The AP Test

What is the AP Literature test?

The AP English Literature and Composition exam is designed to test your ability to think critically and analyze literary excerpts. 

The test is three hours long consisting of: 

Section I

Multiple Choice—55 Questions | 1 Hour | ~45% of Exam Score

• Includes 4-5 excerpts of drama, prose (fiction), and poetry 

• Each excerpt is accompanied by several multiple-choice questions; there are eight question types: 

  • Reading Comprehension: test your ability to understand what the passage is saying on a pretty basic level. 

  • Inference: ask you to infer something—a character or narrator’s opinion, an author’s intention, and so forth—based on what is said in the passage

  • Identifying and Interpreting Figurative Language: identify what word or phrase is figurative language or provide the meaning of a figurative phrase. 

  • Literary Technique: identifying why an author does what they do: from using a particular phrase to repeating certain words. 

  • Character Analysis: describe something about a character. 

  • Overall Passage Questions: identify or describe something about the passage/poem as a whole: its purpose, tone, genre, etc. 

  • Structure: specific structural elements of the passage—a shift in tone, a digression, the specific form of a poem, etc. 

  • Grammar/Nuts & Bolts: a specific grammar or technical question, such as what word an adjective is modifying 

Section II

Free Response—3 Free-Response Questions | 2 Hours | ~55% of Exam Score

• Students write essays that respond to three free-response prompts from the following categories: 

  • FRQ1: Poetry Analysis: A literary analysis of a given poem

  • FRQ2: Prose Analysis: A literary analysis of a given passage of prose fiction (this may include drama)

  • FRQ3: Literary Argument: An analysis that examines a specific concept, issue, or element in a work of literary merit selected by the student

• The two-hour time limits suggests an average of 40 minutes per essay.