AP Lang — synthesis and source use

The synthesis question gives you six sources and an hour. Most of what goes wrong in that hour goes wrong before any sentence is written, in the reading — a source overstated, a finding about one group applied to another, a qualifying clause quietly dropped. These ten questions work on exactly that.

They begin with two sources that agree completely about a fact and disagree entirely about what caused it, which is the most common shape a source disagreement takes and the one most often described as "they contradict each other". Then two studies that look incompatible and are not, because they are about school pupils and university students. Then the choice of what to leave out — where the right answer is a source that has simply aged out of relevance, and the two tempting answers are objections that are real and are reasons to attribute a source carefully rather than discard it.

Then attribution itself: which of four sentences represents a cautiously worded source without hardening it. Then a report from a trade association, and what such a source is and is not good for — the answer being neither "useless" nor "authoritative". Then the difference between putting two sources side by side and actually using them together.

The question worth the most is the statistic. A source reports that among households which already owned a bicycle, journeys rose forty per cent; a writer quotes it as "cycling rose forty per cent". Both sentences could be true and only one has been measured, and the clause carrying the whole difference is the one that disappeared. Learning to notice that clause is worth more on this exam than any amount of essay structure.

The set closes with scope, with how a strong essay uses a source that tells against it, and with telling the writer's own reasoning from a restatement of somebody else's.

Every source here is invented and every question says so. No real study, author or publication is quoted.

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• Locate the precise point of disagreement between two sources that agree on the facts
• Reconcile findings that appear to conflict but concern different populations or periods
• Decide which source to leave out, and tell a fatal objection from one that merely requires careful attribution
• Represent a cautiously worded source without hardening it, and judge what an interested author's report is good for
• Use two sources together to make a point rather than summarising them in turn
• Spot the qualifying clause that disappears when a statistic is retold, and state what the figure actually measures
• Match a claim to the scope of the evidence, use a hostile source as a concession, and tell your own reasoning from a source's

Source A (invented) reports: 'Among households that already owned a bicycle, journeys made by bicycle rose 40 per cent in the year after the new lanes opened.' A writer quotes it as: 'Cycling rose 40 per cent after the lanes opened.' What has been lost in the retelling?