Preparing for AP Eng Lang Argument Writing

Our next big task is to work on creating our own effective argument/persuasive essays.
To help with this we're going to take a close look at some of the materials on the College Board's AP Central website. There's a lot there so we're going to focus on the 2012 and 2011 Q3 (argument) essays.

Read and thoroughly annotate the information below. Your notes should be guided by the following questions which will frame our discussion in class tomorrow (Wednesday, February 13): "What are some key characteristics of argument prompts?" and "What are some characteristics of effective (and ineffective) argument essays?"

2012 Q3 (ARGUMENT: CERTAINTY & DOUBT) PROMPT

Consider the distinct perspectives expressed in the following statements.

If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get
yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain
are impossible.
William Lyon Phelps, American educator, journalist, and professor (1865-1943)

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't
wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
Bertrand Russell, British author, mathematician, and philosopher (1872-1970)

In a well-organized essay, take a position on the relationship between certainty and doubt. Support your argument
with appropriate evidence and examples.

2012 Q3 (ARGUMENT: CERTAINTY & DOUBT) STUDENT PERFORMANCE QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Question 3

What was the intent of this question?
This question asked students to make an argument about the relationship between certainty and doubt.
The prompt introduced the topic by presenting short quotations from the works of two 20th-century
philosophers. One excerpt celebrates certainty, and the other champions doubt. The question that follows
these short quotations does not specifically refer back to either or both of the quotations, thus giving the
student permission to launch into any number of legitimate discussions of the relationship between
certainty and doubt.
The first passage, from William Lyon Phelps, presents "certainty" in terms of inner motivation, confidence,
and determination informed by "powerful beliefs." The passage from Bertrand Russell, however, situates
doubt in the context of opinions and belief systems that reside primarily within the culture, of which the
individual is only a part. The open-endedness of the prompt and the dilemma presented by the somewhat
mismatched quotations were, however, felicitous for many students. They could legitimately and
successfully respond to the prompt from a multiplicity of angles, finding various points of entry into an
argument about the relationship between certainty and doubt. They could, for instance, define certainty
and doubt as virtues or vices, as attitudes, or as intellectual practices. They could observe certainty or
doubt, or both, in their own lives or in the world around them, as well as in texts they had seen, heard, or
read. They could consider how certainty or doubt operated in the lives of historical figures or present-day
celebrities.

How well did students perform on this question?
The mean score was 4.43 out of a possible 9 points.
This was the lowest scoring of the three questions, an indication that students were challenged by the
open-ended prompt's demands on their powers of invention. A few students attempted to make this
question fit the form of previous years' questions - for instance, by beginning with an assertion of
agreement, disagreement, or qualification of one of the quoted statements. Many students, however,
appeared to be thinking through the question of how certainty or doubt might be related to one another as
they wrote, so even though this question generally scored lower than the other two, we were heartened by
most students' understanding of the prompt and their ability to begin building responses to the question it
asked them to consider. In short, Readers found that most students comprehended the prompt and
attempted the task it asked of them.
Successful essays focused clearly on the relationship between certainty and doubt. They might have
argued for the virtues of one over the other, but they generally explored the two concepts, either as
constituting an irreconcilable polarity or as being organically interrelated. The best essays impressed
Readers with the range of historical and cultural knowledge marshaled to support a nuanced, logical
argument. Picasso's ego, Van Gogh's doubt, St. Thomas Aquinas' "naïve" assumption about the existence
of God, Descartes' reduction of that assumption to certainty about his own existence but inability to be
certain about anything else, Jeremy Bentham's "hedonistic calculus," the trophy kid generation, and the
ill-fated hubristic venture of Into the Wild all came to the support of well-developed arguments, as did some
touching personal narratives about overcoming cancer and the placebo effect for patients of Parkinson's
disease.

