AP Lang and Comp multiple choice

Let's answer questions 1-5

AP Lang and Comp (multiple choice)

1. Which of the following best describes the rhetorical function of the second sentence in the passage?

(A) It makes an appeal to authority.

(B) It restates the thesis of the passage.

(C) It expresses the causal relationship between morality and writing style.

(D) It provides a specific example for the preceding generalization.

(E) It presents a misconception that the author will correct.

2. Which of the following phrases does the author use to illustrate the notion of an unnatural and pretentious writing style?

(A) “unconnected, slipshod allusions’’ (line 7)

(B) “throw words together’’(lines8–9)

(C) “gabble on at a venture’’(line22)

(D) “get upon stilts’’(lines30–31)

(E) “pitch upon the very word’’ (line 34)

3. In lines 10–32 of the passage, the author uses an extended analogy between

(A) language and morality

(B) preaching and acting

(C) writing and speaking

(D) vulgar English and incorrect pronunciation

(E) ordinary life and the theater

4. In line 17, “common speech’’ refers to

(A) metaphorical language

(B) current slang

(C) unaffected expression

(D) regional dialect

(E) impolite speech

5. Which of the following words is grammatically and thematically parallel to “tone’’ (line 21)?

(A) “solemnity’’ (line 21)

(B) “pulpit’’(line21)

(C) “stage-declamation’’(line21)

(D) “liberty’’ (line 22)

(E) “venture’’ (line 22)

Terminology covered in Q #1-10

Rhetorical function: the method used to persuade the audience to agree with the speaker's point of view.

Writing style: the ways that the author uses

words — the author's diction, sentence structure, figurative language, and sentence

arrangement all work together

to establish mood, images, and meaning in the text.

extended analogy: One idea, process, or thing is explained by comparing it to something else.

Extended analogies are commonly used to make a complex process or idea easier to understand.

Example - Dr. King's Analogy of the Bad Check

"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the 'unalienable Rights' of 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'

parallel: Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. Also known as parallel structure or parallel construction, is a balance within one or more sentences of similar phrases or clauses that have the same grammatical structure.

Our objectives

Let's forge through one together

Aside from the three essays, you will have 55 multiple choice questions based on nonfiction.

Let's focus on what these questions MAY cover:

• grammar;
• punctuation;
• MLA citation rules;
• rhetorical terms;
• sentence structure; and

Questions 1–10. Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers. This passage is taken from a nineteenth-century essay.

It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of ex- pression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not

only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word

that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combination we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as any one

would speak in common conversation, who had a thorough com- mand and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flour-

ishes. Or to give another illustration, to write naturally is the

same thing in regard to common conversation, as to read natu- rally is in regard to common speech. It does not follow that it is

an easy thing to give the true accent and inflection to the words you utter, because you do not attempt to rise above the level of ordinary life and colloquial speaking. You do not assume indeed the solemnity of the pulpit, or the tone of stage-declamation: neither are you at liberty to gabble on at a venture, without emphasis or discretion, or to resort to vulgar dialect or clownish pronunciation. You must steer a middle course. You are tied down to a given and appropriate articulation, which is determined by

the habitual associations between sense and sound, and which

you can only hit by entering into the author’s meaning, as you

must find the proper words and style to express yourself by fixing your thoughts on the subject you have to write about. Any one

may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts: but to write or speak with propriety

and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want

to express: it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that

exactly fits it.