw from the literature to write the essay, so it was easy to do that. The difficult part was organizing the the essay and deciding how to structure it. From the AP questions, I learned that we should not merely summarize the plot. Also, they ask multiple questions within the prompt, so you have to find a way to organize them. I worked well under pressure and was able to outline my entire essay and write an introduction. This experience has taught me that I need to work on essay structure, considering the prompts were organized in a very similar fashion. If you can be the boss of one AP English Lit prompt, then you can be the boss of all of them.

A Tale of Two Cities Notes

• Luicie was very similar to his wife, the blond actress (ellen turner)
• ATTC was very similar to his play, The Frozen Deep
• 1857- Frozen Deep was published
• 1858- began Public Readings for profit, which established a new relationship with his readers
• divorced, separated from publishers, and established a new journal having majority of ownership
• London, England and Paris, France. Major 2 cities. “extensive and peculiar way of the city” or described as “magic lantern”
• London- everything is there, but everything is disconnected
• Prison city, dust heeps. He described London. And he liked France when he visited.
• Bastille, theres a white bridge that has white brick that used to build a prison “Blood of a forgotten prisoners”
• “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.. We had everything before us, and we had nothing before us.’ Year 1775-1794. Written 1859.
• Victorians haunted by the French Revolution. Doesn’t like revolutions nor mob rule.
• The novel was made as a warning to Victorian Rule, warning about mob rule and revolutions. It showed that the pre-revolution France, was very similar to the contemporary England and times. Possible books meaning?
• Historical narrative- says that it is the best story he had ever written
• Storming of the Bastille- echoing footsteps
• “headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps.” Bloody, and fighting.
• Men and woman alike stormed the Bastille
• Boom, smash, and rattle
• De Farge at the door of his wine shop
• Then he got swept out and into the tower
• Saved the prisoners. Some dead, and some found alive
• “prisoners long dead of a broken heart”
• riveting public theme, and inevitability of history
• secret of individuality
• Jarvis Darvey dreams of the “recall to life” of Mr.Manette, the recalled prisoner
• “far far better thing, and a far far rest than I have ever had”

First 100 pages notes

• France starting a revolution. For example: Cask of wine breaks and everyone scrambles to drink the wine drops because they are so poor and thirsty
• diction, apostrophe (Lorry was speaking to the ghost, an abstract concept and being)
• antithesis- "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" (page 13)
• Setting- uses England and France to address the theme. Also, the time period (Pre French Revolution)
• theme- rebirth. Revolutions change a country. (example: "Recalled to Life")
• symbolism
• syntax- death and fate creating a metaphor
• anaphora- repeating first phrase in the beginning of the book.
• tone-creepy, gloomy, and dark (example: talking about death and destruction)
• genre- historical fiction
• dialect- "aint" and "holla" and "do ya"
• metaphor- wine cask

A Tale of Two Cities Study Question (First 100 pages)

1. What does the first paragraph represent? (ex: It was the best of times and it was the worst of times..)
A: It represents confusion, contrast, and contradiction.

2. What to countries are mentioned in the beginning?
A: England and France

3.Who is the horseman looking for?
A: Jarvis Lorry of Tellson's Bank

4. What message does Jarvis send to the horseman?
A: He tells him to respond to the message saying "Recalled to Life"

5. What thought keeps returning to Lorry's mind?
A: that he has to dig someone out of a grave.. very mysterious if you ask me.

6. Who is Lorry talking to?
A: Lorry is talking to an imaginary ghost asking if he should "recall to life"

7. What does the ghost respond?
A: The ghost sometimes says that he does not want to see the woman, but then at other times he cries for the woman's companionship.

8. Why is chapter 3 called "The Night Shadows"?
A: The title refers to the ghost and intimate time that Lorry spends with him.

9. Who does Lorry meet at the hotel?
A: He meets Lucie, a pretty girl who has just been notified of the death of her father, and now has to deal with his estate (a small property).

10.So far from reading, what do you think is the authors tone?
A: His tone is gloomy and dark. Death is present, and this is obvious because it is mentioned many times in the story. For example with the ghost, midnight rider, cryptic messages, and the death of Lucie's father.