What were common student errors or omissions?
Midrange essays sometimes offered the same kinds of evidence and examples that appeared in support of
the central arguments of high-scoring essays, but they tended to use that evidence in a more plodding,
less fully developed way. The arguments of these essays were adequately structured, often following the
five-paragraph paradigm of introduction, three appropriate examples, and a conclusion. Although the
examples used might be appropriate and supportive of the writer's argument, the arguments themselves
were often simplistic, and the multiple examples tended merely to reinforce the same point (e.g., "The
superiority of certainty over doubt can be seen in baseball, The Great Gatsby, and my own life") rather
than guide the development of a thoughtful argument from the opening question to a well-considered
response. The arguments of these essays tended to be less developed and less precise than the arguments
in more effective essays, often drawing broad-stroke examples from obvious spheres of personal, historical,
and cultural experience.
Lower-scoring essays revealed a range of deficiencies, from faulty logic and simplistic arguments, to
inadequate control of language, to inadequately developed or inappropriately applied evidence. The least
successful fell into mere assertion of a position with little or no supporting evidence, usually, but not
exclusively, taking a position embodying a "little engine that could" faith in the power of self-confidence to
produce success in such areas as sports, the classroom, marriage, business, and spiritual salvation.
The argument prompt, with its focus on abstract concepts and relationships, made literary examples
somewhat more useful this year than they were in response to last year's question about the applicability
in the 21st century of Thomas Paine's description of America. Literary examples used this year were most
successful when students performed a close analysis of the literary text, explaining clearly how the text
introduced a relevant perspective on the relationship of certainty and doubt or provided a testimonial to
the value of one or the other. Less successful efforts to use literary texts tended to offer interpretations of
novels or short stories or dramas as works that simply expressed a position about certainty and doubt that
the student endorsed (The Scarlet Letter proves that the certainty of Hester's knowledge about Dimsdale's
paternity is a more powerful force than her community's doubts about her character).

Based on your experience of student responses at the AP Reading, what message would you
like to send to teachers that might help them to improve the performance of their students on
the exam?
1. Encourage students to explore and discuss the world beyond their comfort zones of peer, family,
community, and mass culture. Students need opportunities to discover and develop their own critical
positions through reading, listening to, and carefully considering the positions of others, and then
discussing these positions and their own in conversations with their peers, instructors, and fellow
citizens of their nation and the world.
2. Teachers can help students develop critical argument skills by asking challenging questions. Students
need to practice writing and speaking for skeptical audiences who demand to see the evidence and
understand the rationale behind students' claims. For instance, a question like "How do you know this
is true?" asks students to reflect on the quality of their evidence or the need for a justification. A
question that begins, "But what would an unemployed factory worker think about … ?" asks them to
consider a question from perspectives other than their own.
3. Students need to be able to identify forms and functions of claims, appeals, supporting evidence,
rationales, and explanation in the texts they read and write. Teachers can point out to students that
the kind of rhetorical analysis they are learning to perform on other people's texts is the same kind of
analysis their own arguments are subject to in academic settings such as the AP English Language
and Composition Exam.

2012 Q3 (ARGUMENT: CERTAINTY & DOUBT) SAMPLE ESSAYS
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap12_english_language_q3.pdf


2012 Q3 (ARGUMENT: CERTAINTY & DOUBT) SCORING COMMENTARY
Overview
This question asked students to make an argument about the relationship between certainty and doubt.
The prompt introduced the topic by presenting short quotations from the works of two 20th-century
philosophers. One excerpt celebrates certainty, and the other champions doubt. The question that follows
these short quotations does not specifically refer the student back to either or both of the quotations, thus
giving the student permission to launch into any number of legitimate discussions of the relationship
between certainty and doubt.
The first passage, from William Lyon Phelps, presents "certainty" in terms of inner motivation, confidence,
and determination informed by "powerful beliefs." The passage from Bertrand Russell, however, situates
doubt in the context of opinions and belief systems that reside primarily within the culture, of which the
individual is only a part. The open-endedness of the prompt and the dilemma presented by the somewhat
mismatched quotations were, however, felicitous for many students. They could legitimately and
successfully respond to the prompt from a multiplicity of angles, finding various points of entry into an
argument about the relationship between certainty and doubt. They could, for instance, define certainty
and doubt as virtues or vices, as attitudes, or as intellectual practices. They could observe certainty or
doubt, or both, in their own lives or in the world around them, as well as in texts they had seen, heard, or
read. They could consider how certainty or doubt operated in the lives of historical figures or present-day
celebrities.

