AP文學學習方法

一．AP英語兩門課的區別

二．AP文學考試形式介紹

三．AP文學5分率情況四．AP文學的選課條件

五．備考建議

六．閱讀書目，走心推薦

七．AP樣題

1.AP英語兩門課的區別

College Board在AP English領域推出兩個姊妹課程，分別為AP語言與寫作（AP English Language and Composition）和AP英語文學與寫作（AP English literature and Composition），以下簡稱AP文學和AP語言。很多同學不清楚這兩門課的區別，今天我們就來仔細地分析一下。英語課是所有的美國大學都要開設的必修課程，其重要性不言而喻。而AP作為大學入門級課程先修課自然要反應大學課程的內容，要求和難度。大學開設的英語課通常有以下幾種模式。首先就是英文寫作課，學生會閱讀不同風格的文本，并且學習基本的修辭手法，要學會帶著明確的目的寫作，針對不同的讀者群寫出不同風格的文章。有些大學在第一學期開寫作，第二學期會開設針對議論文argumentation的課程，強調整合資料，引用證據等寫作技能。也有些大學第二學期會開設文學作品的閱讀和分析課，會大量的閱讀和分析不同時代不同風格的詩歌小說，戲劇。針對大學的課程設置，CB開設了兩種英語課，即AP文學和AP語言。CB在官網上讓老師考慮學生的以下因素，來決定選哪門課：

（College Board, AP English Literature and Composition Course Description）

首先，判斷學生的興趣所在。如果學生喜歡閱讀非虛構類的作品，并且喜歡寫議論和分析類的文章，那么可以考慮AP語言；如果學生對虛構的文學作品，比如詩歌，戲劇，小說更感興趣，愿意閱讀不同時代，不同題材的作品，則可選AP文學。其次，選課時也要考慮一下學生未來所讀大學開設的英語課情況以及具體的換分政策。如果未來要申請的大學開設文學課，并且明確要求只有AP文學才可以抵相關課的學分，那么很顯然選擇AP文學在該大學中更有優勢。

2.AP文學考試形式介紹

AP文學考試一共3小時。包括，60分鐘的選擇題部分和120分鐘的寫作部分。在選擇題部分，學生會遇到5篇文學作品選段，包括詩歌，戲劇和小說，Prose和Verse的比重基本相同，每篇文章后面有10或11道選擇題，共55道題。寫作部分2小時，平均40分鐘要寫完一篇essay,第一篇為詩歌分析，第二篇是小說選段分析，第三篇是給出一個開放性的論點，學生利用已經讀過的經典作品來闡述該觀點。考試中的作品范圍從16世紀到21世紀，體裁包括詩歌，戲劇，小說，散文。學生不僅要讀懂作品，還要能夠對作品從寫作手法和修辭手法方面進行分析，并且能敏感地察覺作品與歷史，文化大背景的關聯?？梢哉f是對學生綜合語言能力的考察，尤其是寫作部分，占總分的55%，最能體現學生的水平。和其他AP科目一樣， AP文學評分采取5分制，5分為極其優秀，3分為合格，可換取大學相關課程學分或者免修資格。（具體換分政策還要看每個學校不同）

3.AP文學5分率情況

我們從下圖可以看到AP文學近10年的得分情況。首先，考試人數在逐年增加，從2008年的32萬考生至2017年的40萬考生。大家所關注的5分率相對慘淡，變化不大，在7%左右浮動，2017年是6.8%，這個數字也低于今年所有學科的平均5分率，13.3%.

4.AP文學的選課條件

從5分率上確實看出，AP文學是最難的幾門AP學科之一。對于中國學生來說這門課的第一挑戰就是語言層面的難點。因為作品語言最早可以設計到16世紀，文藝復興時期的詩歌和戲劇，有些詞匯非常古體（archaic） 如“hath, thou, thee”拼寫和當代的英文不同，第二人稱和第三人稱動詞還會有不同的詞尾。在syntax句法的層面，結構上也和當代英語的習慣不同，大量的倒裝句和插入語，都會導致閱讀的障礙。除了語言層面的挑戰，AP文學對學生的閱讀量也是有要求的，不僅要有廣度，還要有深度。詩歌，戲劇，小說，散文都要涉獵，而且至少要熟讀5本以上的完整小說或戲劇。熟悉到可以拼寫出人物的名字，敘述作品的劇情，并且可分析其主題和象征等。此外，AP文學對于寫作能力是有很高要求的。結構要清晰，遣詞造句要正式學術，態度要客觀，在分析作品的時候要有理有據。寫作部分尤其看重學生有意識地引用文本證據來支持自己觀點的能力，不可空談。而很多中國學生在中文課上的作文習慣表達主觀情緒，這恰好反了AP文學的大忌。綜上所述，建議選考AP的學生托福至少已經在100分以上，并且對文學有足夠的興趣，有一定的閱讀速度和閱讀量的積累。

