2019 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE­RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2
Suggested time—40 minutes.
(This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)
In 1930 Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi led a nonviolent march in India protesting Britain’s colonial monopoly on
and taxation of an essential resource: salt. The Salt March, as it came to be known, was a triggering moment for the
larger civil disobedience movement that eventually won India independence from Britain in 1947. Shortly before the
Salt March, Gandhi had written to Viceroy Lord Irwin, the representative of the British crown in India. The passage
below is the conclusion of that letter. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the
rhetorical choices Gandhi makes to present his case to Lord Irwin.
I know that in embarking on non-violence, I shall though they undoubtedly are for the consideration of
be running what might fairly be termed a mad risk. any scheme of Government they have little bearing
But the victories of truth have never been won 45 on the greater problems which are above communities
Line without risks, often of the gravest character. and which affect them all equally. But if you cannot
5 Conversion of a nation that has consciously or see your way to deal with these evils and my letter
unconsciously preyed upon another, far more makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day
numerous, far more ancient, and no less cultured of this month, I shall proceed with such co-workers of
than itself, is worth any amount of risk. 50 the Ashram1 as I can take, to disregard the provisions
I have deliberately used the word conversion. For of the salt laws. I regard this tax to be the most
10 my ambition is no less than to convert the British iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint.
people through non-violence, and thus to make them As the independence movement is essentially for the
see the wrong they have done to India. I do not seek poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with
to harm your people. I want to serve them even as I 55 this evil. The wonder is that we have submitted to the
want to serve my own. I believe that I have always cruel monopoly for so long. It is, I know, open to you
15 served them. to frustrate my design by arresting me. I hope that
I served them up to 1919, blindly. But when my there will be tens of thousands ready, in a disciplined
eyes were opened and I conceived non-co-operation, manner, to take up the work after me, and, in the act
the object still was to serve them. I employed the 60 of disobeying the Salt Act2, to lay themselves open to
same weapon that I have, in all humility, successfully the penalties of a law that should never have
20 used against the dearest members of my family. If I disfigured the statute book.
have equal love for your people with mine, it will not I have no desire to cause you unnecessary
long remain hidden. It will be acknowledged by them, embarrassment, or any at all, so far as I can help. If
even as the members of my family acknowledged, 65 you think that there is any substance in my letter, and
after they had tried me for several years. If the people if you will care to discuss matters with me, and if to
25 join me, as I expect they will, the sufferings they will that end you would like me to postpone publication
undergo, unless the British nation sooner retraces its of this letter, I shall gladly refrain on receipt of a
steps, will be enough to melt the stoniest hearts. telegram to that effect soon after this reaches you.
The plan through civil disobedience will be to 70 You will, however, do me the favour not to deflect
combat such evils as I have sampled out. If we want me from my course, unless you can see your way to
30 to sever the British connection it is because of such conform to the substance of this letter.
evils. When they are removed, the path becomes easy. This letter is not in any way intended as a threat,
Then the way to friendly negotiation will be open. If but is a simple and sacred duty, peremptory on a civil
the British commerce with India is purified of greed, 75 resister. Therefore, I am having it specially delivered
you will have no difficulty in recognizing our by a young English friend who believes in the Indian
35 independence. I invite you then to pave the way for cause and is a full believer in non-violence and whom
immediate removal of those evils, and thus open a Providence seems to have sent to me, as it were, for
way for a real conference between equals, interested the very purpose.
only in promoting the common good of mankind
through voluntary fellowship and in arranging terms 1 A spiritual retreat or monastery for a community of Hindus
40 of mutual help and commerce equally suited to both. 2 The India Salt Act (1882) enforced the British colonial government’s
You have unnecessarily laid stress upon communal monopoly on the collection, manufacture, and sale of salt in India.
problems that unhappily affect this land. Important
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 Question 2
Suggested time— 40 minutes.
(This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

In 1997, then United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave the commencement speech to the graduating
class of Mount Holyoke College, a women’s college in Massachusetts. Read the following excerpt from her speech
carefully. Then write a well-developed essay in which you analyze the choices Albright makes to convey her
message to the audience.

As individuals, each of us must choose whether to entrapped by poverty and discrimination are
live our lives narrowly, selfishly and complacently, or 35 empowered to share, and in which every democracy
to act with courage and faith. on every continent will be included.
Line As a nation, America must choose whether to turn In our lifetimes, we have seen enormous advances
5 inward and betray the lessons of history, or to seize in the status of women. We could now lower our
the opportunity before us to shape history. Today, voices and — as some suggest —sit sedately down.
under the leadership of President Clinton, America is 40 Instead, women everywhere —whether bumping
making the right choice. against a glass ceiling or rising from a dirt floor —are
The Berlin Wall is now a memory. We could be standing up, spreading the word that we are ready to
10 satisfied with that. Instead, we are enlarging and claim our rightful place as full citizens and full
adapting NATO1 and striving to create a future for participants in every society on Earth.
Europe in which every democracy—including Russia 45 Mount Holyoke is the home, to borrow
— is our partner and every partner is a builder of Wendy Wasserstein’s phrase, of “uncommon
peace. women.” But we know that there are uncommon
15 Largely because of U.S. leadership, nuclear women in all corners of the globe.
weapons no longer target our homes. We could relax. In recent years, I have met in Sarajevo with women
Instead, we are working to reduce nuclear arsenals 50 weighted down by personal grief reaching out across
further, eliminate chemical weapons, end the ethnic lines to rebuild their shattered society.
child-maiming scourge of land mines and ratify a In Burundi, I have seen women taking the lead in
20 treaty that would ban nuclear explosions forever. efforts to avoid the fate of neighboring Rwanda,
The fighting in Bosnia has stopped. We could turn where violence left three-quarters of the population
our backs now and risk renewed war. Instead, we are 55 female, and one-half of the women widows.
renewing our commitment, and insisting that the In Guatemala, I have talked to women striving to
parties meet theirs, to implement the Dayton ensure that their new peace endures and is
25 Accords.2 And we are backing the War Crimes accompanied by justice and an end to discrimination
Tribunal, because we believe that those responsible and abuse.
for ethnic cleansing should be held accountable and 60 And in Burma, I have met with a remarkable
those who consider rape just another tactic of war woman named Aung San Suu Kyi, who risks her life
should answer for their crimes. every day to keep alive the hope for democracy in her
30 We have built a growing world economy in which country.
those with modern skills and available capital have
done very well. We could stop there. Instead, we are
pursuing a broader prosperity, in which those

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 These women have in common a determination to
65 chart their own path, and by so doing, to alter for the
better the course of their country or community.
Each has suffered blows, but each has proceeded
with courage. Each has persevered.
As you go along your own road in life, you will, if
70 you aim high enough, also meet resistance, for as
Robert Kennedy once said, “if there’s nobody in your
way, it’s because you’re not going anywhere.” But no
matter how tough the opposition may seem, have
courage still —and persevere.
75 There is no doubt, if you aim high enough, that you
will be confronted by those who say that your efforts
to change the world or improve the lot of those
around you do not mean much in the grand scheme
of things. But no matter how impotent you may
80 sometimes feel, have courage still —and persevere.
It is certain, if you aim high enough, that you will
find your strongest beliefs ridiculed and challenged;
principles that you cherish may be derisively
dismissed by those claiming to be more practical or
85 realistic than you. But no matter how weary you may
become in persuading others to see the value in what
you value, have courage still —and persevere.
Inevitably, if you aim high enough, you will
be buffeted by demands of family, friends and
90 employment that will conspire to distract you from
your course. But no matter how difficult it may be to
meet the commitments you have made, have courage
still —and persevere.
It has been said that all work that is worth anything
95 is done in faith.
This morning, in these beautiful surroundings,
at this celebration of warm memory and high
expectation, I summon you in the name of this
historic college and of all who have passed through its
100 halls, to embrace the faith that your courage and your
perseverance will make a difference; and that every
life enriched by your giving, every friend touched by
your affection, every soul inspired by your passion
and every barrier to justice brought down by your
105 determination, will ennoble your own life, inspire
others, serve your country, and explode outward the
boundaries of what is achievable on this earth.
1 military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty of
April 4, 1949
2 peace agreement ending the war in Bosnia, signed in 1995

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 2017 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2
Suggested time—40 minutes.
(This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

The passage below is the opening to a speech made in 1960 by American journalist and politician Clare Boothe Luce
to journalists at the Women’s National Press Club. In this speech, Luce went on to criticize the tendency of the
American press to sacrifice journalistic integrity in favor of the perceived public demand for sensationalist stories.
Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-developed essay, analyze how Luce uses this introduction to prepare the
audience for her message. Support your analysis of her rhetoric with specific references to the text.