Sample: 3A
Score: 8
The student's argument in this effective essay focuses on the productive power of doubt insofar as it allows
for the questioning and challenging of certainties and the stimulation of creativity, ingenuity, and progress.
The student cites the example of space exploration in order to demonstrate that certainty - man was earthbound
and only fanciful science fiction entertained the once ludicrous idea of space exploration - must be
constantly challenged in order for progress to be made. In the second example of productive doubt, the
student considers the relationship between doubt and certainty in the logic of experimentation. Thomas
Edison was certain of his scientific breakthrough but not until he confronted constant doubt fueled by over
fifty unsuccessful attempts at harnessing electricity and producing light. This effective essay is not without
flaws: the student, even in the effective examples cited above, does not always control the terms "certainty"
and "doubt" with absolute clarity. The final example of religious faith is the most elliptical in its usage of
these terms, as in the essay's claim that "even in this process of comparing the two sides one is doubting,
because one is extrapolating that either could be true. If either are true, we are uncertain." Such flaws,
however, are understandable in the draft of such an ambitious essay, one that works at a high level of
abstraction. Taken as a whole, the essay effectively establishes a position on the relation between certainty
and doubt by using appropriate and convincing examples to develop the idea of productive doubt.

Sample: 3B
Score: 6
The student finds adequate support for both Phelp's and Russell's claims, ultimately determining that
"certainty can help us to achieve great things" but also cautioning that in some situations certainty must be
moderated by doubt. In one appropriate example, a test taker is more likely to do well on a test when
confident, rather than doubtful. In another, McCandless in Into the Wild might not have perished had he
entertained a useful measure of doubt about his ability to survive in hostile terrain. Both examples present
sensible approaches to assessing the meaning of the abstract terms, certainty and doubt, and are sufficiently
developed. Less strong is the example of the American colonists, with its premise that the colonists were
successful in breaking away from England because they were confident that "they could do just fine as an
independent country." The essay demonstrates adequate control of language, and despite the inclusion of
the weaker example, sufficiently develops a nuanced position on the relationship between certainty and
doubt.

Sample: 3C
Score: 2
The essay consists mainly of paraphrases of Phelps and insufficiently tested generalities (for example, "if you
are certain you can do anything, than [sic] you can, no matter what others believe"). The single example of
the student's lacrosse team, meant to testify to the power of certainty, lacks enough detail and discussion to
be convincing. Without any consideration of Russell's claim about doubt and without much development of
Phelp's idea, the essay demonstrates little success in taking a position on the relationship between certainty
and doubt.

**********************

2011 Q3 (ARGUMENT: THOMAS PAINE) PROMPT

The following passage is from Rights of Man, a book written by the pamphleteer Thomas Paine in 1791. Born in England, Paine was an intellectual, a revolutionary, and a supporter of American independence from England. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay that examines the extent to which Paine's characterization of America holds true today. Use appropriate evidence to support your argument.
If there is a country in the world, where concord, according to common calculation, would be
least expected, it is America. Made up, as it is, of people from different nations, accustomed to
different forms and habits of government, speaking different languages, and more different in
their modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was impracticable; but
by the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights
of man, every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison. There, the
poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged. . . . Their taxes are few, because their
government is just; and as there is nothing to render them wretched, there is nothing to
engender riots and tumults.

2011 Q3 (ARGUMENT: THOMAS PAINE) STUDENT PERFORMANCE QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

What was the intent of this question?
This question examined students' ability to write an effective, compelling argument based on a prompt, drawing on evidence from their own experiences, observations and reading to support their central claim or thesis. In particular, students were presented with an excerpt from Thomas Paine's 1791 book, Rights of Man, in which Paine argues that, despite the diversity of its population, the United States is a nation in which "all the parts are brought into cordial unison." The question directed students to "write an essay that examines the extent to which Paine's characterization of America holds true today."

How well did students perform on this question?
The mean score was 4.44 out of a possible 9 points. The prompt offered a wide range of issues students could consider, relating Paine's view of America in 1791 to their own perceptions of American society and culture today. Students chose to write, for example, about immigration, diversity, religion, politics, education, economics and gender issues. The students who focused on how the form of government influenced the United States then and now were generally more successful than students who simply made personal observations about oppression or injustice or those who chose to write only about freedom of religion or immigration issues.
Accomplished responses, moreover, tended to draw evidence from various sources: history, politics and current events. Students writing these essays were knowledgeable about pivotal historical issues as well as about contemporary events and controversies and were skilled at linking their evidence directly to the argument they were building in the essay. Some students chose to take a satirical approach to the task, mocking ways that today's America has not lived up to Paine's early view. These essays for the most part were well developed, with a distinctively sharp and perceptive voice. When personal examples were used effectively to develop the argument, they were used purposefully and strategically. Finally, the best responses displayed ample evidence of controlled, sophisticated writing.

