Practice Test 5 - AP English Literature and Composition

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

Read the following excerpt from an original poem: The town's siren tests itself at noon— a long note that combs the pigeons from the eaves. We pause mid-sentence, smiling, as if rehearsed, then return to our sandwiches. A student claims the poem critiques communal normalization of danger. Which option best explains how the evidence supports that claim by articulating the link between the details and the interpretation?
Read the following poem, spoken by a daughter reading her late father's recipe cards while cleaning out his kitchen: Title: "Index Cards" His handwriting leans like tired reeds, ink thinning where the pen ran dry. "Add salt," he writes, and under it, "not too proud." I find the stew he made on sick-days, the one that steamed the windows white. The card is stained with something brown— gravy, or time. He never measured; he listened. A simmer was a kind of mercy. Now I line the cards in order like prayers that forgot their church. When I cook, I hear his spoon tap the pot—small knocks from a room I can't enter, but still keep warm. How does the perspective of a daughter sorting her father's recipe cards after his death shape the interpretation of the poem?
Read the excerpt from a short story: "My father taught me to drive in the cemetery because, he said, the dead don't sue. He sat in the passenger seat with a thermos of coffee and the patience of a man who has already decided you will disappoint him. When I clipped the angel statue with the side mirror, he didn't shout. He only wrote something on a small notepad. Later I found the page in the trash: 'Replace mirror. Talk to her about care.' He loved me in the way some men pay bills: on time, without warmth, and resentful that it's required. I tell this to my mother and she says I'm too hard on him, but she is the kind of person who calls silence 'peace.'" The bolded comparison primarily conveys that the narrator
A student claims that the story portrays forgiveness as a deliberate choice rather than an emotion that arrives naturally. Which evidence best supports this claim? Excerpt: After years of silence, the narrator meets her former friend at a café. The friend apologizes, and the narrator feels nothing at first—no warmth, no relief. She thinks, "Forgiveness wasn't a feeling; it was a door I could choose to open." When the friend starts crying, the narrator reaches across the table anyway and says, "Let's try." Walking home, she admits, "I didn't feel healed. I felt decided."
Read the poem below and answer the question that follows: "Museum of Small Things" A thimble, a ticket stub, a comb missing teeth— my aunt arranges them in a drawer like prayers. She calls it keeping, not hoarding. Each object has a date she won't explain. When I touch the stub, it flakes, and her voice turns "brisk," as if speed could outrun remembering. The word "brisk" most strongly serves to
Read the following excerpt from an original drama. [Funeral home viewing room. Flowers heavy in the air. CAMILLE adjusts a photo frame; her brother DREW stands apart.] CAMILLE: He looks peaceful. DREW: He looks staged. CAMILLE: Don't. DREW: Why? He staged everything. CAMILLE (straightens the tie on the body): He tried. DREW: He tried to be admired. CAMILLE: He tried to be loved. DREW (bitter): Love doesn't need lighting. CAMILLE (whispers): Neither does grief, but here we are. Which choice best describes the function of the contrast between "Love doesn't need lighting" and "Neither does grief, but here we are"?
Read the excerpt from a short story: The letter arrived with no stamp, which should have been my first clue that it belonged to the category of things I invite in. It was folded into a square and slid beneath my apartment door like a secret trying to look casual. It said: WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID. No signature. No date. Just that sentence, blunt as a fist. I laughed—quietly, because I am a considerate tenant—and then I put it on the counter beside the fruit bowl, as if fear could be domesticated by proximity to bananas. Of course, I knew immediately what it meant, which is to say I knew immediately what I was willing to let it mean. Which choice best interprets what the bolded sentence suggests about the narrator?
Read the poem below. Title: "Garden in October" 1. The last tomato splits on the vine. 2. Bees circle as if reconsidering. 3. I pull weeds with careful fingers. 4. 5. I tell myself: next year, 6. next year, 7. next year. 8. The compost steams like a quiet engine. 9. 10. A neighbor drags a rake across gravel. 11. The sound is a long goodbye. 12. 13. At night, frost arrives without announcement, 14. and the garden becomes a page erased. 15. I stand at the window, counting breath. What is the effect of the repeated phrase "next year" in lines 5–7 followed by the abrupt arrival of frost in lines 13–14?
Read the excerpt from a drama and answer the question. [Art studio. Morning light. Canvases stacked like doors. MS. KLINE watches as her student BEN wipes paint from his hands.] MS. KLINE: You erased the whole corner. BEN: It was wrong. MS. KLINE: Wrong how? BEN: Loud. Like it was trying to win. MS. KLINE: Paint doesn't compete. BEN: People do. MS. KLINE: This is your piece. BEN: That's the problem. MS. KLINE: You don't want it to look like you? BEN: I don't want it to prove I'm here. MS. KLINE: Why not? BEN: Because then they can point at it when I leave. Which choice provides the most relevant evidence that Ben fears his artwork will become a fixed marker of his identity that others can use to define him after he is gone?