I am happy and flattered to be a guest of honor on the moon looks larger coming over the horizon than it
this always exciting and challenging occasion. But 35 does when it has fully risen in the heavens. It is the
looking over this audience tonight, I am less happy effort, too, to describe the lives of men—and women
Line than you might think and more challenged than you —big and small, close at hand or thousands of miles
5 could know. I stand here at this rostrum invited to away, familiar in their behavior or unfamiliar in
throw rocks at you. You have asked me to tell you their idiosyncrasies. It is—to use the big word—the
what’s wrong with you—the American press. The 40 pursuit of and the effort to state the truth.
subject not only is of great national significance but No audience knows better than an audience of
also has, one should say, infinite possibilities—and journalists that the pursuit of the truth, and the
10 infinite perils to the rock thrower. articulation of it, is the most delicate, hazardous,
For the banquet speaker who criticizes the exacting, and inexact of tasks. Consequently, no
weaknesses and pretensions, or exposes the follies 45 audience is more forgiving (I hope) to the speaker
and sins, of his listeners—even at their invitation— who fails or stumbles in his own pursuit of it. The
does not generally evoke an enthusiastic—no less only failure this audience could never excuse in any
15 a friendly—response. The delicate art of giving speaker would be the failure to try to tell the truth, as
an audience hell is always one best left to the he sees it, about his subject.
Billy Grahams and the Bishop Sheens.* 50 In my perilous but earnest effort to do so here
But you are an audience of journalists. There is no tonight, I must begin by saying that if there is much
audience anywhere who should be more bored— that is wrong with the American press, there is also
20 indeed, more revolted—by a speaker who tried to much that is right with it.
fawn on it, butter it up, exaggerate its virtues, play I know, then, that you will bear with me, much as it
down its faults, and who would more quickly see 55 may go against your professional grain, if I ask you to
through any attempt to do so. I ask you only to accept some of the good with the bad—even though it
remember that I am not a volunteer for this subject may not make such good copy for your newspapers.
25 tonight. You asked for it! For the plain fact is that the U. S. daily press today
For what is good journalism all about? On a is not inspiringly good; it is just far and away the best
working, finite level it is the effort to achieve 60 press in the world.
illuminating candor in print and to strip away cant.
It is the effort to do this not only in matters of state,
30 diplomacy, and politics but also in every smaller * Billy Graham, an American Christian evangelist, and Fulton John
aspect of life that touches the public interest or Sheen, an American Catholic archbishop, both became renowned for their
religious oratory. Their speeches were widely broadcast on radio and
engages proper public curiosity. It is the effort to television.
explain everything from a summit conference to why

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 Question 2
Suggested time—40 minutes.
(This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

On June 11, 2004, Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of Great Britain, delivered the following eulogy to
the American people in honor of former United States president Ronald Reagan, with whom she had worked closely.
Read the eulogy carefully. Then, in a well-developed essay, analyze the rhetorical strategies that Thatcher uses to
convey her message.
We have lost a great president, a great American, tell you why it is we distrust you.” Those words are
and a great man, and I have lost a dear friend. candid and tough, and they cannot have been easy to
In his lifetime, Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful 45 hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new
Line and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted
5 what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought in trust.
to mend America’s wounded spirit, to restore the We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan
strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of began to reshape with those words. It is a very
communism. These were causes hard to accomplish 50 different world, with different challenges and new
and heavy with risk, yet they were pursued with dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater
10 almost a lightness of spirit, for Ronald Reagan also freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the
embodied another great cause, what Arnold Bennett world he inherited on becoming president.
once called “the great cause of cheering us all up.” As Prime Minister, I worked closely with
His policies had a freshness and optimism that won 55 Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years
converts from every class and every nation, and of all our lives. We talked regularly, both before and
15 ultimately, from the very heart of the “evil empire.”1 after his presidency, and I’ve had time and cause to
Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond reflect on what made him a great president.
humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm
life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious 60 principles and, I believe, right ones. He expounded
world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of them clearly. He acted upon them decisively. When
20 terror and in the midst of hysteria one great heart at the world threw problems at the White House, he was
least remained sane and jocular. They were truly not baffled or disorientated or overwhelmed.
grace under pressure. And perhaps they signified He knew almost instinctively what to do.
grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly 65 When his aides were preparing option papers for
believed that he had been given back his life for a his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of
25 purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery, proposals that they knew the old man would never
“Whatever time I’ve got left now belongs to the big wear. When his allies came under Soviet or domestic
fella upstairs.” And surely, it is hard to deny that pressure, they could look confidently to Washington
Ronald Reagan’s life was providential when we look 70 for firm leadership, and when his enemies tested
at what he achieved in the eight years that followed. American resolve, they soon discovered that his
30 Others prophesied the decline of the West. He resolve was firm and unyielding.
inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in Yet his ideas, so clear, were never simplistic. He
their mission of freedom. saw the many sides of truth. Yes, he warned that the
Others saw only limits to growth. He transformed a 75 Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military
stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity. power and territorial expansion, but he also sensed
35 Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation that it was being eaten away by systemic failures
with the Soviet Union. He won the Cold War, not impossible to reform. Yes, he did not shrink from
only without firing a shot, but also by inviting denouncing Moscow’s evil empire, but he realized
enemies out of their fortress and turning them into 80 that a man of good will might nonetheless emerge
friends. from within its dark corridors.
40 I cannot imagine how any diplomat or any So the president resisted Soviet expansion and
dramatist could improve on his words to pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until
Mikhail Gorbachev2 at the Geneva summit. “Let me the day came when communism began to collapse

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85 beneath the combined weight of those pressures and
its own failures. And when a man of good will did
emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped
forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere
cooperation.
90 Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than
that large-hearted magnanimity, and nothing was
more American.
Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his
achievements. Ronald Reagan carried the American
95 people with him in his great endeavours because there
was perfect sympathy between them. He and they
loved America and what it stands for: freedom and
opportunity for ordinary people.
1
A phrase used by Reagan to describe the Soviet Union

2
The leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985
to 1991

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 2015 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Question 2
(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)
On the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., labor union organizer and civil rights
leader Cesar Chavez published an article in the magazine of a religious organization devoted to helping those in
need. Read the following excerpt from the article carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the rhetorical
choices Chavez makes to develop his argument about nonviolent resistance.
Dr. King’s entire life was an example of power that which seethe inside every farm worker. The burdens
nonviolence brings to bear in the real world. It is an of generations of poverty and powerlessness lie heavy
example that inspired much of the philosophy and 50 in the fields of America. If we fail, there are those
Line strategy of the farm workers’ movement. This who will see violence as the shortcut to change.
5 observance of Dr. King’s death gives us the best It is precisely to overcome these frustrations that
possible opportunity to recall the principles with we have involved masses of people in their own
which our struggle has grown and matured. struggle throughout the movement. Freedom is
Our conviction is that human life is a very special 55 best experienced through participation and self-
possession given by God to man and that no one has determination, and free men and women instinctively
10 the right to take it for any reason or for any cause, prefer democratic change to any other means.
however just it may be. Thus, demonstrations and marches, strikes and
We are also convinced that nonviolence is more boycotts are not only weapons against the growers,
powerful than violence. Nonviolence supports you if 60 but our way of avoiding the senseless violence that
you have a just and moral cause. Nonviolence brings no honor to any class or community. The
15 provides the opportunity to stay on the offensive, and boycott, as Gandhi taught, is the most nearly perfect
that is of crucial importance to win any contest. instrument of nonviolent change, allowing masses of
If we resort to violence then one of two things will people to participate actively in a cause.
happen: either the violence will be escalated and there 65 When victory comes through violence, it is a
will be many injuries and perhaps deaths on both victory with strings attached. If we beat the growers at
20 sides, or there will be total demoralization of the the expense of violence, victory would come at the
workers. expense of injury and perhaps death. Such a thing
Nonviolence has exactly the opposite effect. If, for would have a tremendous impact on us. We would
every violent act committed against us, we respond 70 lose regard for human beings. Then the struggle
with nonviolence, we attract people’s support. We can would become a mechanical thing. When you lose
25 gather the support of millions who have a conscience your sense of life and justice, you lose your strength.
and would rather see a nonviolent resolution to The greater the oppression, the more leverage
problems. We are convinced that when people are nonviolence holds. Violence does not work in the
faced with a direct appeal from the poor struggling 75 long run and if it is temporarily successful, it replaces
nonviolently against great odds, they will react one violent form of power with another just as
30 positively. The American people and people violent. People suffer from violence.
everywhere still yearn for justice. It is to that Examine history. Who gets killed in the case of
yearning that we appeal. violent revolution? The poor, the workers. The people
But if we are committed to nonviolence only as a 80 of the land are the ones who give their bodies and
strategy or tactic, then if it fails our only alternative is don’t really gain that much for it. We believe it is too
35 to turn to violence. So we must balance the strategy big a price to pay for not getting anything. Those who
with a clear understanding of what we are doing. espouse violence exploit people. To call men to arms
However important the struggle is and however much with many promises, to ask them to give up their lives
misery, poverty and exploitation exist, we know that 85 for a cause and then not produce for them afterwards,
it cannot be more important than one human life. We is the most vicious type of oppression.
40 work on the theory that men and women who are truly We know that most likely we are not going to do
concerned about people are nonviolent by nature. anything else the rest of our lives except build our
These people become violent when the deep concern union. For us there is nowhere else to go. Although
they have for people is frustrated and when they are 90 we would like to see victory come soon, we are
faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. willing to wait. In this sense, time is our ally. We
45 We advocate militant nonviolence as our means of learned many years ago that the rich may have
achieving justice for our people, but we are not blind money, but the poor have time.
to the feelings of frustration, impatience and anger
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 2014 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

In the following letter, Abigail Adams (1744–1818) writes to her son John Quincy Adams, who is traveling abroad
with his father, John Adams, a United States diplomat and later the country’s second president. Read the letter
carefully. Then, in a well-developed essay, analyze the rhetorical strategies Adams uses to advise her son. Support
your analysis with specific references to the text.