What were common student errors or omissions?
As with argument questions in the past, many students struggled with incorporating appropriate, compelling evidence that would effectively contribute to their arguments. In many essays that
earned scores in the lower range, students did provide some type of evidence, but it was generally weak or did not corroborate the argument being constructed.
The use of literary references, for the most part, did not work well with this prompt. Some students tried to fit references to novels into their arguments but did so with little success. Many students, moreover, used only historical evidence without referencing how Paine's characterization was true today.
Based on your experience of student responses at the AP Reading, what message would you like to send to teachers that might help them to improve the performance of their students on the exam?
• Consider incorporating in classes more discussions of current social issues and the impact they have on modern society. The more students know about the world around them, the more material they will have at their disposal when they work to create sound arguments.
• Classroom instruction might focus on guiding students through the process of establishing what is suitable evidence and how to use it strategically - whether it be historical, political, pop-cultural or related to current events.
• Classroom instruction might focus on close reading of the prompt and passage. Students might benefit from rewriting the prompt in their own words or circling or underlining words in the prompt that direct them to their task.
• By building students' evidentiary toolbox, teachers will help them learn how to expand their argument with more significant and less obvious examples. (Remind students that the first thing that pops into their minds will probably be the first thing that pops into the minds of 90 percent of the other students.) Show students how to dig deeper into the prompt for other approaches.


2011 Q3 (ARGUMENT: THOMAS PAINE) SAMPLE ESSAYS
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap11_english_language_q3.pdf


2011 Q3 (ARGUMENT: THOMAS PAINE) SCORING COMMENTARY
Overview
This question examined students’ ability to write an effective, compelling argument based on a prompt,
drawing on evidence from their own experiences, observations, and reading to support their central
claim or thesis. In particular, students were presented with an excerpt from Thomas Paine’s 1791 book,
Rights of Man, in which Paine argues that, despite the diversity of its population, the United States is a
nation in which “all the parts are brought into cordial unison.” The question directed students to “write
an essay that examines the extent to which Paine’s characterization of America holds true today.”

Sample: 3A
Score: 9
Beginning with an introductory paragraph that demonstrates a consistent sophistication of style, this
essay effectively examines the extent to which Paine’s characterization of America is true today. The
student uses a seamless blend of evidence and commentary throughout to build a convincing argument.
For example, the student contends that “[e]ver since Lyndon Johnson loosened the quota system in
1965, every year thousands, if not millions of people from all backgrounds pour into America,” but these
newer immigrants never fully adopted American values, so Paine’s “… ‘principles of society and the
rights of man’ no longer serve … in uniting the American people.” In another example, the student plays
with Paine’s use of the word “concord,” illustrating the country’s “discord” by citing “[t]he recent budget
standoff.” Each example provided is thoroughly developed, and the essay’s control of its language,
organization, and thinking is especially impressive. For example, “the ‘tomato soup’ analogy” works well
to start building the student’s argument. The essay is stronger than those that received a score of 8
because of its impressive control of language (despite a few lapses here and there) and its exceptionally
cohesive argument.

Sample: 3B
Score: 5
This essay begins with an awkward opening paragraph, presenting the argument that “Paine’s belief
still holds true even though there are greater distinctions in America.” The essay improves with the
examples in paragraph 2, which are adequate: the student cites personal background, contrasting it to
the backgrounds of others, to illustrate that “people share their similarities and express their
differences.” However, the next paragraph’s evidence is limited. Here the student makes the claim that
“[p]oor people have to [sic] same oppurtunity [sic] to enter a prestigous [sic] college as do rich people
have” and then supports this claim with the brief evidence of “[a] system of finincial [sic] aid and
scholarships.” The following paragraph, regarding political parties, is unconvincing with its brief
discussion of “political distinctions.” Overall, the essay is uneven and contains a number of lapses in
diction and syntax, although the prose usually conveys the student’s ideas.

Sample: 3C
Score: 2
The essay demonstrates little success in examining the extent to which Paine’s characterization of
America holds true today. Throughout, the prose demonstrates consistent weaknesses in writing, and
the explanations of evidence exhibit a lack of development. For example, in an attempt to discuss a
quote from Paine’s passage, the student states, “This is true because of america [sic] today which is
filled with many different nationalities and also a diverse nation.” The essay does make an attempt at
organization, with its paragraphs announcing their first, second, and third points; however, there is a
lack of coherence in the discussion within this structure.