AP English Literature and Composition Question 2: Prose Analysis (2019) - Sample Student Responses

Sep 22, 2026

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Materials present the 2019 AP English Literature and Composition Question 2 prose analysis prompt based on an excerpt from William Dean Howells’ The Rise of Silas Lapham. The task instructs students to write a well-constructed essay analyzing how the author portrays Penelope and Irene’s complex experience within family and society, using elements such as style, tone, and selection of detail. Sample student responses and notes describe how student answers were selected and rescored under updated rubrics.

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AP English Literature and Composition

Question 2: Prose Analysis (2019)

Sample Student Responses

2019 AP®ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS They were not girls who embroidered or abandoned themselves to needle-work.Irene spent herabundant leisure in shopping for herself and herLine mother,of whom both daughters made a kind of idol,5 buying her caps and laces out of their pin-money,and getting her dresses far beyond her capacity towear.Irene dressed herself very stylishly,and spenthours on her toilet2 every day.Her sister had asimpler taste,and,if she had done altogether as she10 liked,might even have slighted dress.They all threetook long naps every day,and sat hours togetherminutely discussing what they saw out of the window.In her self-guided search for self-improvement,theelder sister went to many church lectures on a vast15 variety of secular subjects,and usually came homewith a comic account of them,and that made morematter of talk for the whole family.She could makefun of nearly everything;Irene complained that shescared away the young men whom they got20 acquainted with at the dancing-school sociablesThey were,perhaps,not the wisest young men. The girls had learned to dance at Papanti's;3 butthey had not belonged to the private classes.They didnot even know of them,and a great gulf divided them25 from those who did.Their father did not likecompany,except such as came informally in theirway;and their mother had remained too rustic toknow how to attract it in the sophisticated cityfashion.None of them had grasped the idea of 30 European travel;but they had gone about to mountainand sea-side resorts,the mother and the two girls,where they witnessed the spectacle which such resortspresent throughout New England,of multitudes ofgirls,lovely,accomplished,exquisitely dressed, 35 humbly glad of the presence of any sort of youngman;but the Laphams had no skill or courage to makethemselves noticed,far less courted by the solitaryinvalid,or clergyman,or artist.They lurked helplessly Question 2 (Suggested time—40 minutes.This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.) Carefully read the following excerpt from William Dean Howells'novel The Rise of Silas Lapham(1885).Then,ina well-constructed essay,analyze how the author portrays the complex experience of two sisters,Penelope and Irene,within their family and society.You may wish to consider such literary elements as style,tone,and selection ofdetail. about in the hotel parlors,looking on and not knowing 40 how to put themselves forward.Perhaps they did notcare a great deal to do so.They had not a conceit ofthemselves,but a sort of content in their own waysthat one may notice in certain families.The verystrength of their mutual affection was a barrier to 45 worldly knowledge;they dressed for one another;they equipped their house for their own satisfaction;they lived richly to themselves,not because they wereselfish,but because they did not know how to dootherwise.The elder daughter did not care for society, 50 apparently.The younger,who was but three yearsyounger,was not yet quite old enough to be ambitiousof it.With all her wonderful beauty,she had aninnocence almost vegetable.When her beauty,whichin its immaturity was crude and harsh,suddenly 55 ripened,she bloomed and glowed with theunconsciousness of a flower;she not merely didnot feel herself admired,but hardly knew herselfdiscovered.If she dressed well,perhaps too well,itwas because she had the instinct of dress;but till 60 she met this young man who was so nice to her atBaie St.Joan,4 she had scarcely lived a detached,individual life,so wholly had she depended on hermother and her sister for her opinions,almost hersensations.She took account of everything he did and 65 said,pondering it,and trying to make out exactlywhat he meant,to the inflection of a syllable,theslightest movement or gesture.In this way she beganfor the first time to form ideas which she had notderived from her family,and they were none the 70 less her own because they were of

FAQs

What is the focus of AP English Literature Question 2 in 2019?

Students analyze an excerpt from The Rise of Silas Lapham and explain how the author portrays the complex experience of two sisters, Penelope and Irene, within their family and society.

What literary elements should students consider when writing the essay?

The prompt suggests considering style, tone, and the selection of detail.

How were the sample student responses handled for scoring?

The material states that the selected student responses were rescored using the new rubrics for 2020, and comments for each sample are provided separately.

Sep 22, 2026

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