AP English Language and Composition

AP English Language and Composition 2/13/25, 3:47 PM 05.08 Multiple-Choice Practice Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers. If you wish to annotate (it's an important skill to practice!), copy and paste the passage and questions into a document and print. Questions 1–10. Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers. The town sits in a vale between two rounded-off, thickly wooded mountains. Hot mineral waters pour out of the mountainsides, and the hills for miles around erupt with springs, some of them famous and commercial, with bottled water for sale, others trickling under rotten leaves in deep woods and known only to the natives. From one spring the water gushes milky and sulphurous. From another it comes forth laced with arsenic. Here it will be heavy with the taste of rocky earth, there, as sweet as rainwater. Each spring possesses its magical healing properties and its devoted, believing imbibers. In 1541, on the journey that proved to be his last, Hernando de Soto encountered friendly tribes at these springs. For a thousand years before him the mound-building Indians who lived in the Mississippi Valley had come here to cure their rheumatism and activate their sluggish bowels. The main street of town, cutting from northeast to southwest, is schizoid, lined on one side with plate-glass store fronts and on the other with splendid white stucco bathhouses, each with its noble portico and veranda, strung along the street like stones in an old-fashioned necklace. All but one of the bathhouses are closed down now. At the head of the street, on a plateau, stands the multistoried Arlington, a 1920's resort hotel and a veritable ducal palace in yellow sandstone. Opposite, fronted in mirrors and glittering chrome, is what once was a gambling casino and is now a wax museum. "The Southern Club," it was called in the days when the dice tumbled across the green baize and my father waited for the results from Saratoga to come in over Western Union. Lots of other horsebooks operated in that same neighborhood—the White Front, the Kentucky Club—some in backrooms and dives in which no respectable person would be seen. But the Southern was another thing. Gamblers from Chicago strolled in and out in their ice-cream suits and their two-tone shoes and nothing smaller than a C-note in their pockets. Packards pulled up to the door and let out wealthy men with showy canes and women in silk suits and alligator pumps who owned stables of thoroughbreds and next month would travel to Churchill Downs. I saw this Page 1 of 9 AP English Language and Composition 2/13/25, 3:47 PM alien world in glimpses as Mother and I sat at the curb in the green Chevrolet, waiting for the last race at Belmont or Hialeah to be over so that my father could figure the payoffs and come home to supper. The other realm was the usual realm, Middletown, Everyplace .Then it was frame houses, none very new. Now it is brick ranches and splits, carports, inlaid nylon carpet, and draw-drapes. Now the roads are lined with a pre-fab forest of Pizza Huts, Bonanzas, ninety kinds of hamburger stand, and gas stations, some with an occasional Southern touch: a plaque, for example, that reads "Serve-U-Sef." In what I still remember as horse pasture now stands a windowless high school—windowless—where classes range up to one hundred, and the teacher may not be able to learn everybody's name. My old elementary school, a two-story brick thing that threatened to fall down, had windows that reached to the fourteen-foot ceiling. We kept them shut only from November to February, for in this pleasant land the willows turn green and the winds begin sweetening in March, and by April the iris and jonquils bloom so thickly in every yard that you can smell them on the schoolroom air. On an April afternoon, we listened to the creek rushing through the schoolyard and thought mostly about crawdads. 1. The passage as a whole is best described as (A) a dramatic monologue (B) a melodramatic episode (C) an evocation of a place (D) an objective historical commentary (E) an allegorical fable 2. The speaker's reference to Hernando de Soto's visit to the springs in 1541 (paragraph 1) serves primarily to (A) clarify the speaker's attitude toward the springs (B) exemplify the genuine benefits of the springs (C) document the history of the springs (D) specify the exact location of the springs (E) describe the origin of beliefs in the springs' magical properties 3. With which of the following pairs does the speaker illustrate what she means by "schizoid" in the first sentence of paragraph 2? Page 2 of 9 AP English Language and Composition 2/13/25, 3:47 PM (A) "plate-glass store fronts" and "splendid white stucco bathhouses" (B) "stones in an old-fashioned necklace" and "fronted in mirrors and glittering chrome" (C) "the multistoried Arlington" and "'The Southern Club'" (D) "once was a gambling casino" and "now a wax museum" (E) "Chicago" and "Churchill Downs" 4. In describing the bathhouses and the Arlington hotel (paragraph 2), the speaker emphasizes their (A) isolation (B) mysteriousness (C) corruptness (D) magnificence (E) permanence 5. The sentence structure and diction of the sentences "Lots of other horsebooks . . . travel to Churchill Downs" (paragraph 2) suggest that the scene is viewed by (A) an impartial sociologist (B) a fascinated bystander (C) a cynical commentator (D) an argumentative apologist (E) a bemused visitor 6. The attitude of the speaker toward the gamblers from Chicago is primarily one of (A) awe (B) suspicion (C) disapproval (D) mockery (E) indifference 7. The terms "Middletown, Everyplace" (paragraph 3) are best interpreted as Page 3 of 9 AP English Language and Composition 2/13/25, 3:47 PM (A) nicknames used by local residents for their town (B) epithets referring to the homogeneity of American suburbs (C) euphemisms for an area too sprawling to be called a town (D) names that emphasize the town's prominence as a cultural center (E) evidence of the town's location at the heart of varied activities 8. The speaker mentions the "'Serve-U-Sef"' plaque (paragraph 3) chiefly as an example of (A) appealing wit (B) churlish indifference (C) attempted folksiness (D) double entendre (E) inimitable eccentricity 9. The speaker's tone at the conclusion of the passage ("—windowless—where classes range up to one hundred … thought mostly about crawdads.") is primarily one of (A) poignant remorse (B) self-deprecating humor (C) feigned innocence (D) lyrical nostalgia (E) cautious ambivalence 10. Which of the following is most likely a deliberate exaggeration? (A) "the water gushes milky and sulphurous" (paragraph 1) (B) "For a thousand years before him" (last sentence of paragraph 1) (C) "back rooms and dives in which no respectable person would be seen" (paragraph 2) (D) "women in silk suits . . . who owned stables of thoroughbreds" (paragraph 2) (E) "ninety kinds of hamburger stand" (paragraph 3) Questions 11-17. Read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers. Page 4 of 9 AP English Language and Composition 2/13/25, 3:47 PM (1) Most people believe that the important decisions they make—from what car they buy to whom they vote for—are rational ones based on facts and analysis. (2) However, because of the phenomenon known as confirmation bias, logical decision-making is rarely so simple. (3) Confirmation bias, which describes the human tendency to interpret new information in a way that supports our preexisting beliefs, makes people tend to accept information that confirms what they already believe and reject information that undermines those beliefs. (4) Research has repeatedly demonstrated just how prevalent this phenomenon is in the world. (5) Confirmation bias has been found to affect the decisions of doctors, judges, and jurors. (6) It has even been shown to affect memory. (7) In a classic experiment, students who watched their schools compete in a football game subsequently remembered the adversary’s team performing worse than their own: confirmation bias caused the students, who already believed in their own school’s superiority, to interpret what they had seen as support for their preexisting beliefs. (8) Confirmation bias has also been shown to affect completely inconsequential decisions, as in experiments involving what direction dots are moving in or the average size of a number series. (9) Here, too, subjects’ interpretations were found to be affected by decisions they had already made about what they were being asked to evaluate. (10) Confirmation bias does admittedly have its uses: it can, for example, increase the efficiency with which we process information and also protect us against information that might be damaging to our self-esteem. (11) But when the stakes are high, the risks of making biased decisions are simply too great. (12) An example of a high-stakes situation would be when jurors are deliberating a defendant’s fate. (13) Fortunately, there are techniques, like those used by Warren Buffett (born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1930) when he makes his financial decisions, that can minimize the risks of confirmation bias. (14) The first is to be aware that our decisions may be affected by our tendency toward confirmation bias. (15) The second is to test our beliefs by seeking out points of view that differ from our own. 11. Which of the following sentences in the passage can best be described as the writer’s thesis statement? (A) Sentence 1 (B) Sentence 5 (C) Sentence 8 (D) Sentence 11 (E) Sentence 15 12. The writer is considering adding the following sentence to the passage after sentence 3. Page 5 of 9 AP English Language and Composition 2/13/25, 3:47 PM Though the phenomenon has been observed throughout history by philosophers, historians, and novelists, the term “confirmation bias” itself wasn’t invented until the 1960s by British psychologist Peter Wason. Should the writer add this sentence after sentence 3? (A) Yes, because it provides contextualizing information that is necessary for the audience to understand the writer’s argument. (B) Yes, because it contains an important insight into the exigence that prompted the writer to write the passage. (C) Yes, because it offers an effective appeal to the audience’s sense of logic by detailing the long history of confirmation bias. (D) No, because it fails to give enough details about Peter Wason’s credentials to establish his credibility with the audience. (E) No, because it gives evidence that is not relevant to the passage’s overall line of reasoning and therefore does not strengthen the validity of the writer’s argument. 