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AP English Language: Style (Writing Drill 3)

Drill 3 · Writing · Style — Writing

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About This Drill

AP English Language: Style (Writing Drill 3) is a Writing practice drill covering Style — 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 improve its style. Style questions focus on diction, syntax, tone, concision, sentence variety, and figurative language.

Passage

The following is a draft of a student argumentative essay on the language used in climate change communication, written for an AP English class. The teacher has asked the student to revise for style, including precision, sentence economy, rhetorical effect, and tone. [1] The way we talk about climate change affects how people respond to it. [2] Words like 'global warming' can make the problem seem distant and gradual to people in cold climates. [3] Words like 'climate crisis' or 'climate emergency' may feel alarmist to some audiences even when the underlying data supports alarm. [4] Getting the language right is not a trivial problem because the language shapes the sense of urgency, the perceived scope of responsibility, and the kinds of actions people consider possible. [5] Research on climate communication consistently finds that framing matters. [6] Messages that emphasize local, near-term impacts, flooding in this city, drought in this region, wildfires visible from this neighborhood, produce stronger engagement than messages about global averages or century-scale projections. [7] The abstract and the distant do not move people the way the concrete and the proximate do. [8] There is also the problem of false balance in media coverage. [9] When journalists present climate science as a 'debate' between scientists and skeptics, they imply a parity of evidence that does not exist. [10] Ninety-seven percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is occurring. [11] Treating this as a contested question is not balanced reporting. [12] It is a form of distortion. [13] Some communicators have argued for abandoning the term 'climate change' altogether in favor of terms with more urgency. [14] This is an interesting argument, but it may not account for the fact that terminology shifts can create confusion and allow opponents to exploit the change as evidence of scientific uncertainty. [15] The language we use matters, but changing it without building consensus around the new terminology may cause more problems than it solves. [16] In the end, no single word or phrase will communicate the full complexity and urgency of climate science. [17] What matters is not finding a magic phrase but building a communication strategy grounded in local specificity, emotional honesty, and a refusal to let false balance stand unchallenged. [18] The facts are clear enough. [19] The only remaining question is whether our language is adequate to carry them.

Questions & Explanations

Question 1. The writer wants to revise sentence 4 to make the claim about language's consequences more rhetorically forceful. Which revision best accomplishes this?

  • A) Language is not just description; it is architecture. The words we choose for climate change determine what people can see, what they feel responsible for, and what actions feel available to them. ✓
  • B) Because language shapes perception, it is important that climate communicators choose their words carefully and consider the effects those words will have on their audiences.
  • C) Getting the language right matters because the words we use influence how urgent a problem seems, who feels responsible, and what solutions seem possible.
  • D) The language of climate change is not neutral; it carries assumptions about scale, responsibility, and possibility that different audiences will interpret in different ways.

Explanation: Choice A is correct. The original sentence makes the point accurately but procedurally. Choice A elevates it with a compressed metaphor, 'language is not just description; it is architecture', that reframes the problem (language builds the cognitive structure within which people think) and then delivers three specific consequences in parallel. The metaphor is apt, original, and gives the sentence memorable weight. Choice B is advisory and breaks the essay's voice. Choice C is an accurate restatement but lacks rhetorical distinction. Choice D is accurate but less forceful than Choice A.

Question 2. The writer wants to revise sentence 7; 'The abstract and the distant do not move people the way the concrete and the proximate do', to make this observation more syntactically varied and stylistically engaging. Which revision best accomplishes this?

  • A) People respond more strongly to concrete, nearby problems than to abstract ones that seem distant and removed from their daily lives.
  • B) It is a well-established principle of communication that concrete, local messages tend to be more persuasive than abstract, global ones.
  • C) Climate communicators have found that messages about local impacts are more effective because they feel more relevant and immediate to audiences according to this interpretation.
  • D) We are moved by what we can see from our windows, not by what the models project for 2100. Distance, geographic and temporal, is the enemy of urgency. ✓

Explanation: Choice D is correct. The original sentence is chiasmic and clean but could be more concrete. Choice D replaces the abstract nouns ('the abstract,' 'the distant') with specific images ('what we can see from our windows,' 'what the models project for 2100'), and adds a second sentence that names the underlying principle ('distance is the enemy of urgency') in a compressed, memorable formulation. The shift from long sentence to short declarative also creates syntactic variety. Choices A, B, and C paraphrase accurately but are less stylistically distinctive.