In the following excerpt, an adult son visits his father's workshop after the father's death: "The workshop door stuck the way it always had, and when it finally gave, the room exhaled sawdust and motor oil. The pegboard still held the outlines of missing tools—paler rectangles where sunlight had never reached. On the bench, a half-sanded chair leg waited in a clamp, its grain raised like gooseflesh. The radio, unplugged, sat beside a jar of screws; its dial was set to a station that no longer existed. In the corner, the space between two rafters had been used as a shelf for old calendars, each one opened to a different month, as if time were something you could store by the page." Which choice best explains the function of the setting in the excerpt?
Read the following poem and answer the question. "Keynote" You introduce me at the podium with my full name, middle initial included, as if formality could keep us safe. I speak to the room, but I feel your gaze like a hand at my back. After, you clap last, slowly, then say, "You were great," and your smile is the same one you used to wear when we lied. Which choice best interprets the relationship between the speaker and "you"?
Read the following poem and answer the question that follows. At the Hospital Vending Machine You read the nutrition facts as if numbers could promise a safer kind of hunger. I press the spiral button and watch the chips fall, grateful for any gravity that still behaves. You sip water, slow and correct. I drink orange soda because the color refuses to mourn. When the nurse calls a name, you stand immediately. I wait half a beat, listening for my own to sound like someone else's life. How does the contrast between "You read the nutrition facts" and "I press the spiral button" primarily function in the poem?
In the following original poem, a speaker watches a parent pack up a kitchen after a divorce: "The plates listen without interrupting, still warm from the last shared meal. A drawer swallows the silverware too quickly, and the table sets its shoulders for the scrape of chairs that won't return." What is the function of the personification in the poem's portrayal of domestic space?
Read the following excerpt from a short story: A couple argues in a grocery store aisle over which brand of rice to buy. The narrator notes they speak in "polite knives" and that their cart squeaks "like it wants attention." When they finally choose the cheaper bag, they both laugh too loudly. Which thesis best develops an arguable claim about the excerpt's portrayal of conflict?
Read the following original poem: In the snowstorm, the power lines sing. Branches bow under white weight. I shovel the walkway in steady strokes, each scrape a dull cymbal. Halfway through, my neighbor joins without asking, and the cold loses its argument. How does the cold loses its argument function in the poem?
Read the following poem excerpt: "On the Bus to the Interview" The bus kneels, sighs, takes me in. A man sleeps with his mouth open, unashamed. I rehearse my name, my strengths, my handshake. I hold my résumé like a confession, and keep smoothing the paper as if wrinkles were failures. At each stop, the doors yawn, and I imagine being left behind by accident. Which choice best explains what the bolded details reveal about the speaker's perspective?
In this excerpt from an original drama, two roommates, Holly and Min, speak in their apartment after a blackout. Holly lights candles; Min checks the breaker panel with a phone flashlight. HOLLY: It's kind of beautiful—like the city finally exhaled. MIN: It's kind of dangerous—like the city finally stopped pretending it was stable. HOLLY: You always look for the crack in the ceiling. MIN: Because ceilings fall. HOLLY: Or they hold. MIN: They hold until the moment they don't. That's the definition. What is the primary function of the contrast between Holly and Min?
In the following original drama excerpt, an adult son, MIGUEL, visits his mother, ROSA, who is preparing to sell the family home. A suitcase sits by the door. ROSA: The realtor comes tomorrow. MIGUEL: You're really doing it. ROSA: The house is too big for one person. MIGUEL: It wasn't too big when Dad was alive. ROSA: Don't do that. (MIGUEL notices a framed photo of his father on the mantel.) MIGUEL: You're packing him like he's a winter coat. ROSA: I'm packing myself. MIGUEL: (He turns the photo face-down, then immediately sets it upright again, straighter than before.) ROSA: Miguel. MIGUEL: I know. I know. What does Miguel's bolded action most strongly suggest about his character?
In the following original drama excerpt, a city council office late at night, Councilwoman Inez Rivera and her aide Marcus review a confidential report about a factory's chemical spill. The mayor has asked Inez to delay releasing it until after an election. MARCUS: If we post it tonight, the phones will melt. If we wait, people drink that water another week. INEZ: (reading) "Trace amounts." They always write it like a lullaby. MARCUS: The mayor says he'll 'handle it' Monday. INEZ: Monday is a word that means never. MARCUS: If you cross him, you lose the committee chair. You lose the budget. INEZ: And if I don't, I keep my chair and lose my mirror. MARCUS: What do you want me to do? INEZ: (She signs her name at the bottom of the release form, then turns the office key and snaps it in half.) MARCUS: Inez— INEZ: No one locks this back up. Email it. Now. Which interpretation best explains what Inez's bolded action reveals about her character?
In the following excerpt, a student teacher, Kira, speaks to her mentor, Mr. Bell, after a lesson goes poorly. Kira says, "They hated me." Mr. Bell says, "They're fourteen." Kira says, "You made it look easy." Mr. Bell stacks the papers and says, "That's because you only saw the part I let you grade." Which choice best interprets the mentor-mentee relationship indicated by the bolded line?

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