AP notes 1-20

Question 1

a short, simple narrative of an incident, often used for humorous effect or to make a point

Answer 1

anecdote

Question 2

writing that attempts to prove the validity of a point of view or idea by presenting “reasoning” arguments; persuasive writing is a form of argumentation and is the focus of the AP language and composition program.

Answer 2

argumentation

Question 3

extended narrative of an incident in prose or verse in which characters , events and settings represent abstract qualities in which the writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface of the story; may be moral, religious, political, social, or satiric.

Answer 3

allegory

Question 4

explanatory notes added to a test to explain, cite sources, or give bibliographic data in AP language you will need to demonstrate detailed annotation on most readings.

Answer 4

annotation

Question 5

the presentation of 2 contrasting images. the ideas are balanced by word, phrase, clause, or paragraphs. “to be or not to be…” “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what can you do for your country.”

Answer 5

antithesis

Question 6

the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques. this is the core of the AP language program.

Answer 6

rhetoric

Question 7

a word or phrase (including slang) used in everyday conversations and informal writing but that is often inappropriate in formal writing (y’all, ain’t, can’t, somethin’)

Answer 7

colloquialism

Question 8

words suggesting implied meaning because of its association in a readers mind. this is the opposite of denotation.

Answer 8

connotation

Question 9

repetition of identical consonant sounds within 2 or more words in close proximity: boot/beat/best/brag, or even compound words: fulfill, ping-pong.

Answer 9

consonance

Question 10

descriptive writing that greatly exaggerates a specific feature of a persons appearance or a facet of personality.

Answer 10

caricature

Question 11

the “quality” of a piece of writing in which all the parts contribute to the development of the central idea/theme or organizing principal.

Answer 11

coherence

Question 12

a short, often witty, statement of a principle or truth about life. Benjamin Franklin was somewhat famous for those in Poor Richards Almanac, “the early bird gets the worm”

Answer 12

aphorism

Question 13

usually in poetry, but sometimes in prose: the device of calling out to an imaginary,dead, or absent person or to a place, thing or personified abstraction.

Answer 13

apostrophe

Question 14

also referred to as dissonance… hard awkward or dissonant sounds used deliberately in p or try or prose; opposite of euphony.

Answer 14

cacophony

Question 15

connotation is the emotion or feeling you get from a word. denotation is the definition of the word.

Answer 15

connotation/denotation

Question 16

rhetorical device used for listing the details of a process of mentioning words or phrases step by step. it is a type of amplification or division in which a subject is further distributed into components or parts. writers use this to clarify and detail understanding.

Answer 16

enumeration

Question 17

comparison in which an idea or a thing is compared to another thing that is quite different from it. it aims at explaining the idea or thing by comparing it to something that is familiar.

Answer 17

analogy

Question 18

use of components in a sentence that are grammatically the same; or similar in their construction, sound, meaning or meter. parallelism examples are found it literary works as well as in ordinary conversations.

Answer 18

parallelism

Question 19

brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary, or political significance. it does not describe in detail the person or thing to which it refers. it is just a passing comment and the writer expects the reader to possess enough knowledge to spot the allusion and grasp its importance in a text.

Answer 19

allusion

Question 20

figure of speech that replaces the name of a things with the name of something else with which it is closely associated. we can come across examples of metonymy both from literature and in everyday life. don’t confuse this with a metaphor as a metonymy is not creating a comparison.

Answer 20

metonymy