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AP English Language: Claims and Evidence (Writing Drill 3)

Drill 3 · Writing · Claims and Evidence — Writing

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About This Drill

AP English Language: Claims and Evidence (Writing Drill 3) is a Writing practice drill covering Claims and Evidence — Writing. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.

Writing drills ask you to read like a writer, analyzing a student draft and choosing revisions that strengthen its argument. This drill emphasizes the difference between evidence that illustrates a claim and evidence that actually supports it, a distinction that separates adequate AP essays from strong ones.

Passage

The following is a draft of a student argumentative essay defending arts education in public schools, written for an AP English class. [1] Arts education is frequently the first thing cut when school budgets tighten, and this pattern reflects a misunderstanding of what the arts actually teach. [2] Music, visual art, theater, and dance are not extracurricular enrichment. [3] They are academic disciplines that develop skills essential to success in school, work, and civic life. [4] The research on arts education consistently finds benefits that extend well beyond artistic skill. [5] Studies have found that students who participate in arts programs show stronger performance in reading and mathematics, higher graduation rates, and lower rates of chronic absenteeism. [6] These correlations are especially pronounced among students from low-income households, for whom arts programs frequently provide the only structured opportunity for creative problem-solving, collaborative work, and sustained attention to a complex task. [7] Arts education also develops capacities that are difficult to teach through conventional academic subjects: the ability to tolerate ambiguity, revise work in response to feedback, and produce something original under constraints. [8] These are not soft skills. [9] They are precisely the capacities that employers in fields ranging from engineering to healthcare to business consistently identify as most lacking in new hires. [10] Critics argue that schools face pressure to prioritize tested subjects, reading, mathematics, and science, and that arts courses divert time from these priorities. [11] But this framing misunderstands the relationship between arts education and academic performance. [12] Arts programs do not compete with academic achievement; the research suggests they support it, particularly for students who are disengaged from conventional academic formats. [13] The decision to cut arts programs is rarely based on evidence. [14] It is based on a budget logic that assigns value only to what can be directly measured, and arts outcomes are harder to put on a standardized test than reading scores. [15] But 'harder to measure' is not the same as 'less valuable.' [16] A school system that eliminates what it cannot measure is not being rigorous. [17] It is being incurious.

Questions & Explanations

Question 1. The writer wants to revise sentence 5 to add more specific and credible evidence to support the claim about academic benefits of arts participation. Which revision best accomplishes this?

  • A) Students who participate in arts programs tend to be more engaged in school overall, which helps to explain their stronger performance across subjects.
  • B) A 2019 study published in the Journal of Education Research tracking over 10,000 students across six years found that those with high arts participation were significantly more likely to graduate on time, score proficient in English language arts, and have fewer absences than peers with low arts participation, with effects strongest among students from low-income households. ✓
  • C) Research has consistently shown for decades that the arts and academic achievement are linked, and school districts that have maintained arts programs have seen better outcomes across multiple measures.
  • D) Many studies have confirmed that arts participation is associated with better academic performance, and educators and policymakers should take this evidence seriously when making budget decisions.

Explanation: Choice B is correct. The original sentence 5 presents correlations without sourcing or specificity. Choice B adds a named source, a publication, a sample size, a timeframe, specific outcomes (graduation, ELA proficiency, attendance), and the critical detail that effects were strongest for low-income students, connecting to sentence 6's equity argument. Choice A offers a plausible explanation but not evidence. Choice C is vague ('consistently shown,' 'many studies'). Choice D is similarly unspecific and slides into prescription.

Question 2. The writer wants to revise sentence 8; 'These are not soft skills', to make this rebuttal of the implied dismissal more persuasive. Which revision best accomplishes this?

  • A) Many people tend to think of these as soft skills, but they are actually quite important for success in many different careers.
  • B) Calling these capacities 'soft skills' is a way of dismissing them without engaging with their actual value in professional settings.
  • C) The label 'soft skills' is itself revealing: we call skills soft when we have not yet figured out how to test them, not when we have determined they are unimportant. ✓
  • D) These skills are highly valued by employers, which is why schools should take them more seriously than they currently do.

