AP Lang — reading older American arguments: Douglass, Thoreau and Lincoln

The reading questions on the AP English Language and Composition Exam come in sets. You read a full nonfiction passage, often one written a century or more ago, and answer several questions about it: what the writer claims, how the argument is organized, why a detail or an image is there, and what a sentence does in context. Older prose adds its own difficulty: long sentences, unfamiliar vocabulary and references to events the writer's first audience knew well. This material gives you practice with exactly that kind of reading.

The quiz uses three substantial excerpts from nineteenth-century American nonfiction that are in the public domain. The first is from Frederick Douglass's July 5, 1852 address in Rochester, New York, in which he refuses to "argue" the humanity of the enslaved and turns the slaveholders' own laws into his evidence. The second is from Henry David Thoreau's 1849 essay later known as "Civil Disobedience," with its image of government as "a sort of wooden gun" and its repeated denials of what government has achieved. The third is from Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address of March 4, 1865, delivered as the Civil War was ending. Each question prints its passage in full with a short headnote giving the occasion, just as an exam passage comes with a brief introduction.

There are twelve questions, four on each passage. They move from local to global: the purpose of a particular detail (the Virginia statutes, trade "made of India rubber"), the effect of a sentence or a figure of speech (a rhetorical question, an impossible condition, the short clause "and the war came"), the relation between two neighboring statements, and finally the writer's attitude, line of reasoning or purpose given the occasion. Explanations quote the words that decide each answer, so you can see how the writer's own words rule out every other choice.

The flashcards collect the tools for reading older arguments: rhetorical questions, anaphora, parallelism and allusion; the key moves of each of the three texts; and a short routine for approaching any unfamiliar passage.

The material offers a multiple-choice quiz and flashcards. It is independent practice based on the published course framework and is not produced or endorsed by the College Board.

  • Read a longer nineteenth-century argument and follow its line of reasoning
  • Explain the purpose of a specific detail or piece of evidence in context
  • Explain the effect of rhetorical questions, parallelism, anaphora and short sentences
  • Describe a writer's attitude and purpose in light of the occasion and audience
  • Use a passage's headnote to understand its rhetorical situation

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the College Board's AP English Language and Composition Course and Exam Description (reading skills 1, 3, 5 and 7; Section I reading sets). Passages are public-domain excerpts from Frederick Douglass's address of July 5, 1852 (as printed in My Bondage and My Freedom, 1855), Henry David Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849), and Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (1865).

Sample question

Frederick Douglass, a formerly enslaved abolitionist, gave this speech in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, to an audience gathered to mark Independence Day. Read the excerpt. "But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the state of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being. The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or write. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!" Why does the speaker mention that seventy-two crimes in Virginia carry the death penalty for a black man but only two for a white man?

See the answer

To show that the slaveholders' own laws treat the enslaved person as a responsible moral being, so the point needs no argument

The speaker says the humanity of the enslaved "is conceded" and cites the Virginia statutes as "the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being." A law can only punish someone it holds responsible, so the slaveholders' own code proves his point for him. He is not discussing leniency toward white offenders, not claiming crime rates, and not conceding exaggeration.

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