1987 AP Lit Exam

Some tips for taking this exam:
-We are in the privacy of our own homes, listen to some serious pump up music! You will need it to keep from slapping a baby kitten in your unfeigned anger.
-Have a big thing of water nearby. It keeps you awake.
-Time yourself so it doesn't take you six hours in front of the TV, and if you are with friends make it a race. (It only took me 30 mins. I want a challenge)

Now for my answers...
Just kidding, blogspot is being stupid and will not let me post  pictures, and since I am too stubborn to simply give up and manually type in my answers  I will be turning in my hard copy. But to actually supplement and prove that I did this assignment I will be posting my results and whatnot.

Overall I would have epically failed this AP exam, but for how fast I finished the exam my results aren't actually that bad. Seeing as questions 33-46 were missing from the packet there were only 47 total questions that we could have answered. Overall my score was a 23/47 which is about a 50%, and my overall time was 30 mins.

I didn't find any questions remarkably easy, in fact I felt that a majority of the questions were difficult but yet not impossible if you had enough time to think and reflect on them. But yet that's the problem, time. The AP Exam Board expects for us to read new material and answer the questions that they deem relevant to the text in a set amount of time. But I personally feel that we would be better off showing our understanding of literature with a spoken exam.  For example they could ask us questions or prompts about current events or ideas and we could respond using relevant text and life experiences to prove our point. Sadly this is a pipe dream but I think it would be a good experience to at least attempt.

But back to the exam. I am not a big fan of AP Exams. And now that many colleges no longer accept AP Scores I don't that AP Exams are even relevant. Please don't misunderstand me, I think AP Classes are incredibly beneficial, and in fact are a great place to start studying what you want  and what you are interested in high school. But for AP Exams, I'm just not a big fan. But seeing as you did as what will specifically haunt our dreams until we take the exam ourselves, for me the entire exam will haunt me!

Poetry #1

1. From what poem/author does this commercial borrow (without credit)?
The 2011 Levi's commercial titled "Go Forth" utilizes the poem "The Laughing Heart" written by Charles Bukowski.

2. Why might the use of this poem by a corporation be considered ironic?
The use of the poem can be considered ironic for multiple reasons. For example line one and two of the poem read, "your life is your life/ don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission...", and being that the commercial is trying to convince people to submit and buy their product, the Levi's brand is simply ignoring the poem it is trying so hard to utilize.

3. Does the poem reflect the reputation of the author? Why/why not?
I do feel that "The Laughing Heart" is an accurate representation of Charles Bukowski's reputation as a poet. Charles Bukowski was considered a "hard-lived" poet who accurately represented the lack of hope in urban life and the downtrodden and defeated working class in American society, and although this poem represents hope and possibilities it still contains the gritty and realistic style that Bukowski was famous for.

4.How did you find the answers to #1 & #3? Describe your research process and your sources in detail.
My first attempt at trying to discover the title and author of the poem was an epic fail. At first I tried to listen to the audio in the commercial itself and after searching for the poem I thought it was titled "Go Forth", but that turned out to be poetry by Walt Whitman. Thankfully I searched a second line in attempt to verify my results and instead found the correct poem which turned out to be "The Laughing Heart" by Charles Bukowski.

Then trying to discover Bukowski's reputation as a poet I read a few samples of his poetry and read an article on him from the site Poetry Foundation, which described his poetic style in great detail.

Sources Utilized:
The Poetry Foundation
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/charles-bukowski

Just Poetry BlogSpot
http://milan-poetry.blogspot.com/2007/03/laughing-heart-charles-bukowski.html

ESSAY ASSIGNMENT #1

              Our experiences, our actions, our victories and defeats define who we are as people, and are common themes within literature itself. Following this suit is the idea of separation or exile from home and its total impact. One book that follows this idea is “The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver. The novel, written in a first person narrative form and based on the perspective of its five protagonists, follows the Southern Baptist missionary Price family on their missionary journey in the Congo. And while the entire family travels and becomes separated from home, they all experience exile differently, but none more so than Leah Price. Who turns from a young idealistic 14-year-old teenage girl into a woman whose ideals have changed from religious conversion to social justice for the people of Africa.  

                Prior to her great conversion, Leah Price’s ideologies were identical to her father’s and her whole goal in life was pleasing him. And by the end of the novel Leah’s exile from her father is both metaphorical and literal. Prior to the beginning of the novel and well into the middle Leah, whose character is idealistic yet highly compassionate and devotional, follows her father’s religious fallacies to a fault and in fact strives solely to please him. Yet unlike her father, Leah's compassionate nature begins to wear down as she begins to see the horrors of the Congo and her father's indifference towards the struggle of the Congo and lack of respect for tribal customs and religion. The final breaking point for Leah begins when both her mother Orleanna and her younger sister Ruth May become sick with Malaria. While mother and sister lay sick Leah's father Nathan again remains indifferent to their condition and continues his sole goal of an African revival, which leaves Leah, her older sister Rachael, and her physically impaired twin sister Adah to care for a breaking household. It is here when Leah and her sisters have reached their breaking point and the full weight of separation from the United States hits, the compassion of her poor Congolese neighbors begins Leah's metaphorical separation from her father's ideals and religious zeal, eventually coming full circle as Leah abandons the faith she once clung to and exiles her father in the Congo to live with and marry Anatole to adopt a new religion of loving her new family and striving for African freedom and independence.

               Leah Price's independence from her father and from the religion she once followed can be viewed as an allusion to not only African independence but also white imperialism a motif and white elephant seen throughout most of the novel.  Being as the novel takes place during the Congolese freedom from Belgium through the CIA involvement in replacing Patrice Lumumba with Joseph Kasa-Vubu Leah's separation and eventual exile from her father and family acts as a metaphor.

              From former religious zeal and complete suppression to her father, Leah Price's transformation to an independent idealist comes straight from the exile and separation from her family and the United States and serves as both a metaphor and allusion to the struggle for African Independence within the novel.

 

(around 40 mins timed)

BIG QUESTION

No big deal, it only took me an entire summer to come up with a big question, but here it is anyways.

What do we, as humans, believe is perfection? How did we did we come up with the idea of good speech? Because when it comes down to it, the way someone pronounces their /s/ blends or /th/ sounds, is because it is what they are used to and what sounds good to them. They have been saying it that way for what seems like a long time and then suddenly they are told to correct it. And although I have no problems with speech therapy and have personally seen the positive changes and outcomes that have come from good speech, I wonder what and who first set the bar for good communication and good articulation?

Update on Summer

So let's face it, I didn't post anything or for that matter even work on any of my summer assignments for a good 5 weeks. And the reason for that is Summer Projects. Besides my typical summer experience of occasionally score keeping youth basketball games for my family I decided this summer to start my college applications and do something special.

Earlier this year I applied for a summer program called Camp Hapitok, and it was without a doubt one of the best decisions of my life. But now for the bad news, during that 5 weeks I did absolutely no note taking on the summer reading novels. But thankfully I finished "The Poisonwood Bible" (Kingsolver) early and I have already read "Pride and Prejudice" (Austen) so typing up notes for that should be easy.

So this post is basically a warning and reason for why I haven't been posting and for why my English notes for summer work may seem short.