AP Language Test Prep

Multiple-choice help:
Juxtaposition- putting things next to each other for the purpose of comparing the two.
Litotes- an understatement
Apostrophe- speaking to someone that’s not there or speaking to an inanimate object.
Synecdoche- when a part of something represents the whole (EX: All hands on deck)
Pedantic- showing an over concern for following rules in books
Incredulous- skeptical, you don’t believe it
Anecdote- brief story
Sanguine- very cheerful, optimistic
Mercurial- changing very quickly in personality
Affable- friendly
Philosophical- pondering deep thoughts
Adverbs have an “ly” ending
Qualify- when you “qualify” a statement, you’re adding info that modifies it to show the other side
Reiterate- restate
Contradict- to go against
Supplements- adding more to it
Inverted syntax- what’s at the end is coming at the beginning (EX: “Whose woods these are I think I know,” when it should be “I think I know whose woods these are”)
Idiomatic diction- you can’t take it literally (EX: lets hit the road, jack)
The Crucible Logical Fallacies Help:
1. Appeal to Authority: accepting someone’s argument because of his or her field unrelated to the argument. EX: Whatever Abigail says, the judge, Rev. Hale, and Rev. Parris believe it.
2. Appeal to Emotion: FEAR. Abigail threatens the girls, the Judge threatens people to “confess or die,” and the thing opens with Tituba being threatened in order for her to confess.
3. Bandwagon: claiming that a position is true because most people believe it is.
4. Attacking the Person/ Ad Hominem: discrediting an argument by attacking the person who makes it, rather than the argument itself.
5. Begging the Question/ Circular Reasoning: using a premise to prove a conclusion when the premise itself assumes the conclusion is true. (EX: Chocolate is salad, Obama’s the worst president because he’s a bad president)
6. False Cause and Effect/ Post Hoc: Claiming that because ONE EVENT OCCURRED before the second, it caused the second. EX: Asians are smart, blondes are dumb. Giles’ wife reads books… she’s a witch!
7. False Dilemma/ Either-Or Arguments: Suggesting only two solutions to a problem. America… love it or leave it, baby! Marry Warren can’t faint on command…she’s either a witch or a liar.
8. Red Herring: introducing an unrelated or invalid point to distract the reader from the actual argument. Honey, how’d you do on your test today? I cleaned my entire room after school!
9. Slippery Slope: a chain of events. A horrible outcome. A result you don’t want- a DISASTER. Because Mrs. Corey reads books, they think she’s a witch, which totally doesn’t relate.
10. Straw Man: attacking one of the opposition’s small/unimportant arguments, while ignoring the opposition’s best argument.
The Crucible Themes:
1. Hysteria: Another critical theme in The Crucible is the role that hysteria can play in tearing apart a community. Hysteria supplants logic and enables people to believe that their neighbors, whom they have always considered upstanding people, are committing absurd and unbelievable crimes—communing with the devil, killing babies, and so on. In The Crucible, the townsfolk accept and become active in the hysterical climate not only out of genuine religious piety but also because it gives them a chance to express repressed sentiments and to act on long-held grudges. The most obvious case is Abigail, who uses the situation to accuse Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft and have her sent to jail. But others thrive on the hysteria as well: Reverend Parris strengthens his position within the village, albeit temporarily, by making scapegoats of people like Proctor who question his authority. The wealthy, ambitious Thomas Putnam gains revenge on Francis Nurse by getting Rebecca, Francis’s virtuous wife, convicted of the supernatural murders of Ann Putnam’s babies. In the end, hysteria can thrive only because people benefit from it. It suspends the rules of daily life and