12 January, 1780. tyranny of Catiline, Verres, and Mark Anthony? The

habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending
MY DEAR SON, with difficulties. All history will convince you of this,
35 and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of
I hope you have had no occasion, either from experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure.
enemies or the dangers of the sea, to repent your Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind
second voyage to France. If I had thought your is raised and animated by scenes that engage the
Line reluctance arose from proper deliberation, or that you heart, then those qualities, which would otherwise lie
5 were capable of judging what was most for your own 40 dormant, wake into life and form the character of the
benefit, I should not have urged you to accompany hero and the statesman. War, tyranny, and desolation
your father and brother when you appeared so averse are the scourges of the Almighty, and ought no doubt
to the voyage. to be deprecated. Yet it is your lot, my son, to be an
You, however, readily submitted to my advice, eyewitness of these calamities in your own native
10 and, I hope, will never have occasion yourself, nor 45 land, and, at the same time, to owe your existence
give me reason, to lament it. Your knowledge of the among a people who have made a glorious defence of
language must give you greater advantages now than their invaded liberties, and who, aided by a generous
you could possibly have reaped whilst ignorant of it; and powerful ally, with the blessing of Heaven, will
and as you increase in years, you will find your transmit this inheritance to ages yet unborn.
15 understanding opening and daily improving. 50 Nor ought it to be one of the least of your
Some author, that I have met with, compares a incitements towards exerting every power and faculty
judicious traveller to a river, that increases its stream of your mind, that you have a parent who has taken so
the further it flows from its source; or to certain large and active a share in this contest, and discharged
springs, which, running through rich veins of the trust reposed in him with so much satisfaction as
20 minerals, improve their qualities as they pass along. 55 to be honored with the important embassy which at
It will be expected of you, my son, that, as you are present calls him abroad.
favored with superior advantages under the instructive The strict and inviolable regard you have ever paid
eye of a tender parent, your improvement should bear to truth, gives me pleasing hopes that you will not
some proportion to your advantages. Nothing is swerve from her dictates, but add justice, fortitude,
25 wanting with you but attention, diligence, and steady 60 and every manly virtue which can adorn a good
application. Nature has not been deficient. citizen, do honor to your country, and render your
These are times in which a genius would wish to parents supremely happy, particularly your ever
live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose affectionate mother,
of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.
30 Would Cicero have shone so distinguished an orator if A. A.
he had not been roused, kindled, and inflamed by the

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 2013 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

The passage below is from Last Child in the Woods (2008) by Richard Louv. Read the passage carefully. Then, in
a well-developed essay, analyze the rhetorical strategies Louv uses to develop his argument about the separation
between people and nature. Support your analysis with specific references to the text.

Researchers at the State University of New York at Sales are brisk; the prices are falling. Some systems
Buffalo are experimenting with a genetic technology include wireless, infrared-connected headsets. The
through which they can choose the colors that appear 40 children can watch Sesame Street or play Grand Theft
Line on butterfly wings. The announcement of this in Auto on their PlayStation without bothering the
5 2002 led writer Matt Richtel to conjure a brave new driver.
advertising medium: “There are countless possibilities Why do so many Americans say they want their
for moving ads out of the virtual world and into the children to watch less TV, yet continue to expand the
real one. Sponsorship-wise, it’s time for nature to 45 opportunities for them to watch it? More important,
carry its weight.” Advertisers already stamp their why do so many people no longer consider the
10 messages into the wet sands of public beaches. Cash- physical world worth watching? The highway’s edges
strapped municipalities hope corporations agree to may not be postcard perfect. But for a century,
affix their company logo on parks in exchange for children’s early understanding of how cities and
dollars to keep the public spaces maintained. “The 50 nature fit together was gained from the backseat: the
sheer popularity” of simulating nature or using nature empty farmhouse at the edge of the subdivision; the
15 as ad space “demands that we acknowledge, even variety of architecture, here and there; the woods and
respect, their cultural importance,” suggests Richtel. fields and water beyond the seamy edges— all that
Culturally important, yes. But the logical extension of was and is still available to the eye. This was the
synthetic nature is the irrelevance of “true” nature— 55 landscape that we watched as children. It was our
the certainty that it’s not even worth looking at. drive-by movie.
20 True, our experience of natural landscape Perhaps we’ll someday tell our grandchildren
“often occurs within an automobile looking out,” stories about our version of the nineteenth-century
as Elaine Brooks said. But now even that visual Conestoga wagon.
connection is optional. A friend of mine was shopping 60 “You did what?” they’ll ask.
for a new luxury car to celebrate her half-century of “Yes,” we’ll say, “it’s true. We actually looked
25 survival in the material world. She settled on a out the car window.” In our useful boredom, we used
Mercedes SUV, with a Global Positioning System: our fingers to draw pictures on fogged glass as we
just tap in your destination and the vehicle not only watched telephone poles tick by. We saw birds on the
provides a map on the dashboard screen, but talks you 65 wires and combines in the fields. We were fascinated
there. But she knew where to draw the line. “The with roadkill, and we counted cows and horses and
30 salesman’s jaw dropped when I said I didn’t want a coyotes and shaving-cream signs. We stared with a
backseat television monitor for my daughter,” she told kind of reverence at the horizon, as thunderheads and
me. “He almost refused to let me leave the dealership dancing rain moved with us. We held our little plastic
until he could understand why.” Rear-seat and in-dash 70 cars against the glass and pretended that they, too,
“multimedia entertainment products,” as they are were racing toward some unknown destination. We
35 called, are quickly becoming the hottest add-on since considered the past and dreamed of the future, and
rearview mirror fuzzy dice. The target market: parents watched it all go by in the blink of an eye.
who will pay a premium for a little backseat peace.

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 2012 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

On April 10, 1962, as the United States was emerging from a recession, the nation’s largest steel companies raised
steel prices by 3.5 percent. President John F. Kennedy, who had repeatedly called for stable prices and wages as part
of a program of national sacrifice during a period of economic distress, held a news conference on April 11, 1962,
which he opened with the following commentary regarding the hike in steel prices. Read Kennedy’s remarks
carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies President Kennedy uses to achieve his
purpose. Support your analysis with specific references to the text.

Simultaneous and identical actions of United And it is necessary to stem it for our national
States Steel and other leading steel corporations, security, if we are going to pay for our security
increasing steel prices by some 6 dollars a ton, commitments abroad. And it would surely handicap
Line constitute a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible our efforts to induce other industries and unions to
5 defiance of the public interest. 45 adopt responsible price and wage policies.
In this serious hour in our nation’s history, when The facts of the matter are that there is no
we are confronted with grave crises in Berlin and justification for an increase in the steel prices. The
Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies recent settlement between the industry and the union,
to economic recovery and stability, when we are which does not even take place until July 1st, was
10 asking Reservists to leave their homes and families 50 widely acknowledged to be non-inflationary, and the
for months on end, and servicemen to risk their whole purpose and effect of this Administration’s
lives— and four were killed in the last two days in role, which both parties understood, was to achieve
Viet Nam—and asking union members to hold an agreement which would make unnecessary any
down their wage requests, at a time when restraint increase in prices.
15 and sacrifice are being asked of every citizen, the 55 Steel output per man is rising so fast that labor
American people will find it hard, as I do, to accept a costs per ton of steel can actually be expected to
situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives decline in the next twelve months. And in fact, the
whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds Acting Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor
their sense of public responsibility can show such Statistics informed me this morning that, and I quote:
20 utter contempt for the interests of 185 million 60 “Employment costs per unit of steel output in 1961
Americans. were essentially the same as they were in 1958.”
If this rise in the cost of steel is imitated by the The cost of the major raw materials, steel scrap
rest of the industry, instead of rescinded, it would and coal, has also been declining, and for an industry
increase the cost of homes, autos, appliances, and which has been generally operating at less than two-
25 most other items for every American family. It 65 thirds of capacity, its profit rate has been normal and
would increase the cost of machinery and tools to can be expected to rise sharply this year in view of
every American businessman and farmer. It would the reduction in idle capacity. Their lot has been
seriously handicap our efforts to prevent an easier than that of a hundred thousand steel workers
inflationary spiral from eating up the pensions of our thrown out of work in the last three years. The
30 older citizens, and our new gains in purchasing 70 industry’s cash dividends have exceeded 600 million
power. dollars in each of the last five years, and earnings in
It would add, Secretary McNamara* informed me the first quarter of this year were estimated in the
this morning, an estimated one billion dollars to the February 28th Wall Street Journal to be among the
cost of our defenses, at a time when every dollar is highest in history.
35 needed for national security and other purposes. It 75 In short, at a time when they could be exploring
would make it more difficult for American goods to how more efficiency and better prices could be
compete in foreign markets, more difficult to obtained, reducing prices in this industry in
withstand competition from foreign imports, and recognition of lower costs, their unusually good
thus more difficult to improve our balance of labor contract, their foreign competition and their
40 payments position, and stem the flow of gold. 80 increase in production and profits which are coming

