ASIM'S WEBWORLD View: AP English Scoring Guide Sample Question Sample Response One Sample Response Two Scoring of Sample Two		AP ENGLISH - LITERATURE TEST: Scoring Commentary for Response One This essay, which received a score of 9 at the Reading, was one of the very best essays received for this poetry question. It is included here not to represent essays typical of those in the 8-9 range, but to show you a distinguished response, an example of what the most accomplished students are capable of writing on this examination. Also, it provides such a clear and accurate explanation, it can serve you as a reliable guide to the two poems on this question. Reading an example of an outstanding essay should not discourage anyone, but rather motivate you to develop your own skills in writing and literary analysis so that your response to essay questions -- whether on the AP Examination or for any college course -- will reflect your best abilities. This essay, then, represents a goal -- a model of the heights it is possible for students to achieve. The poems are, after all, about stars. The writer begins by taking all the requirements of the question into account, noting that although the poems are "similar in their address to a star," they "differ in form, tone and theme." Thus, the student addresses the tasks of discussing the poems' similarities and differences and considering both theme and style. Throughout the essay the writer explains not only what, but how the poem says. The essay is organized first into a discussion of Keats' poem and then Frost's; the discussion of each poem contains a carefully integrated analysis of style and content. The student explains how the forms of the poems differ; "Bright Star" is a traditional sonnet, but Frost's poem is "freer" in form with "a varying rhyme scheme." He or she also explains that the tone of the Keats poem is "elegiac"; Frost's has "a conversational tone" that is even in places playful. Apt examples from the texts are used to support and illustrate all such assertions. The student notes that both poems begin with an apostrophe to the star; both poems present the star as representing steadfastness. But the student also recognizes that in Keats' poem, the speaker's concern is being faithful to an individual -- steadfastness as fidelity in love; the speaker in Frost's poem is concerned with being faithful to individual values -- steadfastness as fidelity to one's own beliefs in spite of the current opinions of the "mob." This essay is not perfect; the explanation of the alliteration, for example, strains credulity, but it is characterized by remarkably perceptive and cogent comments. Well focused and precisely worded, the analysis is fully developed and fluently written.