Practice Test 2 - AP English Literature and Composition

20 questions. Answer them in any order, then submit to see your score and every explanation.

In a short story about a small family restaurant, the narrator describes the mother, Celeste, who refuses to remove an outdated "OPEN" sign even after the business closes for good. The narrator notes, "She polished the glass until the letters looked newly born, though the room behind them was already dark," and later says, "At night she left the sign plugged in, a green promise humming to no one." A student claims Celeste's attachment to the sign reveals her inability to accept the end of a defining identity. Which option best explains how the evidence supports the student's claim?
Read the following excerpt from an original drama. At a family restaurant before opening, ABUELA ROSA counts cash at a table while her granddaughter MARISOL scrolls through a phone, showing an online listing. ROSA: Put that away. The day hasn't started. MARISOL: The day started without us. People order breakfast from an app now. ROSA: People used to talk. MARISOL: People still talk. Just not to us. ROSA: They talk when they're hungry. MARISOL: They click when they're hungry. ROSA: Click doesn't tip. MARISOL: Click doesn't yell at you for your accent either. ROSA: My accent paid for these chairs. MARISOL: And your back paid for them too. ROSA: Don't pity me. Help me. MARISOL: I am. I'm trying to. ROSA: By selling the place out from under me? MARISOL: By keeping it from dying slowly. ROSA: Slowly is still living. MARISOL: It's not living if you're the only one bleeding. ROSA: You think I don't know what it costs. MARISOL: Then why won't you let it change? ROSA: Because change is how things get taken. MARISOL: Or how they get saved. ROSA: You want me to sign with the delivery company and let strangers carry our food. MARISOL: You want me to inherit a memory instead of a business. Which choice best explains the function of the central conflict (the clash between preserving tradition and adapting for survival) in the excerpt?
Read the following original drama excerpt. The playwright delays the revelation of a key piece of information by placing it in the final scene. SCENE II (Evening. A diner. TESS slides a set of keys across the table to RAVI.) TESS: Take them. RAVI: They're yours. TESS: Not anymore. RAVI: What did you do? TESS: I did what you wouldn't. SCENE I (That morning. A parking lot. The same keys hang from TESS's finger.) RAVI: You're always ready to run. TESS: I'm always ready to leave the door unlocked. RAVI: For who? TESS: For the version of me that comes back. SCENE III (Later that evening. Outside a small house. A broken window. TESS and RAVI.) RAVI: This is your mother's. TESS: It was. RAVI: Tess— TESS: I didn't break in. I broke out. What is the primary effect of withholding the detail revealed in SCENE III until the end, given that SCENE II appears first?
In "My brother shouts his grief at the sky; I fold his shirts and say nothing," the brother functions as which?
Read the following original drama excerpt (embedded below). [Hospital waiting room. Fluorescent lights. A vending machine hums.] NURSE (offstage): Family for Mr. Calder? ELI (stands too fast): That's me. SOPHIE (doesn't stand): You're not his family. ELI (freezes, then sits again): I'm— SOPHIE: Don't. Not here. [The vending machine drops a candy bar with a loud thud. SOPHIE flinches; ELI doesn't.] ELI: You jumped. SOPHIE (staring at the candy bar): It sounded like a door. ELI: It's a candy bar. SOPHIE: It's a door, if you've been listening for one. NURSE (offstage): Mr. Calder's daughter? SOPHIE (stands; to ELI, almost kindly): Stay seated. It will look better. ELI (soft): For who? SOPHIE (already moving toward the sound): For him. Which choice best analyzes how the playwright controls dialogue and offstage sound to shape the power dynamics between Sophie and Eli?
Read the following poem and answer the question. "The Stitch" You sew my button back on with thread from your own sleeve, stealing yourself to fix me. I watch your hands, how they don't tremble until you hand me the shirt. "Don't mention it," you say, and I hear the plea under the words: Don't name what this is. Which choice best describes the relationship between the speaker and "you"?
Read the following excerpt from a short story: The hair salon was loud with dryers and gossip, but in the corner chair, Nia felt as if she were underwater. The mirror in front of her was edged with bulbs, each one too bright, making her face look like it belonged to someone who had been awake for days. On the counter, jars of hairpins and combs were arranged with careful precision, a small order imposed on constant change. When the stylist lifted a section of Nia's hair, she said, softly, "We'll start fresh." How does the setting function in the excerpt?
Read the poem below and answer the question that follows. Title: "Hotel Ice" In the hotel hallway, the ice machine groans, a tired animal behind a door. I fill the bucket lined with plastic, its crinkle too loud. Back in the room, you sleep diagonally, claiming more than your share of blanket and dream. I pour the ice into the glass. Then **one cube jumps out, skitters across the carpet, and melts alone under the lamp.** I watch it shrink like a mistake I can't undo. What is the primary function of one cube jumps out... and melts alone?
Read the excerpt below from an original drama. [Stage: A city bus at dawn. The windows are fogged. A child sleeps against a backpack. VERA stands gripping a pole; her coat is too thin.] DRIVER: Keep moving back. VERA: There's nowhere to move. DRIVER: Then make somewhere. VERA: I'm trying. DRIVER: You pay? VERA: Yes. DRIVER: Then don't block the aisle. VERA: I'm not blocking. I'm— DRIVER: You're what? VERA: I'm a match struck in a jar—bright for a second, then starving on my own smoke. In context, the bolded imagery primarily serves to
