Week 36: Week 36 — AP Exam Readiness III: Full Practice
Week of Mon, May 31 · week closes Sun, Jun 6
This week's items
Exact due times are in Canvas. Late work accepted at 10% per day; assessed work not accepted late. Vocabulary quizzes are unannounced and cannot be made up.
Know these cold
- A full practice session mirrors the actual AP exam: multiple-choice section first (approximately 60 minutes), then free-response (approximately 135 minutes with reading time). Running full-length practice at actual exam conditions builds the endurance and pacing awareness the exam demands.
- Deliberate practice is organized around specific identified weaknesses, not around repetition of what already works. After each practice essay, identify the one change that would most raise the score on the weakest band — then practice that change specifically.
- To calibrate is to adjust carefully so that performance and time allocation match actual exam demands. Knowing how long your planning, drafting, and revision actually take in exam conditions — not in ideal conditions — is calibration.
- Active reading in the multiple-choice section means annotating the passage for argument, tone, and structure as you read — before reading the questions. This annotation holds the passage's logic in mind across the five to ten questions that follow.
- For the free-response essays: begin each with prompt annotation (two minutes), thesis drafting (three minutes), body development (twenty-eight minutes), and a final read (two minutes). Adjust this distribution based on what your calibration practice reveals about your actual timing.
- The source tour is the synthesis essay's most common failure under time pressure: citing each provided source in order rather than arranging evidence to support an original argument. Under pressure, prioritize original-claim-first structure.
- The argument essay's most common failure under time pressure is insufficient development — a strong thesis followed by body paragraphs with evidence but no explanation of how the evidence connects to the claim. Reserve time to write the reasoning step explicitly.
- After the practice: score what can be scored, apply the four-band self-assessment to each essay, and write three sentences — your strongest performance area, your weakest, and one specific action you will take to address the weakness before exam day.
Meerk's quiz — open the Week 36 gate
10 questions, no time limit. 85% on your first attempt in a 24-hour window opens the gate. Retakes inside the window are practice — they help you learn, they don't count. Work alone; the point is to know it, not to have seen it.
Dinner Table Question
Ask at home: After a full year of AP Language, what does it mean to you now to be persuaded — and to persuade?
En español: Después de un año completo de AP Language, ¿qué significa para ti ahora ser persuadido y persuadir?