Explanation: Choice C is correct. The original sentence asserts these are not soft skills without explaining the dismissal or its flaw. Choice C interrogates the label itself, arguing that 'soft' reflects a measurement problem, not a value judgment, and connects to the essay's later argument (sentences 14–15) about valuing only what can be measured. Choice A concedes 'soft' without challenging the label. Choice B describes the dismissal without dismantling it. Choice D makes a claim about employer value already covered in sentence 9.

Question 3. The writer wants to add a sentence after sentence 12 to more effectively bridge the rebuttal back to the essay's central claim. Which addition best serves this purpose?

  • A) Therefore, schools should carefully consider the research on arts education before making budget decisions that may harm student outcomes.
  • B) This means that cutting arts programs in the name of academic priorities may actually undermine the academic goals it claims to serve.
  • C) Arts education advocates have long argued that the false choice between arts and academics reflects a misunderstanding of how learning works.
  • D) If arts programs support academic engagement, and the research suggests they do, then eliminating them to protect tested subjects is not a trade-off. It is a self-defeating choice. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is correct. Paragraph 3 rebuts the 'arts vs. academics' framing. Choice D drives the rebuttal to its logical conclusion: if arts support academic performance, then cutting them to protect tested scores is counterproductive. The phrase 'not a trade-off; it is a self-defeating choice' is rhetorically sharp and prepares the reader for the essay's final critique of budget logic. Choice A is prescriptive but vague. Choice B makes a similar point but less forcefully. Choice C shifts to advocacy history rather than advancing the argument.

Question 4. The writer wants to revise sentence 14 to make the critique of budget logic more precise and harder to dismiss. Which revision best accomplishes this?

  • A) It is based on a budget logic that treats measurability as a proxy for value, a substitution that systematically undervalues whatever a standardized test cannot capture, including most of what makes a person capable of doing something genuinely difficult. ✓
  • B) It is based on a budgetary logic that does not take into account the full range of benefits that arts education provides to students and communities, especially benefits that are difficult to measure immediately or connect to a single annual expense line.
  • C) It is based on a budget logic that prioritizes short-term test score gains over the long-term development of student potential.
  • D) It is based on a budget logic that reflects the priorities of administrators rather than the actual needs of the students they serve.

Explanation: Choice A is correct. The original sentence identifies the problem (assigning value only to what can be measured) but does not explain why this is a flaw. Choice A makes the logical error explicit, measurability used as a proxy for value systematically excludes exactly the capacities the essay has been defending. The closing phrase ('most of what makes a person capable of doing something genuinely difficult') gives the abstraction human weight. Choice B is too vague. Choice C is accurate but does not identify the logical flaw. Choice D shifts blame to administrators, which is a different argument.

Question 5. The writer wants the final two sentences; 'A school system that eliminates what it cannot measure is not being rigorous. It is being incurious', to land with more force. Which revision best accomplishes this while preserving the two-sentence structure?

  • A) A school system that values only what it can measure will eventually produce students who can only do what they are measured on. That is not education. That is training.
  • B) A school system that eliminates what it cannot measure is not protecting academic rigor; it is defining rigor so narrowly that curiosity, creativity, and the willingness to attempt something difficult no longer count. That is not a school. That is a testing center. ✓
  • C) Rigor means holding high standards for all forms of learning, including those that resist standardized measurement. Incuriosity about what we cannot measure is not a virtue in education.
  • D) School systems that cut arts programs in the name of rigor should ask themselves what they are actually measuring, and whether the answer is worth what they are giving up.

Explanation: Choice B is correct. The original ending is punchy but can be sharpened. Choice B extends the 'rigorous vs. incurious' contrast into a definition, rigor is being redefined so narrowly that genuinely important capacities no longer qualify, then delivers a parallel reframing ('not a school, a testing center') with the same compressed wit as the original. Choice A introduces a training-vs-education distinction that is strong but shifts away from the essay's specific argument. Choice C is analytically sound but lacks rhetorical punch. Choice D ends with a question that dissipates rather than delivers force.