Read the following original drama passage and answer the question. [Stage: A city bus stop at dawn. A bench with peeling paint. A digital sign that reads "DELAYED."] LEON: You're early. SASHA: I couldn't sleep. LEON: Big day. SASHA: Don't say it like that. LEON: Like what? SASHA: Like you're already gone. LEON: I'm right here. SASHA: I keep seeing you on the train, looking out the window like you don't know me. LEON: That's your imagination rehearsing. SASHA: I heard Mom cry last night. She tried to hide it under the faucet. LEON: She'll be fine. SASHA: I'm not fine. LEON: (sits) You'll get used to it. SASHA: I hate that sentence. LEON: It's true. SASHA: I want you to say you'll come back. LEON: I will visit. SASHA: That's not the same. (A bus roars past without stopping; wind lifts SASHA's hair across her face.) Question: How does Sasha's perspective, marked by I couldn't sleep, I keep seeing, I heard, I'm not fine, I hate, and I want, shape the emotional impact of Leon's departure?
Read the following excerpt from a short story: A woman keeps a jar of buttons from shirts she has thrown away. She calls them "the parts that outlasted the goodbye." When her partner asks why she won't discard the jar, she replies, "Because leaving is never total." Which thesis best develops an arguable claim about the excerpt's treatment of endings?
Read the poem below, in which the speaker describes a reunion with a former teacher at a grocery store. "You recognize me by my eyes above the cart, say my name like it's still on your attendance sheet. Your questions come in a steady line: Where are you now? What do you do? Are you happy? I answer with discounts and weather, stacking small talk like cans—label forward. You tell me you kept my essay in a drawer, how my sentences once surprised you. I laugh, but it catches. You stand there unafraid of the pause. I fill it with receipts, crumpling proof that I was here and moving." The contrast between the teacher being "unafraid of the pause" and the speaker who fills silence with "receipts" primarily serves to
Read the following poem excerpt: Title: "After the Family Meeting" My aunt says the house is too big for one widow, like grief is a couch you can't drag up the stairs. I nod, because nodding is the family language, but my mouth keeps tasting the metal of unsaid names. They talk square footage, taxes, the roof's soft spot— meanwhile I'm counting how often my mother's hands reach for her ring and find only air. When I finally speak, my voice comes out small as a key, and nobody wants to know what door it fits. Which choice best characterizes the speaker's voice, based on the bolded phrases?
Read the following excerpt from a short story: The airport terminal was all glass and echo. Announcements repeated in calm voices that sounded trained to soothe panic. At the security checkpoint, bins slid forward in obedient lines, and the rubber mat on the floor smelled faintly of feet. In the gate area, charging outlets were crowded with tangled cords, each traveler tethered to a device like an IV. Priya checked her boarding pass again, as if rereading could make the destination less final. How does the setting function in the excerpt?
In the excerpt below, the narrator addresses a former partner while describing a shared apartment after the breakup: You would hate how quiet it is here now. The pipes still tick in the walls, but without your music they sound like impatience. I left your mug on the top shelf, not as a shrine—don't flatter yourself—but because moving it would mean admitting you're not coming back for it. You said I was sentimental. Maybe this is just me being practical in a language you never learned. Which choice best describes the function of the point of view in the excerpt?
Read the following poem: "Subway Platform" A busker plays violin and the notes ricochet off tile and tired faces. I stand behind the yellow line like it's a moral boundary. My reflection in the tunnel wavers, then disappears when the train rushes in. A woman beside me reads a romance novel as if love is portable. When the doors open, I let three people go first, practicing being less in the way. Which inference about the speaker is best supported by "practicing being less in the way"?
The magistrate's shift from a detached bureaucrat to a man with a 'tormented conscience' serves to
Read the poem below, then answer the question. "Birthday Card" The envelope is thin, but heavy. Your handwriting leans right, still hurried. Inside: a balloon drawn in blue ink, a joke you've told before. I read the message twice, slowly, as if a third meaning might appear. The cake in the kitchen cools untouched. I set the card on the highest shelf where dust can guard it. I tell myself this is gratitude, not fear of what comes next. Which option best interprets what the bolded details reveal about the speaker's perspective?
In the following original poem, a speaker stands at the sink after an argument, listening to the house at night: "The faucet, loosened by our shouting, clears its throat then speaks in drops that won't commit to silence. The refrigerator hums a warning in the dark, and the hallway clock counts with a tight jaw, as if time could be offended into order." What is the function of the personification in the speaker's portrayal of the household objects?
Read the following excerpt from an original poem: My sister calls from three states away, her voice a jar I can't open. We talk about groceries, weather, the safe subjects with soft edges. Distance is a glass wall in the throat, clear enough to see, too solid to cross. In context, what is the primary function of the metaphor "a glass wall in the throat"?

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