Please note that the years below are hyperlinked to the relevant document/webpage.
Remember that the three free-response questions appear on the AP Language and Composition exam in the following order: Question 1 (synthesis), Question 2 (rhetorical analysis), and Question 3 (argument). So, when you click on the links below, the argument question will be the third one.
2023
2023 (Set 1): Maxine Hong Kingston‘s claim that a “community of voices” is stronger and can “speak more truth” than “individual voices.” (students sample responses not yet available)
2023 (Set 2): United States Representative Carlos Curbelo‘s claim about the pitfalls of “trying to scare” people as a means of persuasion. (students sample responses not yet available)
2022: Colin Powell‘s argument about the importance of making “timely” decisions, as opposed to “quick” decisions. (student sample responses)
2021: the value of striving for perfection. (student sample responses)
2019: the application of the term “overrated” to diminish a concept, place, role, etc. (student sample responses)
2018: Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s opinion that, “with all its disappointments and surprises,” exploring the unknown is the “most enriching” way to experience life. (student sample responses)
2017: Chris Hedges’s argument that “the most essential skill . . . is artifice.” (student sample responses)
2016: Oscar Wilde’s claim that disobedience is a valuable human trait and that it promotes social progress. (student sample responses)
2015: the value or function of polite speech in a culture or community with which you are familiar. (student sample responses)
2014: the creation of a high-school class in creativity. (student sample responses)
2013: the relationship between ownership and sense of self (references to the views of Plato, Aristotle, and Jean-Paul Sartre). (student sample responses)
2012: the relationship between certainty and doubt (quotations of William Lyon Phelps and Bertrand Russell). (student sample responses)
2011: the extent to which Thomas Paine’s characterization of America in The Rights of Man (1791) holds true today. (student sample responses)
2011 (Form B): the extent to which H. L. Mencken’s observation (about man’s preference for safety over freedom) applies to contemporary society. (student sample responses)
2010: Alain de Botton’s view of the role of humorists (cartoonists, stand-up comics, satirical writers, hosts of television programs, etc.) (quotation from his 2004 book Status Anxiety). (student sample responses)
2010 (Form B): the establishment of an annual Buy Nothing Day. (student sample responses)
2009: Horace’s assertion about the role that adversity (financial or political hardship, danger, misfortune, etc.) plays in developing a person’s character. (student sample responses)
2009 (Form B): Barbara Ehrenreich’s assertions about television (excerpt from her book The Worst Years of Our Lives). (student sample responses)
2008: corporate sponsorship for schools. (student sample responses)
2008 (Form B): the distinction Daniel J. Boorstin makes between dissent and disagreement (excerpt from his book The Decline of Radicalism [1969]). (student sample responses)
2007: the ethics of offering incentives for charitable acts. (student sample responses)
2007 (Form B): Jessica Mitford’s view that it is an honor to be called a “muckraker” (quotation from her book Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking). (student sample responses)
NB: Before 2007, the AP Language and Composition exam did not include a synthesis task; instead, it presented a third free-response question that required a narrower, more-focused argument or rhetorical analysis—depending on the year.
2006: the value of public statements of opinion. (student sample responses)
2006 (Form B): the issue of compulsory voting. (student sample responses)
2005: Peter Singer’s ethical argument that, given the urgent need for food and medicine in many parts of the world, we should give away whatever money we’re spending on luxuries, not necessities. (student sample responses, for all three questions)
2005 (Form B): the claims of biologist Lewis Thomas in a passage from his The Medusa and the Snail (1979). (student sample responses, for all three questions)
2004: a controversial local, national, or global issue with which you are familiar. (student sample responses)
2004 (Form B): the relationship between unspoken rules and belonging/group identity (quotation of Michael Ignatieff). (student sample responses)
2003: the assertion that entertainment has the capacity to “ruin” society (quotation of Neil Gabler’s Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality [1998]). (student sample responses)
2003 (Form B): Scott Russell Sanders’ ideas about the relationship between the individual and society in the United States (quotation from the essay “The Common Life” [1994]). (student sample responses)
2002: a claim made by the Czech writer Milan Kundera in a passage from Testaments Betrayed (1995). (student sample responses)
2002 (Form B): Wendell Berry’s argument in an excerpt from What Are People For? (1990). (student sample responses)
2001: Susan Sontag’s claim that photography limits our understanding of the world (a passage from On Photography [1977]). (student sample responses)
2000: the relationship between wealth and justice (quotation from Shakespeare’s King Lear). (student sample responses)
1999: a claim about mistakes and pride, made by the wise Teiresias in an excerpt from Antigone by Sophocles, the classical Greek playwright. (student sample responses)