AP English Language and Composition Tutoring for the May Exam
AP English Language and Composition looks like an English course but is really a course in argument: every passage is nonfiction, and the exam rewards students who explain how a writer’s choices serve a purpose, not those who spot devices. Fluent readers are often surprised to find that summary, however accurate, earns very little on the essays.
Short answer
AP English Language and Composition is offered online, one-to-one or in a group class.
A private lesson runs 90 minutes and starts at USD 65 per lesson; the group course runs 50 lessons of 90 minutes for USD 1,755, and a class never takes more than 6 students.
Group classes next begin on 28 September 2027.
From USD 65 per lesson
- 2 scored components, from AP Central
- Live online lessons of 90 minutes
- From USD 65 per lesson
How AP English Language and Composition is assessed
Set and scored by College Board and reported on the 1–5 AP scale. Each university sets its own rule on which scores earn credit or placement. Component names are as College Board prints them.
College Board
AP English Language and Composition · AP Central exam page
| Component | Share of score | Length | What it involves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section I: Multiple Choice | 45% | 1 hour | 45 questions in 1 hour, in 5 sets: 23–25 reading questions that ask you to analyse nonfiction texts and 20–22 writing questions that ask you to “read like a writer” and consider possible revisions to the passages. |
| Section II: Free Response | 55% | 2 hours 15 min | 3 essays in 2 hours 15 minutes, including a 15-minute reading period, typed in Bluebook; about 40 minutes is recommended for each, and each is scored out of 6. Synthesis: read 6 sources on a topic, including visual and quantitative ones, and write an argument that draws on and cites at least 3 of them. Rhetorical Analysis: analyse how a nonfiction writer’s language choices contribute to the text’s intended meaning and purpose. Argument: build an evidence-based argument on a given topic. |
- The whole exam is taken in College Board’s Bluebook app.
- 2027 exam date: 12 May 2027.
Checked on 8 October 2026
College Board revises individual exams between years. The exam page linked above is the authority for your sitting.
The AP English Language and Composition syllabus
Topic names are left in English, as they appear on the paper and in the mark scheme.
Unit 1
Identifying the purpose and intended audience of a text · Examining how evidence supports a claim · Developing paragraphs as part of an effective argument
Unit 2
Analyzing audience and its relationship to the purpose of an argument · Building an argument with relevant and strategic evidence · Developing thesis statements · Developing structure and integrating evidence to reflect a line of reasoning
Unit 3
Identifying and describing different claims or lines of reasoning · Identifying and avoiding flawed lines of reasoning · Introducing and integrating sources and evidence · Attributing and citing references
Unit 4
Developing and connecting thesis statements and lines of reasoning · Developing introductions and conclusions · Developing parts of a text with comparison–contrast and definition–description methods
Unit 5
Developing commentary throughout paragraphs · Maintaining ideas throughout an argument · Using modifiers to qualify an argument and convey perspective · Using transitions
Unit 6
Incorporating multiple perspectives strategically into an argument · Recognizing and accounting for bias · Adjusting an argument to address new evidence · Analyzing tone and shifts in tone
Unit 7
Examining complexities in issues · Examining how counterargument or alternative perspectives affect an argument · Exploring how sentence development affects an argument
Unit 8
Choosing comparisons based on an audience · Considering how all choices made in an argument affect the audience · Considering how style affects an argument
Unit 9
Strategically conceding, rebutting, or refuting information · Crafting an argument through stylistic choices like word choice and description
Where AP English Language and Composition marks are usually lost
Naming devices instead of explaining choices
In the Rhetorical Analysis essay, College Board’s scoring guidelines place responses that mention rhetorical choices with little or no explanation near the bottom of the scale for evidence and commentary. Listing anaphora, ethos and imagery earns almost nothing; what scores is showing how a specific choice moves a particular audience towards the writer’s purpose, and how the choices build on one another across the passage.
Summarising the sources in the synthesis essay
The Synthesis essay gives students a set of sources and asks for their own position. Under time pressure, many walk through the sources one by one, so the essay reads as a summary and the commentary score stays low. The sources are evidence for a line of reasoning the student controls: each paragraph should open with the student’s own claim, then use and cite a source to support it.
Treating the writing questions as grammar questions
A large share of the multiple-choice questions are writing questions: they present a draft and ask which revision best serves the writer’s purpose, audience or line of reasoning. Students who prepared only for reading comprehension, or who treat these as grammar checks, choose the version that sounds right rather than the one that does the job the question names. Reading the stated goal first is the habit to build.
How we teach AP English Language and Composition
A tutor treats Language as a writing course with reading at its centre. Each week the student reads a short nonfiction piece — a speech, an essay, an opinion column — and writes one paragraph explaining how a single choice serves the writer’s purpose and audience, before building up to full timed essays. Essays are scored against College Board’s published rubrics, row by row, so the student sees whether a lost point came from the thesis, the commentary or the line of reasoning. The multiple-choice writing questions, which ask how a passage could be revised, get their own practice, since they reward an editor’s eye rather than a critic’s. Because the essays are typed in Bluebook, later practice is typed and timed.
There is no separate diagnostic, because there is no single test that stands in for two years of a school syllabus. The first lesson is the assessment: the tutor works through your recent marked work, past-paper questions from your own specification, and the units your school has already covered, and reads current level, gaps, exam technique and where school work stands. It is a normal paid lesson and it teaches as it assesses.
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