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 2012 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

this year, a few gigantic corporations have decided to decisions are so quickly made, and reached, and
increase prices in ruthless disregard of their public what legislative safeguards may be needed to protect
responsibilities. the public interest.
The Steel Workers Union can be proud that it Price and wage decisions in this country,
85 abided by its responsibilities in this agreement, and 100 except for very limited restrictions in the case of
this government also has responsibilities, which we monopolies and national emergency strikes, are
intend to meet. and ought to be freely and privately made, but
The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade the American people have a right to expect in
Commission are examining the significance of this return for that freedom, a higher sense of business
90 action in a free, competitive economy. 105 responsibility for the welfare of their country than
The Department of Defense and other agencies has been shown in the last two days.
are reviewing its impact on their policies of Some time ago I asked each American to consider
procurement, and I am informed that steps are what he would do for his country and I asked the
underway by those Members of the Congress who steel companies. In the last 24 hours we had their
95 plan appropriate inquiries into how these price 110 answer.

* Robert S. McNamara, secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968

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 2011 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

Florence Kelley (1859-1932) was a United States social worker and reformer who fought successfully for child labor
laws and improved conditions for working women. She delivered the following speech before the convention of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905. Read the speech carefully. Then
write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies Kelley uses to convey her message about child labor to
her audience. Support your analysis with specific references to the text.

We have, in this country, two million children [children] to stop work at six in the evening and at
under the age of sixteen years who are earning their noon on Friday. Now, therefore, in New Jersey, boys
bread. They vary in age from six and seven years and girls, after their 14th birthday, enjoy the pitiful
Line (in the cotton mills of Georgia) and eight, nine and 45 privilege of working all night long.
5 ten years (in the coal-breakers of Pennsylvania), to In Pennsylvania, until last May it was lawful for
fourteen, fifteen and sixteen years in more children, 13 years of age, to work twelve hours at
enlightened states. night. A little girl, on her thirteenth birthday, could
No other portion of the wage earning class start away from her home at half past five in the
increased so rapidly from decade to decade as the 50 afternoon, carrying her pail of midnight luncheon as
10 young girls from fourteen to twenty years. Men happier people carry their midday luncheon, and
increase, women increase, youth increase, boys could work in the mill from six at night until six in
increase in the ranks of the breadwinners; but no the morning, without violating any law of the
contingent so doubles from census period to census Commonwealth.
period (both by percent and by count of heads), as 55 If the mothers and the teachers in Georgia could
15 does the contingent of girls between twelve and vote, would the Georgia Legislature have refused at
twenty years of age. They are in commerce, in offices, every session for the last three years to stop the work
in manufacturing. in the mills of children under twelve years of age?
Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls Would the New Jersey Legislature have passed that
will be working in textile mills, all the night through, 60 shameful repeal bill enabling girls of fourteen years to
20 in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms work all night, if the mothers in New Jersey were
spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and enfranchised? Until the mothers in the great industrial
ribbons for us to buy. states are enfranchised, we shall none of us be able to
In Alabama the law provides that a child under free our consciences from participation in this great
sixteen years of age shall not work in a cotton mill at 65 evil. No one in this room tonight can feel free from
25 night longer than eight hours, and Alabama does such participation. The children make our shoes in the
better in this respect than any other southern state. shoe factories; they knit our stockings, our knitted
North and South Carolina and Georgia place no underwear in the knitting factories. They spin and
restriction upon the work of children at night; and weave our cotton underwear in the cotton mills.
while we sleep little white girls will be working 70 Children braid straw for our hats, they spin and weave
30 tonight in the mills in those states, working the silk and velvet wherewith we trim our hats. They
eleven hours at night. stamp buckles and metal ornaments of all kinds, as
In Georgia there is no restriction whatever! A girl well as pins and hat-pins. Under the sweating system,
of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the tiny children make artificial flowers and neckwear for
bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or by night. 75 us to buy. They carry bundles of garments from the
35 And they will do so tonight, while we sleep. factories to the tenements, little beasts of burden,
Nor is it only in the South that these things occur. robbed of school life that they may work for us.
Alabama does better than New Jersey. For Alabama We do not wish this. We prefer to have our work
limits the children’s work at night to eight hours, done by men and women. But we are almost
while New Jersey permits it all night long. Last year 80 powerless. Not wholly powerless, however, are
40 New Jersey took a long backward step. A good law citizens who enjoy the right of petition. For myself, I
was repealed which had required women and

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 2011 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

shall use this power in every possible way until the

right to the ballot is granted, and then I shall continue
to use both.
85 What can we do to free our consciences? There
is one line of action by which we can do much.
We can enlist the workingmen on behalf of our
enfranchisement just in proportion as we strive with
them to free the children. No labor organization in
90 this country ever fails to respond to an appeal for help
in the freeing of the children.
For the sake of the children, for the Republic in
which these children will vote after we are dead, and
for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the
95 workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the
children from toil!

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 2011 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS (Form B)

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)
The letter below was written by Samuel Johnson in response to a woman who had asked him to obtain the
archbishop of Canterbury’s patronage to have her son sent to the university. Read the letter carefully. Then write an
essay in which you analyze how Johnson crafts his denial of the woman’s request.

MADAM,
I hope you will believe that my delay in answering
your letter could proceed only from my unwillingness to
destroy any hope that you had formed. Hope is itself a
Line species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness
5 which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures
immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be
expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged,
must end in disappointment. If it be asked, what is the
improper expectation which it is dangerous to indulge,
10 experience will quickly answer, that it is such
expectation as is dictated not by reason, but by desire;
expectation raised, not by the common occurrences of
life, but by the wants of the expectant; an expectation
that requires the common course of things to be changed,
15 and the general rules of action to be broken.
When you made your request to me, you should have
considered, Madam, what you were asking. You ask me
to solicit a great man, to whom I never spoke, for a
young person whom I had never seen, upon a
20 supposition which I had no means of knowing to be true.
There is no reason why, amongst all the great, I should
chuse* to supplicate the Archbishop, nor why, among all
the possible objects of his bounty, the Archbishop
should chuse your son. I know, Madam, how unwillingly
25 conviction is admitted, when interest opposes it; but
surely, Madam, you must allow, that there is no reason
why that should be done by me, which every other man
may do with equal reason, and which, indeed, no man
can do properly, without some very particular relation
30 both to the Archbishop and to you. If I could help you in
this exigence by any proper means, it would give me
pleasure: but this proposal is so very remote from usual
methods, that I cannot comply with it, but at the risk of
such answer and suspicions as I believe you do not wish
35 me to undergo.
I have seen your son this morning; he seems a pretty
youth, and will, perhaps, find some better friend than I
can procure him; but though he should at last miss the
University, he may still be wise, useful, and happy.
June 8, 1762
*choose

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 2010 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

Benjamin Banneker, the son of former slaves, was a farmer, astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, and author. In
1791 he wrote to Thomas Jefferson, framer of the Declaration of Independence and secretary of state to President
George Washington. Read the following excerpt from the letter and write an essay that analyzes how Banneker uses
rhetorical strategies to argue against slavery.

