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Answer Sheet for AP® English Literature and

Composition Practice Exam #3

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Section I: Multiple-Choice Questions

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AP® English Literature and Composition Exam
SECTION I: Multiple Choice

DO NOT OPEN THIS BOOKLET UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO.

At a Glance Instructions
Section I of this exam contains 55 multiple-choice questions. Fill in only the circles for
Total Time
numbers 1 through 55 on your answer sheet.
1 hour
Number of Questions Indicate all of your answers to the multiple-choice questions on the answer sheet. No
55 credit will be given for anything written in this exam booklet, but you may use the booklet
Percent of Total Score for notes or scratch work. After you have decided which of the suggested answers is best,
45% completely fill in the corresponding circle on the answer sheet. Give only one answer
Writing Instrument to each question. If you change an answer, be sure that the previous mark is erased
Pencil required completely. Here is a sample question and answer.
Dictionaries
None allowed Sample Question Sample Answer

Chicago is a A C D

(A) state

(B) city

(C) country

(D) continent

Use your time effectively, working as quickly as you can without losing accuracy. Do not
spend too much time on any one question. Go on to other questions and come back to the
ones you have not answered if you have time. It is not expected that everyone will know the
answers to all of the multiple-choice questions.

Your total score on the multiple-choice section is based only on the number of questions
answered correctly. Points are not deducted for incorrect answers or unanswered
questions.

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10
The inclusion of source material in this exam is not
intended as an endorsement by the College Board or ETS
of the content, ideas, or values expressed in the material.
The literary works and excerpts that appear in the AP
English Literature and Composition Exam represent a
range of different authors and literary styles and themes,
as appropriate for measuring the critical reading and
analytic writing skills that are the focus of this course.
AP students are not expected or asked to subscribe to
any specific cultural or political values but are expected
to analyze perspectives different from their own and to
question the meaning, purpose, or effect of such content
within literary works.
 AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION

SECTION I
Time — 1 hour

Directions: This section consists of selections from literary works and questions on their content, form, and style. After
reading each passage or poem, choose the best answer to each question and then fill in the corresponding circle on the
answer sheet.

Note: Pay particular attention to the requirements of questions that contain the words NOT, LEAST, or EXCEPT.

Questions 1 through 10 refer to the following. Read the

following carefully before you choose your answers.
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 76 was published in 1609.

Why is my verse so barren of new pride?

So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
Line To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
5 Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
O know, sweet love, I always write of you,
10 And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love, still telling what is told.

1. In context, the question in line 5 (“Why write . . .

ever the same”) conveys the speaker’s
(A) apparent self-reproach for using poetic
diction he has used before
(B) ambition to earn fame by being in the
vanguard of poetic movements
(C) yearning for a wider range of themes in order
to develop his poetic skill
(D) disgust with his inability to write in a more
polished, conventional poetic form

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12 AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

5. Line 10 (“And you . . . argument”) identifies 8. The poem’s final two lines do which of the
which of the following about the speaker? following?
(A) The abiding theme of his personal and (A) Reinforce the mood established in the
literary focus opening lines
(B) The jealousy he feels as a result of his (B) Undercut the argument of the poem by
devotion to his beloved pointing out a logical inconsistency
(C) His determination to convince others of his (C) Present a simile that resolves a contradiction
sentiments described in the preceding lines
(D) His tendency to question the depth and (D) Interrupt a regular metric pattern to indicate a
sincerity of his own feelings change in subject matter

6. The image presented in line 11 (“So all . . . new”) 9. The overall tone of the poem is best described as
most significantly implies the speaker’s (A) angry and combative
(A) skill in presenting the same thoughts in (B) purposeful and heartfelt
numerous poems
(C) apprehensive and ambivalent
(B) conviction that poetry is defined more by
(D) subdued and melancholic
technique than substance
(C) sense of being stifled by idioms that appear 10. Which of the following best characterizes the
redundant development of the poem as a whole?
(D) celebration of the most traditional (A) The speaker acknowledges a weakness in his
poetic forms writing, only to turn this weakness into a
means of affirming his devotion to his
7. In line 12, the speaker compares the expression of beloved.
romantic love to
(B) The speaker laments a flaw in his character,
(A) financial transactions then seeks to gain his beloved’s sympathy
(B) legal negotiations by emphasizing his wretchedness.
(C) an athletic competition (C) The speaker asserts his indifference to
(D) a spiritual awakening literary fashions, then argues that his
independence of mind makes him a more
faithful lover.
(D) The speaker expresses doubts about his
poetic talents, then reassures himself by
recalling the steadfast devotion of his
beloved.