Question 3. The writer wants to revise sentences 11 and 12; 'Treating this as a contested question is not balanced reporting. It is a form of distortion', to make the critique of false balance more rhetorically pointed. Which revision best accomplishes this?

  • A) Treating this as a contested question is not fair or accurate, and journalists who do so are not fulfilling their professional responsibilities.
  • B) Treating this as a contested question is not balance; it is the appearance of balance deployed to create doubt where the evidence has left very little room for it. ✓
  • C) Journalists who present climate change as a debate between two equal sides are distorting the scientific record and misleading their audiences.
  • D) False balance in science journalism is a well-documented problem that has been studied by media researchers and criticized by scientists for decades within the discussion described.

Explanation: Choice B is correct. The original sentences make the point crisply but could be sharpened. Choice B preserves the structure of the original ('not balance; it is...') while adding crucial specificity: false balance is not just wrong, it is 'the appearance of balance deployed to create doubt where evidence has left little room.' This identifies the mechanism, manufactured doubt, that makes false balance a form of active distortion rather than mere error. Choice A is accusatory without being analytically precise. Choice C makes the same point in plain prose without the rhetorical edge. Choice D broadens to media research, which dilutes the paragraph's focus.

Question 4. The writer wants to revise sentence 14 to make the concern about terminology shifts more concise and precise. Which revision best accomplishes this?

  • A) However, this argument overlooks the fact that changing terminology too quickly can lead to confusion and give skeptics an opportunity to question scientific credibility.
  • B) This argument is worth considering, but terminology shifts carry real risks: confusion among audiences who have learned one set of terms, and ammunition for those who will characterize the change as scientific backpedaling.
  • C) While the argument for new terminology is interesting, it is important to consider the potential downsides, including audience confusion and exploitation by those who oppose climate action. ✓
  • D) Terminology changes can be risky because they may create confusion and could potentially be used by climate skeptics to argue that scientists are uncertain about their own findings.

Explanation: Choice C is correct. The original sentence is wordy ('it may not account for the fact that') and somewhat vague. Choice C is more economical and precise; it names both risks specifically (audience confusion, characterization as backpedaling) and uses the word 'ammunition,' which captures the adversarial dynamic more vividly than 'allowing opponents to exploit.' Choices A and D are wordy and tentative. Choice B is a strong revision but slightly more concise in Choice C's formulation.

Question 5. The writer wants to revise sentences 18 and 19; 'The facts are clear enough. The only remaining question is whether our language is adequate to carry them', to give the conclusion more stylistic force while preserving its two-sentence structure. Which revision best accomplishes this?

  • A) The science has done its work. The question now is whether our language, and our willingness to use it honestly, locally, and without false balance, is equal to what the science is asking of us. ✓
  • B) We have all the facts we need. What we lack is the political will and communicative clarity to act on them effectively.
  • C) The data is there. The language just needs to catch up to it now.
  • D) Climate science has provided clear answers. It is now up to communicators, journalists, and policymakers to find language adequate to those answers and use it without flinching.

Explanation: Choice A is correct. The original ending is elegant but general. Choice A preserves the two-sentence structure and the 'science vs. language' contrast, but fills 'adequate language' with specific content drawn from the essay's three main arguments, honesty (emotional honesty), locality (local specificity), and false balance (without false balance). The phrase 'what the science is asking of us' gives the ending a moral dimension that goes slightly beyond the original while remaining within the essay's register. Choice B introduces political will, a new argument. Choice C is witty but too compressed for a conclusion. Choice D is clear but breaks the two-sentence structure and is more prescriptive than the original.