AP english exam question?

Question

so i was given an AP english exam to work on this summer for my AP class this coming year.

i understand the basics of the test and such, but i do have a question about the essays.

how long should your essays be?

i heard that they should be around 300 words or so each.

but to me, that seems awfully short.

like i understand that the three essays essentially have to be completed in 2 hours time, but 300 words is short in my opinion.

is that what they are looking for when grading these tests?

thank you if you can help :]

Answer 1

You have to think about the graders. All the test of a region is sent to a office of graders and these people sit for 8 hours a day until all the tests are graded. Note that the exams are in May. It's HOT in May for many regions. Many will not bee too happy after a few days.

Think how that person feels reading a long essay that drones on for five pages about a topic s/he read over a hundred times already.

Hence for the advice of keeping your response to a minimum. Get straight to the point, support it a little bit of evidence, and conclude. Also, the more you drone on, the more chance they have to mark you down for grammar, spelling and other issues.

I agree that 300 words is pretty short, h**l, this answer is about 140-150 words at this point; but again, keep it short. You are much more likely to get the reader who is there for the paycheck than someone who genuinely cares about the content and intellect of your paper.