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AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3 13

 AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

Questions 11 through 21 refer to the following. Chanu began to hum. He danced with his head,
Read the following carefully before you choose 50 which wobbled from side to side, and drummed out
your answers. a rhythm on his thigh. The humming appeared to
come from low down in his chest and melded with
This passage is excerpted from Monica Ali’s novel Brick the general tune of the bus, vibrating on the bass
Lane, published in 2003. notes.
55 Nazneen decided she would make this day
Thirty or so years after he arrived in London, unlike any other. She would not allow this day
Chanu decided that it was time to see the sights. “All to disappoint him.
I saw was the Houses of Parliament. And that was in The conductor came to collect fares. He had
Line 1979.” It was a project. Much equipment was needed. a slack-jawed expression: nothing could interest him.
5 Preparations were made. Chanu bought a pair of 60 “Two at one pound, and two children please,” said
shorts which hung just below his knees. He tried them Chanu. He received his tickets. “Sightseeing,” he
on and filled the numerous pockets with a compass, announced, and flourished his guidebook. “Family
guidebook, binoculars, bottled water, maps, and two holiday.”
types of disposable camera. Thus loaded, the shorts “Right,” said the conductor. He jingled his bag,
10 hung at mid-calf. He bought a baseball cap and wore 65 looking for change. He was squashed by his job.
it around the flat with the visor variously angled up The ceiling forced him to stoop.
and down and turned around to the back of his head. “Can you tell me something? To your mind,
A money belt secured the shorts around his waist and does the British Museum rate more highly than the
prevented them from reaching his ankles. He made National Gallery? Or would you recommend gallery
15 a list of tourist attractions and devised a star rating 70 over museum?”
system that encompassed historical significance, The conductor pushed his lower lip out with his
something he termed “entertainment factor,” and tongue. He stared hard at Chanu, as if considering
value for money. The girls would enjoy themselves. whether to eject him from the bus.
They were forewarned of this requirement. “In my rating system,” explained Chanu, “they are
20 On a hot Saturday morning towards the end of July 75 neck and neck. It would be good to take an opinion
the planning came to fruition. “I’ve spent more than from a local.”
half my life here,” said Chanu, “but I hardly left these “Where’ve you come from, mate?”
few streets.” He stared out of the bus window at the “Oh, just two blocks behind,” said Chanu. “But
grimy colors of Bethnal Green Road. “All this time this is the first holiday for twenty or thirty years.”
25 I have been struggling and struggling, and I barely 80 The conductor swayed. It was still early but the
had time to lift my head and look around.” bus was hot and Nazneen could smell his sweat.
They sat at the front of the bus, on the top deck. He looked at Chanu’s guidebook. He twisted around
Chanu shared a seat with Nazneen and Shahana, and and looked at the girls. At a half-glance he knew
Bibi sat across the aisle. Nazneen crossed her ankles everything about Nazneen, and then he shook his head
30 and tucked her feet beneath the seat to make way for 85 and walked away.
the two plastic carrier bags that contained their picnic.
“You’ll stink the bus out,” Shahana had said. “I’m not Reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon &
sitting with you.” But she had not moved away. Schuster, Inc., from BRICK LANE by Monica Ali. Copyright ©2003 by
Monica Ali. All rights reserved.
“It’s like this,” said Chanu. “When you have all the
35 time in the world to see something, you don’t bother
to see it. Now that we are going home, I have become
a tourist.” He pulled his sunglasses from his forehead
onto his nose. They were part of the new equipment.
Nazneen looked down at his sandals, which were
40 also new. She regarded the thick yellow nails of his
big toes. The spongy head of a corn poked from
beneath the strap. She had neglected them, these feet.
She brushed an imaginary hair from her husband’s
shoulder.
45 He turned to the girls. “How do you like your
holiday so far?” Bibi said that she liked it very well,
and Shahana squinted and shuffled and leaned her
head against the window.
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14 AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

