AP Lang — revising a draft: placement, additions, deletions and transitions

About twenty of the forty-five multiple-choice questions on the AP English Language and Composition Exam are writing questions. Instead of analyzing a finished text, you read a student's draft "like a writer" and decide how to improve it: where a new sentence belongs, whether a sentence should be kept or cut, which transition shows how two ideas are related, and how a paragraph should end. These questions reward a clear sense of the paragraph's line of reasoning more than any list of rules, and that is what this material trains.

The quiz is built on three original draft paragraphs, each with numbered sentences, the way revision questions present them. One argues for a phased approach to restoring a city streetcar line, one defends a public library's tool-lending shelf, and one makes the case for leaving autumn leaves on the lawn. Every question prints the whole draft, so each item stands on its own.

The twelve questions cover the main revision tasks in roughly equal measure. Transition questions ask you to fill a blank with the word that states the relationship between two sentences: contrast, addition, or a move from a general principle to a concrete figure. Placement questions give you a sentence to insert and ask where it goes, which usually depends on a word that must point back to something already said. Keep-or-delete questions make you judge whether a sentence or phrase advances the argument or wanders from it, and why. Add-a-sentence questions ask for the evidence that supports one specific claim, or for a concession that grants a reasonable objection before answering it. Two questions ask how a paragraph should end so that its evidence connects back to its claim. Every explanation names what each wrong choice would actually do to the paragraph.

The flashcards collect the working tools: the tests for adding, deleting and placing a sentence; the main families of transitions (contrast, addition, cause and effect, example, concession); and the fact that in a keep-or-delete answer the stated reason is what decides.

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.

  • Explain how each sentence of a draft advances or interrupts its line of reasoning
  • Choose the transition that states the relationship between two sentences (contrast, addition, example, concession)
  • Place a new sentence by finding the word or idea it must refer back to
  • Decide whether to keep or delete a sentence, and give the correct reason
  • Select evidence or a concession that supports the specific claim at a given point
  • Choose a concluding sentence that connects the evidence to the claim

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the College Board's AP English Language and Composition Course and Exam Description (skill categories 4, 6 and 8, writing questions in Section I) and the exam overview on AP Central for the 2026–27 exam. All drafts are original.

Sample question

Read this draft paragraph from a student's argument. (1) In 1912, the city of Millbrook laid four miles of streetcar track along Harbor Avenue. (2) For almost forty years the cars carried dockworkers to the waterfront and families to the lakeside park. (3) After the last car ran in 1951, the rails were paved over and the avenue was widened for automobiles. (4) Today the city council is weighing a proposal to bring a streetcar back to the same route. (5) Supporters point out that the old right-of-way still belongs to the city, so no land would have to be bought. (6) ______ the cost of new track, overhead wires and cars is estimated at 60 million dollars, more than the city spends on road repair in a decade. (7) Streetcars in some other cities have been painted in bright colors. (8) The council should approve a smaller first phase, a one-mile loop downtown, and decide on the full route only after riders have shown whether they will use it. Which choice best fills the blank at the start of sentence 6?

See the answer

Even so,

Sentence 5 gives the supporters' advantage (no land to buy); sentence 6 turns to a serious drawback (a cost of 60 million dollars). Only a contrasting transition such as "Even so," signals that shift. "For example" would present the cost as an instance of the free land, "As a result" would claim the free land causes the high cost, and "Similarly" would treat the cost as another advantage.

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