All About AP English Courses
For readers and writers alike, the AP English courses might seem tempting—and for good reason.
All About AP English Courses
Exploring AP English Courses for Readers and Writers
For readers and writers alike, the AP English courses might seem tempting—and for good reason. These courses allow students to develop skills that they’ve likely never needed to think about earlier in their academic careers. Unfortunately, however, there aren’t very many AP English courses offered by College Board.
What English courses are there?
Currently, there are only two AP English courses offered by College Board. These two courses are AP Language & Composition and AP Literature & Composition. Both courses place an emphasis on both reading and writing. While AP Language & Composition focuses on the author’s purpose and strategic choices while both analyzing and writing, AP Literature & Composition focuses more on analyzing the text and its meaning. Both courses are generally well-liked by students… though their AP exams may not be as fun.
What is the structure of the AP exam for English courses?
For both courses, the AP exam is extremely similar. There is first a multiple-choice section, where students must read passages and answer questions based on them. Then, there is a free-response section that asks students to write 3 essays within 120 minutes (excluding the reading period). The exam is certainly rigorous but is manageable for students that can think quickly and manage their time wisely.
Pros and Cons of AP English courses
If you’re deciding whether or not to take AP English courses, it’s always important to consider the pros and cons. Difficulty-wise, English courses aren’t designed to be very rigorous or challenging. The multiple-choice questions usually aren’t very content-heavy: students simply need to know a few vocabulary words. However, English courses are combined with a history class in most high schools, and the workload for this block class can be heavy. Teachers often assign projects, notes, readings, or videos to watch. While the workload does vary across high schools, and usually isn’t academically challenging, it tends to be fairly heavy. This might be important to consider when choosing your AP classes for the next year, based on how much time you have in your schedule.
If, upon choosing an AP English course, you find that you need help studying for your exam or understanding the course content, check out Professor AI. The platform focuses on enhancing education through a custom GPT for AP courses. Key features include course-specific chats, intuitive questioning, integrating multiple documents, following rubrics for assessments grading/feedback, linking to online resources, adherence to curriculum, versatile explanations, test preparation assistance, relatable examples, alignment with exam standards, and more.