2015 AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS (Form Schultz)

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPMOSITION

SECTION II
Total time 2 hours

Question 1

(Suggested time 40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)

Directions: The following prompt is based on the accompanying six sources.

This question requires you to synthesize a variety of sources into a coherent, well-written essay. When you
synthesize sources you refer to them to develop your position and cite them accurately. Your argument should be
central; the sources should support this argument. Avoid merely summarizing the sources.

Remember to attribute both direct and indirect citations.

Introduction

Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn has been a source of debate on many different topics, particularly on language,
religion, and issues pertaining to ethnicity. The debate continues, however, within the pages of the book itself. Huck,
the main character, is oftentimes at war with himself, deciding what would be the right thing to do. He wants to go
by the law and what the rules say, but at the same time, he doesnt accept the law, as it conflicts with his moral code.

Assignment

Read the following sources (including the introductory information) carefully. Then write an essay that develops a
position on morality of conduct, even when the written rules says otherwise. More specifically, is it right to go
with society and be socially accepted even when it is wrong, or is it better to be an outcast and follow ones
own moral code? Synthesize at least three of the sources for support.

You may refer to the sources by their titles (Source A, Source B, etc.) or by the descriptions in the parentheses.

Source A (McLeod)

Source B (Twain)

Source C (Presley)

Source D (Bonczar)

Source E (Thoreau)

Source F (Twain)

Source G (Gandhi)
 Source A
McLeod, Saul. "Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology." Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology. 2007.
Web.

Volunteers were recruited for a lab experiment investigating learning (re: ethics: deception). Participants were 40
males, aged between 20 and 50, whose jobs ranged from unskilled to professional, from the New Haven area. They
were paid $4.50 for just turning up.
At the beginning of the experiment they were introduced to another participant, who was actually a confederate of
the experimenter (Milgram). They drew straws to determine their roles learner or teacher although this was
fixed and the confederate was always the learner. There was also an experimenter dressed in a grey lab coat,
played by an actor (not Milgram).

Two rooms in the Yale Interaction Laboratory were used - one for the learner (with an electric chair) and another for
the teacher and experimenter with an electric shock generator.

The learner (Mr. Wallace) was strapped to a chair with electrodes. After he has learned a list of word pairs given
him to learn, the "teacher" tests him by naming a word and asking the learner to recall its partner/pair from a list of
four possible choices.

The teacher is told to administer an electric shock every time the learner makes a mistake, increasing the level of
shock each time. There were 30 switches on the shock generator marked from 15 volts (slight shock) to 450 (danger
severe shock).
The learner gave mainly wrong answers (on purpose) and for each of these the teacher gave him an electric shock.
When the teacher refused to administer a shock the experimenter was to give a series of orders / prods to ensure they
continued. There were 4 prods and if one was not obeyed then the experimenter (Mr. Williams) read out the next
prod, and so on.

Prod 1: Please continue.

Prod 2: The experiment requires you to continue.

Prod 3: It is absolutely essential that you continue.

Prod 4: You have no other choice but to continue.

65% (two-thirds) of participants (i.e. teachers) continued to the highest level of 450 volts. All the participants
continued to 300 volts.
 Source B

Twain, Mark. Needham, Massachusetts: Prentice

Hall, Print.

The following excerpt is taken from Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn.

Next day [Pap] was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatchers and bullyragged him, and
tried to make him give up the money; but he couldnt and then he swore hed make the law force
him.

The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let
one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that had just come, and he didnt know
[Pap]; so he said courts mustnt interfere and separate families if they could help it; said hed
druther not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow had to quit on the
business.

That pleased the old man till he couldnt rest. He said hed cowhide me till I was black
and blue if I didnt raise some money for him. I borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and
pap took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying
on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight; then they jailed him, and
next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said he was satisfied;
said he was boss of his son, and hed make it warm for him. (Twain 19)
 Source C

Presley, Sharon. "Present and Future Obedience to Authority." Future of Obedience. Resources for
Independent Thinking, 2010. Web.

The following excerpt is taken from an online study of experiments following the Milgram
experiment.

The Dutch Study

In more recent times, Meeus and Raajjmakers (1995) conducted a study of what they called
administrative violence, as opposed to the physical violence (shock) used in the Milgram
experiment, arguing that this method has more ecological validity in present times. Their study
included an experimenter, the actual participant, and a confederate who was presented as being a
job applicant. The participants were asked to disturb the applicant while he was taking a test as
part of his application. They were told that if he failed the test that we would not get the job and
would be unemployed. The experimenter instructed the participants to make 15 negative stress
remarks about his performance and personality that would be detrimental to his performance. If
the participants refused, they were given a series of four prods similar to those in the Milgram
experiment. A control group was given instructions to make negative remarks to the applicant,
but was not told that they had to make all 15 remarks.
The results were chilling: 91% of the experimental group obeyed to the end, making all 15
negative remarks. None of the control group made all of the remarks. Like Milgram (1974), the
authors note that the participants did not like their task; many said they disliked making the
remarks, thinking them unfair. Also comparable to Milgrams results was the fact that the
participants were more likely to attribute responsibility to the experimenter for what happened
(46%) than themselves (34%). Once again the results were: Do what you are told and do not
question why.
 Source D

Bonczar, T. (2003). Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population. 1974-2001. Washington, D.C.:
Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The following graph is based on data gathered by the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics.
 Source E

Thoreau, Henry David. Thoreaus Civil Disobedience 2. Thoreaus Civil

Disobedience 2. Thoreau, Web.

