The Mock Exam

The mock exam that we had on Saturday the 13th of December was slightly difficult, but a good exercise for the real AP English Literature exam. The most difficult part was coming up with a good thesis that answered the questions properly. This was difficult because, although one of the questions was easy, the other two essay questions were rather challenging. On the other hand, the multiple choice was not so difficult, and I scored 40 out of 55. Compared to the AP English Language exam the essays were harder, and the multiple choice was about the same in terms of difficulty. I think it was good to have the exam prior to the break, because now if we have to do a second mock, we still have time before the real exam. There is not really a way to prepare for the mock, so I think for not doing any preparing I did quite well.

What Chinua Achebe does.

After reading an excellent essay written by Chinua Achebe, also the author of Things Fall Apart, titled An Image of Africa, my essay on poetry was rather lousy. It is with deceiving ease that Achebe fills his essay with arguments and other information. The aspect that separates Achebe's essay from many others, including mine, is that while it contains lots of information, it still seems easy to read. Unlike many other works, that are also rather dense, and difficult to read, Achebe manages to convey all of this information while still producing a very readable text. Unlike my writing, which is also rather dense, he is capable of making it not only more understandable, but also more interesting. Filling writing with information is the easy part, where it gets more difficult however, is giving the reader your arguments, so that he or she still wants to listen to them. That is what seperates Achebe from countless other writers who do not manage to write so deceivingly simply as him.