Sir, suffer1 me to recall to your mind that time in valuation of liberty and the free possession of those
which the arms and tyranny of the British Crown were 30 blessings to which you were entitled by nature; but,
exerted with every powerful effort in order to reduce sir, how pitiable is it to reflect that although you were
Line you to a State of Servitude, look back I entreat you on so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of
5 the variety of dangers to which you were exposed; mankind and of his equal and impartial distribution of
reflect on that time in which every human aid those rights and privileges which he had conferred
appeared unavailable, and in which even hope and 35 upon them, that you should at the same time
fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict counteract his mercies in detaining by fraud and
and you cannot but be led to a serious and grateful violence so numerous a part of my brethren under
10 sense of your miraculous and providential groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you
preservation; you cannot but acknowledge that the should at the same time be found guilty of that most
present freedom and tranquility which you enjoy you 40 criminal act which you professedly detested in others
have mercifully received and that it is the pecular with respect to yourselves.
blessing of Heaven. Sir, I suppose that your knowledge of the situation
15 This sir, was a time in which you clearly saw into of my brethren is too extensive to need a recital here;
the injustice of a state of slavery and in which you had neither shall I presume to prescribe methods by
just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition, it 45 which they may be relieved, otherwise than by
was now, sir, that your abhorrence thereof was so recommending to you and all others to wean
excited, that you publickly held forth this true and yourselves from those narrow prejudices which you
20 valuable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and have imbibed with respect to them and as Job2
remembered in all succeeding ages. “We hold these proposed to his friends, “put your souls in their souls
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 50 stead,” thus shall your hearts be enlarged with
equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with kindness and benevolence towards them, and thus
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, shall you need neither the direction of myself or
25 liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” others, in what manner to proceed herein.
Here, sir, was a time in which your tender feelings
for yourselves had engaged you thus to declare, you 2 In the Bible, Job is a righteous man who endures much suffering.
were then impressed with proper ideas of the great
1 allow

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 2010 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS (Form B)

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

The passage below is from The Horizontal World, Debra Marquart’s 2006 memoir about growing up in
North Dakota. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the strategies Marquart uses
to characterize the upper Midwest.

Driving west from Fargo on I–94, the freeway that chronicler of Major Stephen Long’s survey,
cuts through the state of North Dakota, you’ll declared the region “a dreary plain, wholly unfit for
encounter a road so lonely, treeless, and devoid of 40 cultivation,” and, of course, “uninhabitable by a
Line rises and curves in places that it will feel like one people depending upon agriculture for subsistence.” It
5 long-held pedal steel guitar note. If your tires are in was Edwin James who dubbed the area between the
proper alignment, you’ll only need to tap your Mississippi and the Rockies the Great American
steering wheel to keep your car on a straight-ahead Desert, an indignity from which the region has
path. 45 struggled to recover ever since.
Now you are driving deep into the square states. This is the Heartland, the place where Jefferson’s
10 This is the way I recently heard a comedian describe idea of a rectangular cadastral survey, the land grid
the column of states that holds down the center of the system outlined in the Land Ordinance of 1785, found
country—the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma its most perfect confluence of longitude, latitude, and
—a region that spawns both tornadoes and 50 countryside so well behaved that it laid itself down in
Republicans. neat, even squares for the surveyor’s instruments.
15 TV news anchors often hail from this part of the Soon enough, as the surveying expedition moved
world, as do the most innocent female characters in west, the neatness of the grid was foiled by steep
movies and prime-time TV dramas. Being blond, valleys, rivers, foothills, and mountains, but here in
fresh-faced, and midwestern makes their descent 55 the monotonous square states, the survey subdivided
into ruthless behavior in places like Los Angeles the land easily into square upon square, each
20 and New York all the more tragic. measuring six miles by six miles. What followed,
“We are the folks presidents talk to when times Richard Manning observed in Grassland,3 was a war
require,” Sylvia Griffith Wheeler wrote in her poem on roots: “The place was a mess, and it became a
“Earthlings.” Networks make up women to look like 60 young nation’s job to fix it with geometry,
us “who will not trade their bleaches, soaps for democracy, seeds, steam, steel, and water.”
25 anything.” Such is the situation all of my great-grandparents
This is a region that contains both Garrison and grandparents encountered when they arrived
Keillor’s Lake Wobegon1 (“where all the women are between the years of 1885 and 1911. They traveled to
strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the 65 the Midwest by train to what was then the end of the
children are above average”) and the Coen Brothers’ line—Eureka, South Dakota. Eureka— from the
30 Fargo,2 the macabre land of murder-by-wood- Greek word heureka, meaning “I have found it”—is
chipper. Aside from this myth making, the Midwest reported to have been the word that Archimedes cried
is a place that’s been considered devoid of stories, a when he found a way to test the purity of Hiero’s
flyover region one must endure to get to more 70 crown. My grandparents wouldn’t have known the
interesting places. etymology of the word, but they would have felt it,
35 Despite its easy inclines and farmable plains, the the anticipation, as they waited along with the other
region was equally unimpressive to its earliest immigrants from Russia to receive their allotments of
assessors. In the 1820s, Edwin James, the official land.

1 a fictitious town in Keillor’s radio show, A Prairie Home Companion 3 a nonfiction book about the American prairie published in 1995
2 a 1996 film produced and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

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 2009 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

The two passages below, both written by noted contemporary scientist Edward O. Wilson, appear in Wilson’s book
The Future of Life (2002). In the passages, Wilson satirizes the language of two groups that hold opposing attitudes
about environmentalism. Read each passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how Wilson’s
satire illustrates the unproductive nature of such discussions.

THE PEOPLE-FIRST CRITIC STEREOTYPES THE THE ENVIRONMENTALIST STEREOTYPES THE

ENVIRONMENTALISTS PEOPLE-FIRST CRITICS

Environmentalists or conservationists is what they “Critics” of the environmental movement? That may
usually call themselves. Depending on how angry we be what they call themselves, but we know them more
are, we call them greens, enviros, environmental accurately as anti-environmentalists and brown
Line extremists, or environmental wackos. Mark my word, 40 lashers or, more locally out west, wise users (their
5 conservation pushed by these people always goes too own term, not intended to be ironic) and sagebrush
far, because it is an instrument for gaining political rebels. In claiming concern of any kind for the natural
power. The wackos have a broad and mostly hidden environment, these people are the worst bunch of
agenda that always comes from the left, usually far hypocrites you’ll ever not want to find. What they are
left. How to get power? is what they’re thinking. 45 really after, especially the corporate heads and big-
10 Their aim is to expand government, especially the time landowners, is unrestrained capitalism with land
federal government. They want environmental laws development über alles.* They keep their right-wing
and regulatory surveillance to create government- political agenda mostly hidden when downgrading
supported jobs for their kind of bureaucrats, lawyers, climate change and species extinction, but for them
and consultants. The New Class, these professionals 50 economic growth is always the ultimate, and maybe
15 have been called. What’s at stake as they busy the only, good. Their idea of conservation is stocking
themselves are your tax dollars and mine, and trout streams and planting trees around golf courses.
ultimately our freedom too. Relax your guard when Their conception of the public trust is a strong
these people are in power and your property rights go military establishment and subsidies for loggers
down the tube. Some Bennington College student 55 and ranchers. The anti-environmentalists would be
20 with a summer job will find an endangered red spider laughed out of court if they weren’t tied so closely to
on your property, and before you know what the corporate power structure. And notice how rarely
happened the Endangered Species Act will be used to international policy makers pay attention to the
shut you down. Can’t sell to a developer, can’t even environment. At the big conferences of the World
harvest your woodlot. Business investors can’t get at 60 Trade Organization and other such gatherings of the
25 the oil and gas on federal lands this country badly rich and powerful, conservation almost never gets so
needs. Mind you, I’m all for the environment, and much as a hearing. The only recourse we have is to
I agree that species extinction is a bad thing, but protest at their meetings. We hope to attract the
conservation should be kept in perspective. It is best attention of the media and at least get our unelected
put in private hands. Property owners know what’s 65 rulers to look out the window. In America the right-
30 good for their own land. They care about the plants wingers have made the word “conservative” a
and animals living there. Let them work out mockery. What exactly are they trying to conserve?
conservation. They are the real grass roots in this Their own selfish interests, for sure, not the natural
country. Let them be the stewards and handle environment.
conservation. A strong, growing free-market
35 economy, not creeping socialism, is what’s best for * German for “above everything else”

America—and it’s best for the environment too.

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 2009 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS (Form B)

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

The passage below is from “The Indispensable Opposition,” an article by Walter Lippmann; it appeared in The
Atlantic Monthly in 1939. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical
strategies Lippmann uses to develop his argument.