The following excerpt is taken from Henry David Thoreaus Civil Disobedience.

Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them,
and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally,
under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the
majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the
evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it
worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its
wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens
to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it
always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington
and Franklin rebels?

One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its authority was the only
offence never contemplated by government; else, why has it not assigned its definite, its suitable
and proportionate, penalty? If a man who has no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings
for the State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law that I know, and determined
only by the discretion of those who placed him there; but if he should steal ninety times nine
shillings from the State, he is soon permitted to go at large again.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let
it go; perchance it will wear smooth certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a
spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider
whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires
you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter
friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to
the wrong which I condemn.
 Source F

Twain, Mark. Needham, Massachusetts: Prentice

Hall, Print.

The following excerpt is taken from Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn.

Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his
family was, as long as hed got to be a slave, and so Id better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to
tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: Shed be mad and disgusted
at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so shed sell him straight down the river again; and
if she didnt everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and theyd make Jim feel it all the time,
and so hed feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of me! It would get all around that Huck Finn
helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again Id be ready to
get down and lick his boots for shame. Thats just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he
dont want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it aint no disgrace. That was my
fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more
wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was
the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being
watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a poor old womans nigger that hadnt
ever done me no harm, and now was showing me theres One thats always on the lookout, and aint a-
going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks
I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was
brung up wicked, and so I warnt so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, There was
the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if youd a done it theyd a learnt you there that acts as
Id been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didnt know what to do. At last I had an idea;
and I says, Ill go and write the letter, and then see if I can pray. Why, It was astonishing, the way I felt as
light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I
knowed I could pray now. But I didnt do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking
thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And
went on thinking. And go to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in
the day and in the night-time sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking
and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldnt seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but
only the other kind. Id see him standing my watch on top of hisn, stead of calling me, so I could go on
sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in
the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet
me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always ways; and at last I struck the
time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the
best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one hes got now; and then I happened to look
around and see the paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because Id got to
decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and
then says to myself:

All right, then, Ill go to hell and tore it up. (Twain 189-191).
 Source G

Npsd. From On Civil Disobedience, by Mohandas Gandhi

July 27, 1916: Web.

The following excerpt is from Mohandas Gandhis On Civil Disobedience, published July 27, 1916.

There are two ways of countering injustice. One way is to smash the head of the man who
perpetrates injustice and to get your own head smashed in the process. All strong people in the
world adopt this course. Everywhere wars are fought and millions of people are killed. The
consequence is not the progress of a nation but its decline. Soldiers returning from the front have
become so bereft of reason that they indulge in various anti-social activities. One does not have
to go far for examples. Pride makes a victorious nation bad-tempered. It falls into luxurious ways
of living. Then for a time, it may be conceded, peace prevails. But after a short while, it comes
more and more to be realized that the seeds of war have not been destroyed but have become a
thousand times more nourished and mighty. No country has ever become, or will ever become,
happy through victory in war. A nation does not rise that way, it only falls further. In fact, what
comes to it is defeat, not victory. And if, perchance, either our act or our purpose was ill-
conceived, it brings disaster to both belligerents. But through the other method of combating
injustice, we alone suffer the consequences of our mistakes, and the other side is wholly spared.
This other method is Satyagraha. One who resorts to it does not have to break anothers head; he
may merely have his own head broken. He has to be prepared to die himself suffering all the
pain. In opposing the atrocious laws of the Government of South Africa, it was this method that
we adopted. We made it clear to the said Government that we would never bow to its outrageous
laws. No clapping is possible without two hands to do it, and no quarrel without two persons to
make it. Similarly, no State is possible without two entities (the rulers and the ruled). You are our
sovereign, our Government, only so long as we consider ourselves your subjects. When we are
not subjects, you are not the sovereign either. So long as it is your endeavor to control us with
justice and love, we will let you do so. But if you wish to strike at us from behind, we cannot
permit it. Whatever you do in other matters, you will have to ask our opinion about the laws that
concern us. If you make laws to keep us suppressed in a wrongful manner and without taking us
into confidence, these laws will merely adorn the statute-books. We will never obey them. Award
us for it what punishment you like, we will put up with it. Send us to prison and we will live
there as in a paradise. Ask us to mount the scaffold and we will do so laughing. Shower what
sufferings you like upon us, we will calmly endure all and not hurt a hair of your body. We will
gladly die and will not so much as touch you. But so long as there is yet life in these our bones,
we will never comply with your arbitrary laws.