Score Higher on AP Literature 2024: Tips for FRQ 3 (Literary Argument)

FRQ 3 – Literary Argument

This guide organizes advice from past students who got 4s and 5s on their exams. We hope it gives you some new ideas and tools for your study sessions. But remember, everyone's different—what works for one student might not work for you. If you've got a study method that's doing the trick, stick with it. Think of this as extra help, not a must-do overhaul.

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📌 Overview

• Students are asked to write an essay that explains how a literary concept relates or contributes to a literary work. The work discussed is chosen by the student.
• 18.3% of Exam Score
• Spend about 40 min
• Scored on a 6 point rubric
  • Presents thesis (1)
  • Provides evidence and commentary (4)
  • Demonstrates sophistication (1)

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💭 General Advice

Tips on mindset, strategy, structure, time management, and any other high level things to know

• Don’t stop writing! Remind yourself about the time you have left and avoid wasting any. Even though you want to deliver a well-written essay with strong use of evidence and diction, you need to be aware of the time you have. Let the ideas flow without interruptions and once you have a completed essay (if time allows), then you can go back and revise it to make sure you have all the elements needed.
• Once you have a book in mind, stick with it! You might be tempted to start writing and then part way through think of a different book and question your original choice, but you need to trust your instincts on this one or it will cost you some valuable time.
• The AP Exam will give you a list of suggested books to choose from. Do not look at them! Cover up the list and first read the prompt, underlining the main question that you need to answer. Then, before looking at the list, think of books you already know that you can use for this topic. Afterwards, if you are still stuck, then you can look at the list. Looking at the list from the beginning tends to deter students from choosing a book they would much rather write about. Also, your book does not have to be on the list to be used!
• Come with a plan of how to approach this essay! You’ll want to be able to just go at it, especially after the other essays.
• Write in your voice. Don’t try to write super fancy or formal if that’s not how it naturally comes to you. Do what you are confident in, you’ve got this!
• It’s going to be super helpful if you come into the exam with 2-3 books that you know and love! The more you care about what you’re writing about, the more you’ll enjoy writing the essay and be able to recall important details about the plot, character motivations, and other details!

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🕑 Before You Write

What should a student do in the first few minutes, before they start writing?

• Always outline before you start writing. Whether you like long detailed outlines or quick flowcharts work better for you, giving a skeleton to your response before anything else will make the rest of the process much more efficient.
  • It can help to brain dump everything you remember about your book that relates to the prompt to give yourself plenty of material to work with. From there, you can draw connections between related ideas and refine your interpretation.
• Make sure you understand the prompt in its entirety! So many people get tripped up because they misinterpret the prompt.
• Go in and think about which book you know will be the most effective in helping you fully dissect the topic! This means not only supporting your own argument, but being able to take a step back and see other arguments. Think about what counterarguments you can highlight in your essay to show your depth of understanding!

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📚 Choosing a Book

• This may seem obvious, but choose a book that you feel confident in recalling! This will help you avoid misremembering themes, characters, etc. that could degrade the validity and strength of your analysis if incorrectly described. Review summaries and old class notes for the books you read for AP Lit to help jog your memory in preparation for the exam.
• A really helpful way to see if you actually know a book or not is to make a study guide for that book! List out the characters, settings, themes, symbols, and important aspects of the plot. Then, note three specific events in the book that are memorable or hold literary importance. You should make about four of these study guides, and each book you choose should have a different genre from the rest (ex: American Literature, Victorian Era, Play, Modern Works) so you have a wide variety to choose from come test day.
• Don’t second guess your choice. If there’s a book that stands out to you from the moment you read the prompt, just roll with it.
• This may sound obvious, but use a book you read in your AP Lit class! If you read it for class, you are likely already very familiar with and have done some in depth analysis, which will make it much easier to pull out ideas and evidence!

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💯 Tips for Earning Each Point

Thesis and Claim

• Make sure your thesis is easy to tell apart from the rest of your writing. Your proctors are humans, and putting your thesis at the end of a paragraph so it's easy to see does help.
• Make sure to include a line of reasoning in the thesis that will guide your body paragraphs. Keep this line of reasoning broad—you can almost never go wrong by creating categories chronologically through your book. Don’t use specific devices/scenes/ideas as categories in the thesis. It runs the risk of limiting you too much. Save that as specific evidence in the body paragraphs!
• Keep it short! A good, concise thesis statement can earn you the point if done correctly. While you are always able to expand on it, it’s best to start with a thesis that is defendable, chronological and relevant to the topic in about 2-3 sentences. Go straight to the point if you need to, remember that the examiner will not take into account word count so you can deliver a thesis (preferably at the beginning of your essay) that is only a couple sentences.
• Imagine you only have only one sentence, maybe two, to explain your entire argument. What do you feel is important to highlight? What is most important for the reader to follow your claims?
• Before you begin writing, always think about the order of your paragraphs and that should be shown in your thesis. If you’re going to talk about the impact of [topic], the effect of [topic] on [group], and the [important aspect] that [topic] made apparent in [time period], then all three should be listed in the best order for chronology and establishing a line of reasoning.

Evidence and Commentary

• Be specific! You should not comment on the entirety of the book, but only 2-3 significant symbols or events. Make sure to describe these events or symbols with detail to show that you know the book!
• Your commentary should not simply summarize the evidence you’ve picked out. It needs to connect and support your thesis. Explain why this supports your thesis. If you can’t answer that in your head about your commentary, you’d need to add that!
• Do not assume themes/ideas are obvious. Make sure you walk your reading through your thinking so they understand your interpretation. No interpretation is wrong, but it must be defended!
• Evidence is not supposed to talk for you, you are talking for it and using it as a reference. It is a way to prove what you are saying to further your explanation and justification. Also make sure to cite your sources by page number or line number if necessary! Think of evidence like a bridge between your claims and your justifications.

Complexity and Sophistication

• Don’t worry too much about getting this point. You can earn a 5 without getting it, and the criteria for earning it are quite vague. However, that being said, thinking in a complex manner shouldn’t be ignored! It makes your commentary more detailed and interesting. Always be thinking about the layers to the prompt, different angles to what you’re discussing in your commentary, etc. It makes for a better essay overall, even if it doesn’t reward you with the point.
• With skill, this point will come. Do not cater your writing to this, but work on honing your skills for evidence and commentary, and sophistication will some naturally.
• This is not an easy point to get, and, as you’re writing, you should not simply be writing to get this point. Instead, when you are planning out your essay, consider what can help make your essay multidimensional. Why are you focusing on the argument you chose, and what might other people consider?
• Something people try to do to achieve this point is to write with needless complexity and completely out of their natural element—don’t do that! The point is not scored on how fancy your writing sounds, rather a complex, thorough understanding the text. Focus on your analysis and addressing multiple perspectives while writing in your own voice, and this point will come.