13. The writer is considering adding the sentence below immediately after sentence 1 in order to further develop the argument in the first paragraph. When I decided where to go to college, for example, I thought I had considered every factor and made the best possible choice. Should the writer add this sentence after sentence 1? (A) Yes, because it describes a personal experience that helps illustrate the point made in the sentence. (B) Yes, because it makes the audience feel closer to the writer by revealing information about the writer’s past. (C) Yes, because it demonstrates the writer’s authority by showing how the writer overcame confirmation bias. (D) No, because it makes the writer seem biased because it uses personal experience as support for an argument. (E) No, because it does not clarify when this experience occurred and therefore might be irrelevant. Page 6 of 9 AP English Language and Composition 2/13/25, 3:47 PM 14. In sentence 3 (reproduced below), the writer is considering deleting the underlined portion, adjusting the punctuation as necessary. Confirmation bias, which describes the human tendency to interpret new information in a way that supports our preexisting beliefs, makes people tend to accept information that confirms what they already believe and reject information that undermines those beliefs. Should the writer keep or delete the underlined text? (A) Keep it, because it completes the writer’s comparison between the way people think they make decisions and the way they actually make decisions. (B) Keep it, because it develops the writer’s ideas by providing a definition of confirmation bias, which is the central concept of the passage. (C) Keep it, because it advances a narrative in the passage about how the writer came to understand the importance of confirmation bias. (D) Delete it, because it fails to add vivid details about or examples of confirmation bias, making the writing less effective. (E) Delete it, because it introduces a cause of bias in the way people accept or reject ideas whose effects are not elaborated on later in the passage. 15. In the context of the passage, which of the following versions of the underlined text is the most effective way to introduce the evidence provided in sentence 10 (reproduced below)? Confirmation bias does admittedly have its uses: it can, for example, increase the efficiency with which we process information and also protect us against information that might be damaging to our self-esteem. (A) (As it is now) (B) Based on these findings, it is difficult to overstate the dangers of confirmation bias: (C) Confirmation bias can have other, more subtle, detrimental effects as well: (D) The risk of confirmation bias is not limited to a few study results, however; (E) Researchers continue to identify ways in which confirmation bias can impair people’s ability to make important decisions: 16. The writer wants to combine sentences 11 and 12 (reproduced below) into a single sentence. Page 7 of 9 AP English Language and Composition 2/13/25, 3:47 PM But when the stakes are high, the risks of making biased decisions are simply too great. An example of a high-stakes situation would be when jurors are deliberating a defendant’s fate. Which of the following revisions to the underlined portion of sentences 11 and 12 most effectively accomplishes this goal? (A) high, then the risks of making biased decisions—one example of which would be when jurors are deliberating a defendant’s fate—are simply too great B) high, one good example of which is a defendant having his or her fate being deliberated by jurors, the risks of making biased decisions are simply too great (C) high (for example, when jurors are deliberating a defendant’s fate, the stakes would be high), the risks of making biased decisions are simply too great (D) high, such as when jurors are deliberating a defendant’s fate, the risks of making biased decisions are simply too great (E) high—like a defendant whose fate is being deliberated by jurors—the risks of making biased decisions are simply too great 17. In sentence 13 (reproduced below), the writer wants to include a piece of relevant evidence that will help convince the reader to accept the techniques used by Warren Buffet as credible. Fortunately, there are techniques, like those used by Warren Buffett (born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1930) when he makes his financial decisions that can minimize the risks of confirmation bias. Which of the following versions of the underlined portion of sentence 13 best accomplishes this goal? (A) (as it is now) (B) whose ability to tell a story is legendary (C) one of the most successful investors in history (D) a noted philanthropist (E) whose father was a member of the United States Congress © CollegeBoard AP English Language and Composition Page 8 of 9