AP Lang — style, syntax and revision

A large part of this exam asks you to choose between versions of a sentence that all say roughly the same thing. These ten questions are that choice, made ten times, each turning on a different property of how English sentences are built.

What a short sentence does when it arrives after three long ones. Which of two facts belongs in the main clause, and why that decision is a claim about what the sentence is about rather than a matter of taste. How to fix a list whose items are not in the same grammatical shape. What a passive construction hides in a report where the missing agent is exactly the thing under discussion. How to get an action back out of a noun and into a verb. When "and" is too weak a joint — and, in the case here, when replacing it with "so" is not vague but flatly backwards, because the relation meant was concession and not cause. What deliberate repetition achieves. How to cut padding without cutting meaning. And what a semicolon does that a period would not.

The one worth the longest look is the last. A staff notice reads "Staff may only submit expenses on Fridays", and the office meant that Friday is the one day expenses may be submitted. It does not say that. "Only" restricts whatever follows it, so moving that single word four places produces four different rules — about who may submit, about what may be submitted, about what may be done with expenses, and about when. Three of those are wrong and one is the notice.

The punctuation question asks what the mark does, and its options describe that effect in words.

Everything here is invented. No published text is quoted.

Zestly is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with the College Board, which owns the AP examinations, and it is not an test center.

• Say what a short sentence does when it follows long ones, and what deliberate repetition achieves
• Decide which of two facts belongs in the main clause, and treat that as a claim about the sentence's subject matter
• Repair a broken parallel list without losing content
• Identify what a passive construction hides, and restore an action that has been trapped in a noun
• Choose a connective that states the relation actually meant, including telling concession from cause
• Cut padding from a sentence without cutting meaning
• Place a restrictive modifier so that it restricts the intended thing, and name the other readings its other positions produce

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the published AP English Language and Composition course framework (style and sentence-level revision). All examples are invented.