Were they pressed hard enough, most men men. We take, it seems to me, a naïvely self-righteous
would probably confess that political freedom— view when we argue as if the right of our opponents
that is to say, the right to speak freely and to act in to speak were something that we protect because we
Line opposition—is a noble ideal rather than a practical 35 are magnanimous, noble, and unselfish. The
5 necessity. As the case for freedom is generally put compelling reason why, if liberty of opinion did not
to-day, the argument lends itself to this feeling. It is exist, we should have to invent it, why it will
made to appear that, whereas each man claims his eventually have to be restored in all civilized
freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords countries where it is now suppressed, is that we must
to other men is a matter of toleration. Thus, the 40 protect the right of our opponents to speak because we
10 defense of freedom of opinion tends to rest not on must hear what they have to say.
its substantial, beneficial, and indispensable conse- We miss the whole point when we imagine that we
quences, but on a somewhat eccentric, a rather tolerate the freedom of our political opponents as we
vaguely benevolent, attachment to an abstraction. tolerate a howling baby next door, as we put up with
It is all very well to say with Voltaire, ‘I wholly 45 the blasts from our neighbor’s radio because we are
15 disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the too peaceable to heave a brick through the window. If
death your right to say it,’ but as a matter of fact most this were all there is to freedom of opinion, that we
men will not defend to the death the rights of other are too good-natured or too timid to do anything about
men: if they disapprove sufficiently what other men our opponents and our critics except to let them talk,
say, they will somehow suppress those men if they 50 it would be difficult to say whether we are tolerant
20 can. because we are magnanimous or because we are lazy,
So, if this is the best that can be said for liberty of because we have strong principles or because we lack
opinion, that a man must tolerate his opponents serious convictions, whether we have the hospitality
because everyone has a ‘right’ to say what he pleases, of an inquiring mind or the indifference of an empty
then we shall find that liberty of opinion is a luxury, 55 mind. And so, if we truly wish to understand why
25 safe only in pleasant times when men can be tolerant freedom is necessary in a civilized society, we must
because they are not deeply and vitally concerned. begin by realizing that, because freedom of discussion
Yet actually, as a matter of historic fact, there is improves our own opinions, the liberties of other men
a much stronger foundation for the great constitu- are our own vital necessity.
tional right of freedom of speech, and as a matter
30 of practical human experience there is a much more The Atlantic Monthly
compelling reason for cultivating the habits of free

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 2008 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

In the following passage from The Great Influenza, an account of the 1918 flu epidemic, author John M. Barry
writes about scientists and their research. Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze
how Barry uses rhetorical strategies to characterize scientific research.

Certainty creates strength. Certainty gives one In the wilderness the scientist must create . . .
something upon which to lean. Uncertainty creates everything. It is grunt work, tedious work that
weakness. Uncertainty makes one tentative if not begins with figuring out what tools one needs and
Line
Line fearful, and tentative steps, even when in the right then making them. A shovel can dig up dirt but
5 direction, may not overcome significant obstacles. 40 cannot penetrate rock. Would a pick be best, or
To be a scientist requires not only intelligence would dynamite be better—or would dynamite
and curiosity, but passion, patience, creativity, be too indiscriminately destructive? If the rock is
self-sufficiency, and courage. It is not the courage impenetrable, if dynamite would destroy what
to venture into the unknown. It is the courage to one is looking for, is there another way of getting
10 accept— indeed, embrace—uncertainty. For as 45 information about what the rock holds? There is a
Claude Bernard, the great French physiologist of stream passing over the rock. Would analyzing the
the nineteenth century, said, “Science teaches us water after it passes over the rock reveal anything
to doubt.” useful? How would one analyze it?
A scientist must accept the fact that all his or her Ultimately, if the researcher succeeds, a flood
15 work, even beliefs, may break apart upon the sharp 50 of colleagues will pave roads over the path laid,
edge of a single laboratory finding. And just as and those roads will be orderly and straight, taking
Einstein refused to accept his own theory until his an investigator in minutes to a place the pioneer
predictions were tested, one must seek out such spent months or years looking for. And the perfect
findings. Ultimately a scientist has nothing to believe tool will be available for purchase, just as laboratory
20 in but the process of inquiry. To move forcefully and 55 mice can now be ordered from supply houses.
aggressively even while uncertain requires a Not all scientific investigators can deal comfortably
confidence and strength deeper than physical courage. with uncertainty, and those who can may not be
All real scientists exist on the frontier. Even the creative enough to understand and design the
least ambitious among them deal with the unknown, experiments that will illuminate a subject—to know
25 if only one step beyond the known. The best among 60 both where and how to look. Others may lack the
them move deep into a wilderness region where they confidence to persist. Experiments do not simply
know almost nothing, where the very tools and work. Regardless of design and preparation,
techniques needed to clear the wilderness, to bring experiments—especially at the beginning, when one
order to it, do not exist. There they probe in a proceeds by intelligent guesswork— rarely yield the
30 disciplined way. There a single step can take them 65 results desired. An investigator must make them
through the looking glass into a world that seems work. The less known, the more one has to
entirely different, and if they are at least partly correct manipulate and even force experiments to yield an
their probing acts like a crystal to precipitate an order answer.
out of chaos, to create form, structure, and direction.
35 A single step can also take one off a cliff.

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 2008 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS (Form B)

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)
Read the following passage from “America Needs Its Nerds” by Leonid Fridman. Then write an essay in which
you analyze how Fridman develops his argument.

There is something very wrong with the system kindergarten to the grave. For America’s sake,
of values in a society that has only derogatory terms the anti-intellectual values that pervade our society
like nerd and geek for the intellectually curious and must be fought.
Line academically serious. 35 There are very few countries in the world where
5 A geek, according to Webster’s New World anti-intellectualism runs as high in popular culture as
Dictionary, is a street performer who shocks the it does in the U.S. In most industrialized nations, not
public by biting off heads of live chickens. It is a least of all our economic rivals in East Asia, a kid
telling fact about our language and our culture that who studies hard is lauded and held up as an example
someone dedicated to pursuit of knowledge is 40 to other students.
10 compared to a freak biting the head off a live chicken. In many parts of the world, university
Even at a prestigious academic institution like professorships are the most prestigious and materially
Harvard, anti-intellectualism is rampant: Many rewarding positions. But not in America, where
students are ashamed to admit, even to their friends, average professional ballplayers are much more
how much they study. Although most students try 45 respected and better paid than faculty members
15 to keep up their grades, there is a minority of of the best universities.
undergraduates for whom pursuing knowledge is How can a country where typical parents are
the top priority during their years at Harvard. Nerds ashamed of their daughter studying mathematics
are ostracized while athletes are idolized. instead of going dancing, or of their son reading
The same thing happens in U.S. elementary and 50 Weber* while his friends play baseball, be expected to
20 high schools. Children who prefer to read books compete in the technology race with Japan or remain
rather than play football, prefer to build model a leading political and cultural force in Europe?
airplanes rather than get wasted at parties with their How long can America remain a world-class power
classmates, become social outcasts. Ostracized for if we constantly emphasize social skills and physical
their intelligence and refusal to conform to society’s 55 prowess over academic achievement and intellectual
25 anti-intellectual values, many are deprived of a ability?
chance to learn adequate social skills and acquire Copyright © 1990 by the New York Times.
Reprinted by permission.
good communication tools.
Enough is enough. * Maximilian Weber (1864 –1920), German political economist and
Nerds and geeks must stop being ashamed of sociologist
30 who they are. It is high time to face the persecutors
who haunt the bright kid with thick glasses from

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 2007 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

In the passage below from Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World, Scott Russell Sanders responds
to an essay by Salman Rushdie, a writer who left his native India for England. Rushdie describes the “effect
of mass migrations” as being “the creation of radically new types of human being: people who root themselves
in ideas rather than places.” Read the Sanders passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the
strategies Sanders uses to develop his perspective about moving.

