AP English Vocabulary Analysis

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Vocabulary Test “Admonish the interlopers who vehemently despair over their plight of…” blasphemy. This confusing, jumbled sentence represents the vocabulary units as a whole , this school year. Although we, students, may understand these words now, their significance in this course is not as understood. Out of the 140 words we have learned this year, there were less than five on the AP exam: “choleric, vicarious, urbane, etc.” and probably just 10 in any form of work relating to this class (story books, articles, worksheets): “Vicarious, urbane, cognizant,” to name a few. It is always beneficial to learn new words to expand our vocabulary, however, it is even better to learn words that specifically work with the comprehension of the AP English …show more content…
Throughout the year, it felt as though we neglected to cover all rhetorical elements, I constantly found myself asking during APEXs, “ What is an understatement? What’s a syllogism? How can something be anti thesis”. Not even our Language of Composition books had a complete list of possible elements, and I feel as though, if I did not take it among myself to study others on my own, I would have been lost on the AP exam. The exam asked to identify foils, anecdotes, and colloquials and I felt prepared due to my outside research, however I cannot speak for the other students in the class. A suggestion for the modification of our vocabulary test is to incorporate rhetorical elements and devices into the test so we know useful information in preparation for our exams. Especially for our analysis essays where we may have to identify various rhetorical devices used in a particular text in order to understand the author’s purpose. The incorporation of tone words too, helps students categorize the …show more content…
So, it may be assumed that we do not need ‘word-banks’ because memorization is expected, or that outside research is essential for the success in this class. This viewpoint is detrimental to the overall success in this course since it tends to exclude students based on their shortcomings, like their inability to retain information on short-notice. Students should be given all opportunities to succeed, and if that means a word-bank in vocabulary test, then let there be. If it is proven statistically, that recognition test are the best retention methods, then to neglect to include one on basis of our supposed ‘scholarly-ship’ is very presumptuous. And that will surely lead to the failure
Vocabulary test are meant to expand our knowledge on words and to add onto our own personal word banks so we can enrich our writing with more value-latent words. Instead of describing an this course as strenuous, we can now use a word like ‘arduous’--so much more scholarly. But Vocabulary test can also be used as a guidance tool for student’s comprehension on AP

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