If you wrote on the relationship between certainty and doubt, please click here to access your scoring guide and student samples.
For those of you who wrote about the relationship between ownership and self, click here.
Scoring Guidelines and Student Samples
Step 1: Read the scoring guidelines for your essay:
- Identify all the adjectives and adverbs. Note how they differ with the scores.
Step 2: Please read only the first student sample. This is the highest-scoring of the three samples, and it is always an eight or a nine. As you read, please answer the following:
- How does the writer make her position clear? Can you find her claim?
- How does the writer support her claim? Find the evidence.
- Is most of the evidence she uses fact or opinion? What is her most compelling piece of evidence?
- How does the writer reason out her evidence (i.e., explain how the evidence supports her claim)?
Step 3: Finally, read the overview and scoring commentary (for the highest-scoring essay only).
- In your own words, describe the intent behind the prompt. Essentially, what did the writers of the question want students to do (hint: focus on verbs)?
- Why did the top essay score an eight or a nine? According to the scorers, what did the writer do well?
- What is your overall impression of this student’s writing? As an AP writer-in-training, what did you gain from examining a peer’s successful work?
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