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AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3 15

 AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

Questions 22 through 33 refer to the following. Come, old woman,

Read the following carefully before you choose your we will be sisters!
answers. We will price the menus in the small cafés, count francs,
40 observe the tower where Marie Antoinette awaited her
Anne Sexton’s poem “Walking in Paris” was published in beheading, kneel by the rose window of Notre Dame,
1996. and let cloudy weather bear us home early
to huddle by the weak stove in Madame’s kitchen.
Walking in Paris We will set out tomorrow in stout shoes
45 to buy a fur muff for our blue fingers.
I come back to your youth, my Nana, I take your arms boldly,
as if I might clean off each day a new excursion.
the mad woman you became, Come, my sister,
Line withered and constipated, we are two virgins,
5 howling into your own earphone. 50 our lives once more perfected
I come, in middle age, and unused.
to find you at twenty in high hair and long Victorian skirts
trudging shanks’ mare1 fifteen miles a day in Paris 1
on one’s own legs
because you could not afford a carriage.
“Walking in Paris” from Live Or Die by Anne Sexton. Copyright © 1966 by
10 I have walked sixteen miles today. Anne Sexton, renewed 1994 by Linda G. Sexton. Reprinted by permission
I have kept up. of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

I read your Paris letters of 1890.

Each night I take them to my thin bed
and learn them as an actress learns her lines.
15 “Dear homefolks” you wrote,
not knowing I would be your last home,
not knowing that I’d peel your life back to its start.
What is so real as walking your streets!
I too have the sore toe you tend with cotton.
20 In Paris 1890 was yesterday
and 1940 never happened—
the soiled uniform of the Nazi
has been unravelled and reknit and resold.
To be occupied or conquered is nothing—
25 to remain is all!

Having come this far

I will go farther.
You are my history (that stealer of children)
and I have entered you.
30 I have deserted my husband and my children,
the Negro issue, the late news and the hot baths.
My room in Paris, no more than a cell,
is crammed with 58 lbs. of books.
They are all that is American and forgotten.
35 I read your letters instead,
putting your words into my life.

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16 AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

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AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3 17

 AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

Questions 34 through 44 refer to the following. I confess, I was somewhat troubled at this change:
Read the following carefully before you choose 50 I feared the consequences of her displeasure, and even
your answers. made some efforts to recover the ground I had lost—
and with better apparent success than I could have
This passage is excerpted from Anne Brontë’s novel anticipated. At one time, I, merely in common
Agnes Grey, published in 1847. civility, asked after her cough— immediately her long
55 visage relaxed into a smile, and she favoured me with
The senior Mrs. Bloomfield had been very attentive a particular history of that and her other infirmities,
and civil to me; and, till now, I had thought her a nice, followed by an account of her pious resignation,
kind-hearted, chatty old body. She would often come delivered in the usual emphatic, declamatory style,
Line to me and talk in a confidential strain, nodding, and which no writing can portray.
5 shaking her head, and gesticulating with hands and 60 ‘But there’s one remedy for all, my dear, and that’s
eyes, as a certain class of old ladies are wont to do, resignation’ (a toss of the head) ‘resignation to the
though I never knew one that carried the peculiarity to will of Heaven!’ (an uplifting of the hands and eyes).
so great an extent: she would even sympathise with ‘It has always supported me through all my trials, and
me for the trouble I had with the children, and express always will do’ (a succession of nods). ‘But then, it
10 at times, by half sentences, interspersed with nods and 65 isn’t everybody that can say that’ (a shake of the
knowing winks, her sense of the injudicious conduct head) ‘but I’m one of the pious ones, Miss Grey!’
of their mamma in so restricting my power, and (a very significant nod and toss). ‘And, thank Heaven,
neglecting to support me with her authority. Such I always was’ (another nod) ‘and I glory in it!’
a mode of testifying disapprobation was not much (an emphatic clasping of the hands and shaking of the
15 to my taste; and I generally refused to take it in, or 70 head), and with several texts of Scripture, misquoted,
understand anything more than was openly spoken; or misapplied, and religious exclamations so redolent
at least, I never went farther than an implied of the ludicrous in the style of delivery and manner of
acknowledgement that, if matters were otherwise bringing in, if not in the expressions themselves, that
ordered, my task would be a less difficult one, and I decline repeating them, she withdrew, tossing her
20 I should be better able to guide and instruct my 75 large head in high good humour— with herself at
charge; but now I must be doubly cautious. Hitherto, least— and left me hoping that, after all, she was
though I saw the old lady had her defects (of which rather weak than wicked.
one was a proneness to proclaim her perfections),
I had always been wishful to excuse them, and to give
25 her credit for all the virtues she professed, and even
imagine others yet untold. Kindness, which had been
the food of my life through so many years, had lately
been so entirely denied me, that I welcomed with
grateful joy the slightest semblance of it. No wonder
30 then that my heart warmed to the old lady, and
always gladdened at her approach, and regretted her
departure.
But now, the few words, luckily, or unluckily,
heard in passing had wholly revolutionized my ideas
35 respecting her; now I looked upon her as hypocritical
and insincere, a flatterer, and a spy upon my words
and deeds. Doubtless it would have been my interest
still to meet her with the same cheerful smile and tone
of respectful cordiality as before; but I could not, if
40 I would; my manner altered with my feelings, and
became so cold and shy that she could not fail to
notice it. She soon did notice it, and her manner
altered too: the familiar nod was changed to a stiff
bow, the gracious smile gave place to a glare of
45 Gorgon ferocity, her vivacious loquacity was entirely
transferred from me to ‘the darling boy and girls’
whom she flattered and indulged more absurdly than
ever their mother had done.
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18 AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

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AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3 19

 AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

Questions 45 through 55 refer to the following. So all desire and all regret,
Read the following carefully before you choose And fear and memory, were naught;
your answers. One to remember or forget
The keen delight our hands had caught;
Bliss Carman’s poem “Low Tide on Grand-Pré” was 45 Morrow and yesterday were naught!
published in 1887.
The night has fallen, and the tide . . .
Now and again comes drifting home,
Low Tide on Grand-Pré
Across these aching barrens wide,
A sigh like driven wind or foam:
The sun goes down, and over all
50 In grief the flood is bursting home!
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall, 1
Acadie, Canada, is a coastal region with exceptionally low (ebb) and
Line I almost dream they yet will bide high (flood) tides.
5 Until the coming of the tide. 2
a canoe made of birch bark

And yet I know that not for us,

By any ecstasy of dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the grievous stream,
10 Which frets, uncomforted of dream,—

A grievous stream, that to and fro

Athrough the fields of Acadie1
Goes wandering, as if to know
Why one beloved face should be
15 So long from home and Acadie!

Was it a year or lives ago

We took the grasses in our hands,
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow lands,
20 And held it there between our hands?

The while the river at our feet—

A drowsy inland meadow stream—
At set of sun the after-heat
Made running gold, and in the gleam
25 We freed our birch2 upon the stream.

There down along the elms at dusk

We lifted dripping blade to drift,
Through twilight scented fine like musk,
Where night and gloom awhile uplift,
30 Nor sunder soul and soul adrift.

And that we took into our hands—

Spirit of life or subtler thing—
Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands
Of death, and taught us, whispering,
35 The secret of some wonder-thing.

Then all your face grew light, and seemed

To hold the shadow of the sun;
The evening faltered, and I deemed
That time was ripe, and years had done
40 Their wheeling underneath the sun.

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20 AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

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AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3 21

 AP ® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3

STOP
END OF SECTION I
IF YOU FINISH BEFORE TIME IS CALLED, YOU MAY
CHECK YOUR WORK ON THIS SECTION.
DO NOT GO ON TO SECTION II UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO.

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22 AP® English Literature and Composition Practice Exam #3