Claims for the virtues of shifting ground are migration has immunized the United States against
familiar and seductive to Americans, this nation bigotry? And even if, by uprooting ourselves, we shed
of restless movers. From the beginning, our heroes our chauvinism, is that all we lose?
Line have been sailors, explorers, cowboys, prospectors, In this hemisphere, many of the worst abuses—of
5 speculators, backwoods ramblers, rainbow-chasers, 45 land, forests, animals, and communities—have been
vagabonds of every stripe. Our Promised Land has carried out by “people who root themselves in ideas
always been over the next ridge or at the end of the rather than places.” Rushdie claims that “migrants
trail, never under our feet. One hundred years after must, of necessity, make a new imaginative
the official closing of the frontier, we have still not relationship with the world, because of the loss of
10 shaken off the romance of unlimited space. If we fish 50 familiar habitats.” But migrants often pack up their
out a stream or wear out a field, or if the smoke from visions and values with the rest of their baggage and
a neighbor’s chimney begins to crowd the sky, why, carry them along. The Spaniards devastated Central
off we go to a new stream, a fresh field, a clean sky. and South America by imposing on this New World
In our national mythology, the worst fate is to be the religion, economics, and politics of the Old.
15 trapped on a farm, in a village, in the sticks, in some 55 Colonists brought slavery with them to North
dead-end job or unglamorous marriage or played-out America, along with smallpox and Norway rats. The
game. Stand still, we are warned, and you die. Dust Bowl of the 1930s was caused not by drought
Americans have dug the most canals, laid the most but by the transfer onto the Great Plains of farming
rails, built the most roads and airports of any nation. methods that were suitable to wetter regions. The
20 In the newspaper I read that, even though our 60 habit of our industry and commerce has been to force
sprawling system of interstate highways is crumbling, identical schemes onto differing locales, as though the
the president has decided that we should triple it in mind were a cookie-cutter and the land were dough.
size, and all without raising our taxes a nickel. Only a I quarrel with Rushdie because he articulates as
populace drunk on driving, a populace infatuated with eloquently as anyone the orthodoxy that I wish to
25 the myth of the open road, could hear such a proposal 65 counter: the belief that movement is inherently good,
without hooting. staying put is bad; that uprooting brings tolerance,
So Americans are likely to share Rushdie’s while rootedness breeds intolerance; that imaginary
enthusiasm for migration, for the “hybridity, impurity, homelands are preferable to geographical ones; that
intermingling, the transformation that comes of new to be modern, enlightened, fully of our time is to be
30 and unexpected combinations of human beings, 70 displaced. Wholesale dis-placement may be
cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs.” Everything inevitable; but we should not suppose that it occurs
about us is mongrel, from race to language, and we without disastrous consequences for the earth and for
are stronger for it. Yet we might respond more ourselves. People who root themselves in places are
skeptically when Rushdie says that “to be a migrant likelier to know and care for those places than are
35 is, perhaps, to be the only species of human being free 75 people who root themselves in ideas. When we cease
of the shackles of nationalism (to say nothing of its to be migrants and become inhabitants, we might
ugly sister, patriotism).” Lord knows we could do begin to pay enough heed and respect to where we
with less nationalism (to say nothing of its ugly are. By settling in, we have a chance of making a
siblings, racism, religious sectarianism, or class durable home for ourselves, our fellow creatures, and
40 snobbery). But who would pretend that a history of 80 our descendants.

(1993)
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 2007 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS (Form B)

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

In the introduction to her book Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking, investigative journalist Jessica
Mitford (1917-1996) confronts accusations that she is a “muckraker.” While the term was used by United States
President Theodore Roosevelt in a 1906 speech to insult journalists who had, in his opinion, gone too far in the
pursuit of their stories, the term “muckraker” is now more often used to refer to one who “searches out and publicly
exposes real or apparent misconduct of a prominent individual or business.” With this more current definition in
mind, Mitford was ultimately happy to accept the title “Queen of the Muckrakers.”

Do you agree with Mitford’s view that it is an honor to be called a “muckraker,” or do you think that journalists who
search out and expose real or apparent misconduct go too far in the pursuit of their stories? Explain your position in
a well-written essay that uses specific evidence for support.

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 2006 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

The passage below is an excerpt from “On the Want of Money,” an essay written by nineteenth-century author
William Hazlitt. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies
Hazlitt uses to develop his position about money.

Literally and truly, one cannot get on well in the the Fine Arts; with all your pains, anxiety, and hopes,
world without money. To be in want of it, is to pass and most probably to fail, or, if you succeed, after the
through life with little credit or pleasure; it is to live exertions of years, and undergoing constant distress of
Line out of the world, or to be despised if you come into it; 30 mind and fortune, to be assailed on every side with
5 it is not to be sent for to court, or asked out to dinner, envy, back-biting, and falsehood, or to be a favourite
or noticed in the street; it is not to have your opinion with the public for awhile, and then thrown into the
consulted or else rejected with contempt, to have your background—or a gaol,* by the fickleness of taste
acquirements carped at and doubted, your good things and some new favourite; to be full of enthusiasm and
disparaged, and at last to lose the wit and the spirit to 35 extravagance in youth, of chagrin and disappointment
10 say them; it is to be scrutinized by strangers, and in after-life; to be jostled by the rabble because you
neglected by friends; it is to be a thrall to do not ride in your coach, or avoided by those who
circumstances, an exile in one’s own country; to know your worth and shrink from it as a claim on
forego leisure, freedom, ease of body and mind, to be their respect or their purse; to be a burden to your
dependent on the good-will and caprice of others, or 40 relations, or unable to do anything for them; to be
15 earn a precarious and irksome livelihood by some ashamed to venture into crowds; to have cold comfort
laborious employment; it is to be compelled to stand at home; to lose by degrees your confidence and any
behind a counter, or to sit at a desk in some public talent you might possess; to grow crabbed, morose,
office, or to marry your landlady, or not the person and querulous, dissatisfied with every one, but most
you would wish; or to go out to the East or West 45 so with yourself; and plagued out of your life, to look
20 Indies, or to get a situation as judge abroad, and return about for a place to die in, and quit the world without
home with a liver-complaint; or to be a law-stationer, any one’s asking after your will. The wiseacres will
or a scrivener or scavenger, or newspaper reporter; or possibly, however, crowd round your coffin, and raise
to read law and sit in court without a brief; or to be a monument at a considerable expense, and after a
deprived of the use of your fingers by transcribing 50 lapse of time, to commemorate your genius and your
25 Greek manuscripts, or to be a seal-engraver and pore misfortunes!
yourself blind; or to go upon the stage, or try some of
(1827)

* jail

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 2006 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

SECTION II
Total time—2 hours

Question 1

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

The passage below is an excerpt from Jennifer Price’s recent essay “The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History.”
The essay examines the popularity of the plastic pink flamingo in the 1950s. Read the passage carefully. Then write
an essay in which you analyze how Price crafts the text to reveal her view of United States culture.

When the pink flamingo splashed into the fifties Tom Wolfe called “the new electrochemical pastels of
market, it staked two major claims to boldness. First, the Florida littoral: tangerine, broiling magenta, livid
it was a flamingo. Since the 1930s, vacationing 35 pink, incarnadine, fuchsia demure, Congo ruby,
Line Americans had been flocking to Florida and returning methyl green.” The hues were forward-looking rather
5 home with flamingo souvenirs. In the 1910s and than old-fashioned, just right for a generation, raised
1920s, Miami Beach’s first grand hotel, the Flamingo, in the Depression, that was ready to celebrate its new
had made the bird synonymous with wealth and affluence. And as Karal Ann Marling has written, the
pizzazz. . . . [Later], developers built hundreds of 40 “sassy pinks” were “the hottest color of the decade.”
more modest hotels to cater to an eager middle class Washing machines, cars, and kitchen counters
10 served by new train lines—and in South Beach, proliferated in passion pink, sunset pink, and
especially, architects employed the playful Art Deco Bermuda pink. In 1956, right after he signed his first
style, replete with bright pinks and flamingo motifs. recording contract, Elvis Presley bought a pink
This was a little ironic, since Americans had 45 Cadillac.
hunted flamingos to extinction in Florida in the late Why, after all, call the birds “pink flamingos”—as
15 1800s, for plumes and meat. But no matter. In the if they could be blue or green? The plastic flamingo is
1950s, the new interstates would draw working-class a hotter pink than a real flamingo, and even a real
tourists down, too. Back in New Jersey, the Union flamingo is brighter than anything else around it.
Products flamingo inscribed one’s lawn emphatically 50 There are five species, all of which feed in flocks on
with Florida’s cachet of leisure and extravagance. The algae and invertebrates in saline and alkaline lakes in
20 bird acquired an extra fillip of boldness, too, from the mostly warm habitats around the world. The people
direction of Las Vegas—the flamboyant oasis of who have lived near these places have always singled
instant riches that the gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” out the flamingo as special. Early Christians
Siegel had conjured from the desert in 1946 with his 55 associated it with the red phoenix. In ancient Egypt, it
Flamingo Hotel. Anyone who has seen Las Vegas symbolized the sun god Ra. In Mexico and the
25 knows that a flamingo stands out in a desert even Caribbean, it remains a major motif in art, dance, and
more strikingly than on a lawn. In the 1950s, literature. No wonder that the subtropical species
namesake Flamingo motels, restaurants, and lounges stood out so loudly when Americans in temperate
cropped up across the country like a line of semiotic 60 New England reproduced it, brightened it, and sent it
sprouts. wading across an inland sea of grass.
30 And the flamingo was pink—a second and
commensurate claim to boldness. The plastics The American Scholar, Spring 1999
industries of the fifties favored flashy colors, which

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 2006 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS (Form B)

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

In the following passage from George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan, which is based on the life of Joan of Arc
(1412 ?-1431), Joan, a young French woman, is on trial in a church court for allegedly spreading heresy (beliefs at
variance with established religious doctrine). Dressed in armor, Joan led the French troops against the English. She
was eventually captured, turned over to the English, and then tried by French clerics who supported the English. The
most serious crime she was charged with was her claim that she had received direct inspiration from God.

Carefully read the Inquisitor’s speech to the church court whose members were to decide Joan’s fate. Then, in a
well-written essay, analyze the rhetorical strategies the Inquisitor uses to argue his case against Joan.