5.備考建議

首先，建議同學們博覽群書，利用課余的時間閱讀原版著作，積累自己的詞匯量和閱讀量。第二，要積極和老師或者同學討論作品的細節，如措辭，比喻，象征，主題等等。在討論甚至是辯論中理解文字的復雜特性，以及解讀文學作品的開放性。在平常閱讀時就要聯想和應用老師課上的文學術語，比如irony, allusion, tone等等，有批判的帶著目的去讀書。第三，通過影視作品來快速直觀的解文學作品，并且提高我們對文學的興趣。大部分經典的小說都已經被搬上了熒幕，比如《傲慢與偏見》《簡愛》《哈姆雷特》《了不起的蓋茨比》等等，我們在看電影的同時不僅了解了作品的情節，更是對不同時代的社會風俗有了最直觀的認識，讓我們有穿越一般的體驗，這是文字無法帶給我們的。當然大家注意在選擇電影的時候，盡量挑選忠實于原作品的。第四，?多練習寫作。平常我們應該每周練習一篇文學評論的寫作，并且在老師批改后，對自己的文章進行反復打磨，提高寫作水平。

6.閱讀書目，走心推薦

以下的作品是我在授課中會選到的一些作品，符合AP考綱的要求，基本涵蓋了16世紀到現當代的不同體裁的作品。當然，大家也可以根據自己的興趣來選擇。只要是經過時間考驗的經典作品，都可以閱讀學習。而且這些作品的語言難度不同，開始可以選擇語言簡易一些的來讀，比如 A Doll’s House, The Color Purple等等。

詩歌：

Edmund Spencer:?Sonnets
Shakespeare:?Sonnets
John Milton:?Paradise Lost
John Donne:?Valediction Forbidden Mourning / Go and Catch a Falling Star
Alexander Pope:?Human
Thomas Grey:?Elegy Written in a Grave Yard
William Wordsworth:??A Solitary Reaper
Percy Shelley:?Ode to the West Wind
Lord Byron:?She Walks in Beauty
John Keats:?To Autumn / On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer
Robert Browning:?My Last Duchess
Mathew Arnold:?Dover Beach
W. B. Yeats:?When You are Old /Salley Gardens /The Lake Isle of Innisfree/The Wild Swans at Coole/ The Second Coming / Sailing to Byzantium
Emily Dickinson:?Because I could not Stop for Death/ I heard a Fly Buzz When I died/ The Brain is Wider than the Sky/ Water is Taught by Thirst
Walt Whitman:?I Hear America Singing
Robert Frost:?Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening/ Mending Wall/ Aquainted With the Night
Elizabeth Bishop:?One Art / The Imaginary Iceberg戲劇:
William Shakespeare:??Excerpt from Romeo and Juliet/ “The Balcony Scene”
William Shakespeare:??Excerpt from Hamlet “To be or Not to be” Soliloquy
William Shakespeare: ?Macbeth
Henrik Ibsen :? ?A Doll’s House
Susan Glaspell：?Trifles
Sophocles：??Antigone

小說:

Thomas Hardy:?Tess of Dur’ Beeville’s
Jane Austin:?Pride and Prejudice
Charlotte Bronte:?Jane Eyre
Emily Bronte:?Wuthering Heights
Oscar Wilde:?The Picture of Dorian Gray
Joseph Conrad:?Heart of Darkness
Virginia Woolf:?Mrs. Dalloway
Nathaniel Hawthorn:?The Scarlet Letter
Mark Twain:?The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
F. Scott Fitzgerald:?The Great Gatsby
Earnest Hemingway:??A Farewell to Arms
Kate Chopin:?The Awakening
Henry James:?The Turn of the Screw
Alice Walker:?The Color Purple
Amy Tan:?Joy Luck Club

短篇小說:

James Joys:??Araby
Virginia Woolf:?The Lady in the Looking Glass
Nathaniel Hawthorn:??The Minister’s Black Veil
Kate Chopin:?The Story of an Hour
Ernest Hemingway:?In Another Country
William Faulkner:?A Rose for Emily

散文：

Jonathan Swift:??A Modest Proposal
Francis Bacon:??Of Studies
Thomas De Quincy:?On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth
Ralph Waldo Emerson:??Nature / Self-reliance
Henry David Thoreau:?Walden / On Civil Disobedience

7.AP樣題

為了讓大家切實感受到AP文學考試的題目類型和難度，以下選擇了一篇有代表性的詩歌MC，還有essay 題目兩篇，代表真正考試的essay 1和essay 3。

Multitple Choice p : Question 1 to 12.Read the following poem carefully before you mark your answers.RemembranceCold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee.

Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee
Severed at last by Time’s all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern leaves cover
Thy noble heart forever, ever more?

Cold in the earth-—and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring;
Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world’s tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lighted up my heaven,
No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life’s bliss from thee dear life has given,
All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.
But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.

Then did I check the tears of useless passion—
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Stern denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pains;
Once drinking of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?

1.? ?This poem is best identified as

A.? A ballad
B.? An apostrophe
C.? An elegy
D.? A lyric
E.? ?A sonnet

2.? This poem’s structure is specially that of

A.? aabb rhyme scheme throughout
B.? blank verse
C.? free verse
D.? alternating rhymed couplets
E.? alternating rhymed lines within quatrains

3.? The metaphor present in the second stanza concerns

A. northern mountains
B.? noble heart
C.? heath and fern
D.? winged thoughts
E.? hovering birds

4. Which stanza contains examples of all of the following: alliteration, assonance, anaphora, and consonance?

A.? one
B.? four
C. five
D. six
E. eight

5.? The reader can infer from this passage that the narrator has

A.? continued to weep for a loved one
B.? found new joy to live for
C.? never stopped yearning
D.? lamented a death for 15 years
E.? been unfaithful to the departed

6.? The narrator’s diction within the last two stanzas is that of

A.? a sorrowful child
B.? a desperate mourner
C.? an ominous portender
D.? a passionate young woman
E.? a struggling disciplinarian

7. The narrator’s tone in stanzas four and five can best be described as

A.? apology and acquittal
B.? lamentation and sorrow
C.? resignation and determination
D.? reminiscence and nostalgia
E.? desperation and despair

8.? In line 29, the word “it” refers to

A.? “tears of useless passion”(line 25)
B.? ?“my life’s bliss”(line 20)
C.? ?“days of golden dreams”(line 21)
D.? ?“my young soul”(line 26)
E.? ?“memory’s rapturous pain”(line 30)

9.? The narrator’s present attitude toward what might have been is one of

A.? wistful regret
B.? despair and anguish
C.? passionate remorse
D.? blissful reminiscence
E.? ?change and suffering

10.? Stanzas one and eight can be said to

A.? capture the message of the poem
B.? bring the poem full circle
C.? imply blissful, unrequited passion within the narrator
D.? demonstrate the narrator’s therapeutic healing
E.? remonstrate with the narrator’s suicidal notion

11.? The final stanza of this poem has at least two examples of

A.? metaphor
B.? oxymoron
C.? synecdoche
D.? onomatopoeia
E.? conceit

12.? The reader can infer from stanza four that

A.? ?a new love has entered the narrator’s life
B.? ?the narrator has worse things to cope with than another’s death
C.? one’s existence can only be strengthened by feeding it with joy
D.? life, even after great loss, can and should continue
E.? ?the narrator was destroyed by Despair

13.? The narrator makes reference to all of the following EXCEPT

A.? ?the passing of 15 years
B.? new hopes and desires that obscure memory
C.? memories like winged spirits
D.? the inability to live without the departed
E.? fear of the soul’s indulgence in rapturous pain

Essay question 1

The following excerpt is taken from Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act I. Read it carefully and then in a well-organized essay analyze Macbeth's internal conflict before his murder of King Duncan. You may wish to consider tone, figures of speech, diction, imagery or any other relevant literary element.

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly. If th’assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success: that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all, here,
But here upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgement here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions which, being taught, return
To plague th’inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends th’ingredience of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against
The deep damnation of his taking-off,
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’other.

Essay question 2

From a novel or play, identify a character (not necessarily the protagonist) who, regardless of the consequences, takes a risk of some kind. Then in a well-organized essay, describe the risk and its motivation. Also explain how the character's action illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Choose any of the titles in the following list, or choose one of comparable literary merit. Avoid mere plot summary.

The Catcher in the Rye
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet
A Doll's House
A Tale of Two Cities
Macbeth
The Awakening
Anna Karinina
Crime and Punishment
Jane Eyre
The Old Man and the Sea
Paradise Lost
Moby Dick
The Red Badge of Courage
Dr. Faustus
Antigone
Robinson Crusoe
King Lea