AP Resources

College Board AP Central

Why not just go straight to the source?  The College Board actually has quite a few informative resources ranging from scoring guides to tips and practice.

Funnel Brain

Here's a bunch of user made flashcards.  Given that they are not "official" the quality may vary.  However, there is a decent selection to choose from -- just make sure to do a little fact checking.

AP Pass

This is a calculator to figure out your AP score.  It's a pretty neat way to visualize how exam scoring is done.

Bench Prep

This blog is orientated for long term preparation, so it may be a bit late at this point.  Regardless, there are a few useful things that can be gleaned from it still.

AP Study Notes

This website has a massive collection of examples and study topics.  It's hard to do better than this if you're going for the classic "study 'til you drop" method.

Brave New World Essay Draft 1

Loneliness is among the most potent of human conditions.  From it stems sadness, bitterness, and all manner of melancholy temperaments.  However, it can also bring enlightenment.  This is the case of John, "the Savage", from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  As an outsider in every culture he encounters, John has a unique perspective of the world he lives in.  This position allows for a brutally honest assessment of societies' customs.  It is only though the eyes of an exile that the world's madness is fully revealed.

Brave New World Notes (Ch. 8)

• Memories of Linda trying to assimilate to the new culture, John trying to understand the unfairness of the world
• Huxley directly connects alcohol to soma
• Linda's treatment of John is a contradiction
• Part BNW, part "savage"
• Nature vs. nurture?
• Her instinct is to care for John, but her hypnopaedic-twisted mind hates him for what he "made" her
• Linda's stories build up what the BNW is like
• John calls his mother by her first name
• Linda does not want to be called "mother" because she has come to think of it as an insult, or at least an embarrassing phrase
• "A man can smile and smile and be a villain."
• Huxley links the scene back to the theme that happiness is not everything
• "If one's different, one's bound to be lonely."
• thematic isolation an conformity
• John shows a propensity for self-punishment, not unlike Berard's enjoyment of persecution
• "O brave new world," he repeated. "O brave new world that has such people in it. Let's start at once."

March Literature Analysis Choice

I am reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky for March's literature analysis.  I'll be doing another collaborative analysis with Justin Thompson.  Generally, I prefer to read novels that I will enjoy for literature analyses, while Justin would rather read one that maximizes AP test preparation.  Last time, we went with my choice of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, so Justin got to choose this time (for the sake of fairness; there wasn't really any formal agreement).  Crime and Punishment appeared on many exams, and the story seemed interesting enough to me.

I'll admit that I haven't started reading yet.  My expectations as far as raw entertainment go are not terribly high, but I'm hoping it'll surprise me.  If nothing else, I hope it will be thought provoking.  There a few things worse than a book that neither entertains nor educates.

Brave New World Notes (Ch. 7)

• Lenina complaining about the reservation isn't just normal aversion to nature, it's the hypnopaedic conditioning at work
• "I wish we could have brought the plane"
• Emphasis on consumerism, like with their equipment dependent sports
• "Yes, and civilization is sterilization"
• Bernard obviously does not mean this in a positive sense
• Bernard goes out of his way to make controversial statements
• Lenina finds the "remorseless persistence of the drums" appealing, why?
• Drum beats provide structure and order through repetition, much like the BNW
• The ritual Bernard and Lenina witness is traumatic even by today's standards
• Represents the polar opposite of life in the BNW
• deliberate self-punishment, rather than forced self-indulgence
• Linda is an interesting character
• Even after all those years, she still retains habits from the BNW
• Testament to the power of conditioning?  Or is it natural to cling to the beliefs one had when growing up?

Brave New World Active Reading Notes (Ch. 4 part II, Ch. 5)

Chapter 4 Part II

• Simile: "He was like a man pursued..."
• Aphorism: "Those who meant well behaved the same way as those who meant badly."
• Direct Characterization:  "He stood eight centimeters short of the standard Alpha height."
• Foil: Hemholtz Watson to Bernard (in a way, although they are also very similar)
• Foreshadowing: "I feel I could do something much more important.  Yes, and more intense, more violent."
• Indirect Characterization:  "But at the same time he felt rather ashamed for his friend.  He wished Bernard would show a little more pride."

Chapter 5

• Repetition: "...and then, under the influence of those endless repetitions, the gradual soothing of her mind, the soothing, the smoothing, the stealthy creeping of sleep."
• Juxtaposition:  "'Do you know what that switchback was?  It was some human being finally and definitely disappearing.  Going up in a squirt of hot gas...Everybody's happy now."
• Refrain:  the song by "Calvin Stopes and his Sixteen Sexophonists"
• Mood:  "Eyes shone, cheeks were flushed, the inner light of the universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy, friendly smiles."
• Note the slightly truncated phrases and emphasis on sensation rather than thought
• Irony:  "She looked at Bernard with an expression of rapture, but of apture in which there was no trace of agitation or excitement-for to be excited is still to be unsatisfied."
• Motif: the number 12