2023

AP English Literature
®

and Composition
Free-Response Questions
Set 1

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 AP® English Literature and Composition 2023 Free-Response Questions

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION

SECTION II
Total time—2 hours
3 Questions

Question 1
(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)

In Alice Cary’s poem “Autumn,” published in 1874, the speaker contemplates the onset of autumn. Read the poem
carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Cary uses literary elements and techniques to convey the
speaker’s complex response to the changing seasons.
In your response you should do the following:
• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.
• Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning.
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.
Autumn

Shorter and shorter now the twilight clips

The days, as though the sunset gates they crowd,
And Summer from her golden collar slips
Line And strays through stubble-fields, and moans aloud,

5 Save when by fits the warmer air deceives,

And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower, 1
She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves,
And tries the old tunes over for an hour.
The wind, whose tender whisper in the May
10 Set all the young blooms listening through th’ grove,
Sits rustling in the faded boughs to-day
And makes his cold and unsuccessful love.

The rose has taken off her tire 2 of red—

The mullein-stalk 3 its yellow stars have lost,
15 And the proud meadow-pink 4 hangs down her head
Against earth’s chilly bosom, witched with frost.

The robin, that was busy all the June,

Before the sun had kissed the topmost bough,
Catching our hearts up in his golden tune,
20 Has given place to the brown cricket now.

The very cock crows lonesomely at morn—

Each flag 5 and fern the shrinking stream divides—
Uneasy cattle low, 6 and lambs forlorn
Creep to their strawy sheds with nettled sides.
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AP® English Literature and Composition 2023 Free-Response Questions

25 Shut up the door: who loves me must not look

Upon the withered world, but haste to bring
His lighted candle, and his story-book,
And live with me the poetry of Spring.
1
a spot in a garden shaded by a covering of vines or branches
2
attire
3
stem of a woolly-leaved plant
4
slender plant with pink flowers
5
plant with long tapering leaves
6
moo

__________________________________________________________
Begin your response to this question at the top of a new page in the separate Free Response booklet
and fill in the appropriate circle at the top of each page to indicate the question number.

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 AP® English Literature and Composition 2023 Free-Response Questions

Question 2
(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)

The following excerpt is from Nisi Shawl’s novel Everfair, published in 2016. In this passage, the narrator describes
the experience of a young woman, Lisette, as she rides her bicycle through the French countryside in July 1889.
Read the passage carefully. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how Shawl uses literary elements and techniques
to portray Lisette’s complex response to her experience of riding her bicycle.
In your response you should do the following:
• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.
• Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning.
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