THE INQUISITOR [dropping his blandness and against the Church, and taking it upon themselves to
speaking very gravely] If you had seen what I have be the interpreters of God’s will. You must not fall
seen of heresy, you would not think it a light thing into the common error of mistaking these simpletons
Line even in its most apparently harmless and even lovable for liars and hypocrites. They believe honestly and
5 and pious origins. Heresy begins with people who are 40 sincerely that their diabolical inspiration is divine.
to all appearance better than their neighbors. A gentle Therefore you must be on your guard against your
and pious girl, or a young man who has obeyed the natural compassion. You are all, I hope, merciful
command of our Lord by giving all his riches to the men: how else could you have devoted your lives to
poor, and putting on the garb of poverty, the life of the service of our gentle Savior? You are going to see
10 austerity, and the rule of humility and charity, may be 45 before you a young girl, pious and chaste; for I must
the founder of a heresy that will wreck both Church tell you, gentlemen, that the things said of her by our
and Empire if not ruthlessly stamped out in time. The English friends are supported by no evidence, whilst
records of the holy Inquisition are full of histories we there is abundant testimony that her excesses have
dare not give to the world, because they are beyond been excesses of religion and charity and not of
15 the belief of honest men and innocent women; yet 50 worldliness and wantonness. This girl is not one of
they all began with saintly simpletons. I have seen those whose hard features are the sign of hard hearts,
this again and again. Mark what I say: the woman and whose brazen looks and lewd demeanor condemn
who quarrels with her clothes, and puts on the dress them before they are accused. The devilish pride that
of a man, is like the man who throws off his fur gown has led her into her present peril has left no mark on
20 and dresses like John the Baptist: they are followed, 55 her countenance. Strange as it may seem to you, it
as surely as the night follows the day, by bands of has even left no mark on her character outside those
wild women and men who refuse to wear any clothes special matters in which she is proud; so that you will
at all. When maids will neither marry nor take regular see a diabolical pride and a natural humility seated
vows, and men reject marriage and exalt their lusts side by side in the selfsame soul. Therefore be on
25 into divine inspirations, then, as surely as the summer 60 your guard. God forbid that I should tell you to harden
follows the spring, they begin with polygamy, and your hearts; for her punishment if we condemn her
end by incest. Heresy at first seems innocent and even will be so cruel that we should forfeit our own hope of
laudable; but it ends in such a monstrous horror of divine mercy were there one grain of malice against
unnatural wickedness that the most tender-hearted her in our hearts. But if you hate cruelty—and if any
30 among you, if you saw it at work as I have seen it, 65 man here does not hate it I command him on his
would clamor against the mercy of the Church in soul’s salvation to quit this holy court— I say, if you
dealing with it. For two hundred years the Holy hate cruelty, remember that nothing is so cruel in its
Office has striven with these diabolical madnesses; consequences as the toleration of heresy.
and it knows that they begin always by vain and
35 ignorant persons setting up their own judgment

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 2005 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts one-third of the total essay section score.)

The following article is a mock press release from The Onion, a publication devoted to humor and satire. Read the
article carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the strategies used in the article to satirize how products
are marketed to consumers.
MASSILLON, OH—Stressed and sore-footed Products by some of the nation’s top pseudoscientists.
Americans everywhere are clamoring for the exciting “The principles of Terranometry state that the
new MagnaSoles shoe inserts, which stimulate and 40 Earth resonates on a very precise frequency, which it
Line soothe the wearer’s feet using no fewer than five imparts to the surfaces it touches,” said Dr. Wayne
5 forms of pseudoscience. Frankel, the California State University biotrician
“What makes MagnaSoles different from other who discovered Terranometry. “If the frequency of
insoles is the way it harnesses the power of one’s foot is out of alignment with the Earth, the
magnetism to properly align the biomagnetic field 45 entire body will suffer. Special resonator nodules
around your foot,” said Dr. Arthur Bluni, the implanted at key spots in MagnaSoles convert the
10 pseudoscientist who developed the product for wearer’s own energy to match the Earth’s natural
Massillon-based Integrated Products. “Its patented vibrational rate of 32.805 kilofrankels. The resultant
Magna-Grid design, which features more than 200 harmonic energy field rearranges the foot’s naturally
isometrically aligned Contour Points™, actually 50 occurring atoms, converting the pain-nuclei into
soothes while it heals, restoring the foot’s natural bio- pleasing comfortrons.”
15 flow.” Released less than a week ago, the $19.95 insoles
“MagnaSoles is not just a shoe insert,” Bluni are already proving popular among consumers, who
continued, “it’s a total foot-rejuvenation system.” are hailing them as a welcome alternative to
According to scientific-sounding literature 55 expensive, effective forms of traditional medicine.
trumpeting the new insoles, the Contour Points™ also “I twisted my ankle something awful a few months
20 take advantage of the semi-plausible medical ago, and the pain was so bad, I could barely walk a
technique known as reflexology. Practiced in the single step,” said Helene Kuhn of Edison, NJ. “But
Occident for over eleven years, reflexology, the after wearing MagnaSoles for seven weeks, I’ve
literature explains, establishes a correspondence 60 noticed a significant decrease in pain and can now
between every point on the human foot and another walk comfortably. Just try to prove that MagnaSoles
25 part of the body, enabling your soles to heal your didn’t heal me!”
entire body as you walk. Equally impressed was chronic back-pain sufferer
But while other insoles have used magnets and Geoff DeAngelis of Tacoma, WA.
reflexology as keys to their appearance of usefulness, 65 “Why should I pay thousands of dollars to have my
MagnaSoles go several steps further. According to the spine realigned with physical therapy when I can pay
30 product’s Web site, “Only MagnaSoles utilize the $20 for insoles clearly endorsed by an intelligent-
healing power of crystals to restimulate dead foot looking man in a white lab coat?” DeAngelis asked.
cells with vibrational biofeedback . . . a process “MagnaSoles really seem like they’re working.”
similar to that by which medicine makes people
better.” Reprinted with permission of THE ONION.
Copyright 1999, by ONION, Inc., www.theonion.com.
35 In addition, MagnaSoles employ a brand-new,
cutting-edge form of pseudoscience known as
Terranometry, developed specially for Integrated

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 2005 AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS (Form B)

Question 2

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts one-third of the total essay section score.)

In the following passage from Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America,
contemporary writer John M. Barry describes the complex mechanics of the Mississippi River. Read the passage
carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Barry communicates his fascination with the river to his
readers.
The river’s characteristics represent an devastating result, the Missouri and upper Mississippi
extraordinarily dynamic combination of turbulent put no strain on the levees along the lower
effects, and river hydraulics quickly go beyond the Mississippi.)
Line merely complex. Indeed, studies of flowing water in The Mississippi never lies at rest. It roils. It follows
5 the 1970s helped launch the new science of chaos, 35 no set course. Its waters and currents are not uniform.
and James Gleick in his book on the subject quotes Rather, it moves south in layers and whorls, like an
physicist Werner Heisenberg, who stated that on his uncoiling rope made up of a multitude of discrete
deathbed he would like to ask God two questions: fibers, each one following an independent and
why relativity? and, why turbulence? Heisenberg unpredictable path, each one separately and together
10 suggested, “I really think God may have an answer to 40 capable of snapping like a whip. It never has one
the first question.” current, one velocity. Even when the river is not in
Anything from a temperature change to the wind to flood, one can sometimes see the surface in one spot
the roughness of the bottom radically alters a river’s one to two feet higher than the surface close by, while
internal dynamics. Surface velocities, bottom the water swirls about, as if trying to devour itself.
15 velocities, midstream and mid-depth velocities—all 45 Eddies of gigantic dimensions can develop,
are affected by friction or the lack of friction with the sometimes accompanied by great spiraling holes in
air, the riverbank, the riverbed. the water. Humphreys observed an eddy “running
But the complexity of the Mississippi exceeds that upstream at seven miles an hour and extending half
of nearly all other rivers. Not only is it acted upon; it across the river, whirling and foaming like a
20 acts. It generates its own internal forces through its 50 whirlpool.”
size, its sediment load, its depth, variations in its The river’s sinuosity itself generates enormous
bottom, its ability to cave in the riverbank and slide force. The Mississippi snakes seaward in a continual
sideways for miles, and even tidal influences, which series of S curves that sometimes approach 180
affect it as far north as Baton Rouge. Engineering degrees. The collision of river and earth at these
25 theories and techniques that apply to other rivers, 55 bends creates tremendous turbulence: currents can
even such major rivers as the Po, the Rhine, the drive straight down to the bottom of the river, sucking
Missouri, and even the upper Mississippi, simply do at whatever lies on the surface, scouring out holes
not work on the lower Mississippi, which normally often several hundred feet deep. Thus the Mississippi
runs far deeper and carries far more water. (In 1993, is a series of deep pools and shallow “crossings,” and
30 for example, the floodwaters that overflowed, with 60 the movement of water from depth to shallows adds
still further force and complexity.

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