Lisette Toutournier sighed. She breathed in again, Up on the creaking leather seat. Legs drawn high,
out, in, the marvelous air smelling of crushed stems, boots searching, scraping, finding their places . . . and
green blood bruised and roused by her progress along pedal! Push! Feet turning circles like her machine’s
Line this narrow forest path. Her progress, and that of her wheels, with those wheels. It was, at first, work. She
5 new mechanical friend. Commencing to walk again, 40 pedaled and steered, wobbling just once and catching
she pushed it along through underbrush and creepers, herself. Then going faster, faster! Flying! Freedom!
woodbine and fern giving way before its wheels. Oh, Saplings, walls, and vines whipped by, flashes of
how the insects buzzed about her exposed skin, her greenbrowngreengrey as Lisette on her machine sped
face and hands and wrists and ankles, waiting to bite. down the road, down the hill. Wind rushed into her
10 And the vexing heat bid fair to stifle her as she 45 face, whistled in her ears, filled her nose, her lungs,
climbed the hillside slowly—but the tore her hair loose of its pins to stream behind her.
scent—intoxicating! And soon, so soon, all this effort She was a wild thing, laughing, jouncing over dry
would be repaid. watercourses, hanging on for dear, dear life. Lower,
There! The crest came in sight, the washed-out now, and some few trees arched above, alternately
15 summer sky showing itself through the beech trees’ 50 blocking the hot glare and exposing her to it
old silver trunks. Now her path connected with the coolwarmcoolwarm, currents of sun and shade
road, stony, rutted, but still better suited for riding. splashing over her as she careened by. Coasting, at
She stood a moment admiring the view: the valley, the last, spilling all velocity till she and the machine came
blurred rows of cultivation curving away smaller and to rest beside the river.
20 smaller in the bluing distance, the sky pale overhead, 55 The river. The comforting smell and sound of it
the perfect foil for the dark-leaved woods behind her rushing away. Out on the Yonne’s broad darkness a
and by her sides. Not far off a redwing sang, cold barge sailed, bound perhaps for Paris, the Seine, the
water trickling uphill. sea beyond, 1 carrying casks of wine and other
She had the way of it now: gripping the rubber valuables. Flushed from her ride, Lisette blushed yet
25 molded around the machine’s metal handlebars, she 60 more deeply, suddenly conscious of the curious stares
leaned it toward her and swung one skirted leg over of those around her: Mademoiselle Carduner, the
the drop frame. Upright again, she walked it a few schoolmistress; and Monsieur Lutterayne, the
more steps forward, aiming straight along the lane, the chemist, 2 out for a promenade during his dinner hour
yellow-brown dust bright in the sun. The machine’s or on some errand, seizing a chance to vacate his
30 glossy paint shone. Within the wheel’s front rim its 65 stuffy shop. Flustered, she attempted to restrain her
spokes were a revolving web of intricacy, shadows hair into a proper chignon, 3 but at only sixteen and
and light chasing one another. Tiny puffs of dust with many pins missing, this was beyond her skill.
spurted from beneath the black rubber tires. She began furiously to plait 4 her thick blond curls,
She raised her eyes. The vista opened wider, wider. and the others moved away.
35 The road laid itself down before her. 70 At last she was alone on the riverbank with her
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 AP® English Literature and Composition 2023 Free-Response Questions

mechanical friend. She tied her plaits together, though

she knew that momentarily they would slither apart.
She stroked the machine’s still-gleaming handlebars,
then leaned to fit her forehead at their center, so.
75 “Dear one,” whispered Lisette. “How can you ever
know how much you mean to me? Who would not
give all they could, everything they had, in exchange
for such happiness as I have found with you?”
1
The Yonne River in France is a tributary of the Seine
River, which passes through the city of Paris toward the
Atlantic Ocean.
2
pharmacist
3
a hairstyle in which the hair is pinned into a knot at the
nape of the neck or at the back of the head
4
braid

Everfair by Nisi Shawl. © 2016, Nisi Shawl.

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 AP® English Literature and Composition 2023 Free-Response Questions

Question 3
(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)

In many works of literature, characters choose to reinvent themselves for significant reasons. They may wish to
separate from a previous identity, gain access to a different community, disguise themselves from hostile forces, or
express a more authentic sense of self.
Either from your own reading or from the following list, choose a work of fiction in which a character intentionally
creates a new identity. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze how the character’s reinvention contributes to an
interpretation of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.
In your response you should do the following:
• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation.
• Provide evidence to support your line of reasoning.
• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Lila

The Awakening Little Fires Everywhere
Brooklyn Lucy
By the Way . . . Meet Vera Stark The Mayor of Casterbridge
Ceremony Middlesex
The Color Purple The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gómez
The Count of Monte Cristo The Nickel Boys
Disgrace Orlando
Fahrenheit 451 Passing
Fences The Poisonwood Bible
Great Expectations Sophie’s Choice
A House for Mr. Biswas The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The House of the Spirits Surfacing
The Hummingbird’s Daughter The Taming of the Shrew
Jane Eyre The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Jasmine Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Joy Luck Club There There
Kindred Vanity Fair
Kiss of the Spider Woman Washington Black
The Known World Wuthering Heights
The Last of the Menu Girls

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and fill in the appropriate circle at the top of each page to indicate the question number.

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AP® English Literature and Composition 2023 Free-Response Questions

STOP

END OF EXAM

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