AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions
Question 1: Synthesis Essay
Directions: The following prompt is based on the accompanying sources.
This question requires you to synthesize a variety of sources into a coherent, well-written essay.
Synthesis refers to combining the sources and your position to form a cohesive, supported
argument and accurately citing sources. Your argument should be central; the sources should
support this argument. Avoid merely summarizing sources.
Remember to attribute both direct and indirect citations.
Introduction
When companies create an advertising campaign, they research those persons most likely to
purchase their product to learn as much as possible about them—their likes and dislikes, where
they live, how they spend their money, how they use their free time, and what they read, watch
on television, or listen to on the radio. Advertisements are then placed everywhere their target
audience is likely to see or hear them. Estimates vary, but some research shows Americans are
exposed to as many as 3,000 advertisements each day. They can be seen during movie previews
or as product placements in movies. They also appear on television, billboards, Web sites, the
sides of busses, in magazines, and on all sorts of free promotional materials from balloons to
ballpoint pens. Thus, advertising, though expensive, is a powerful tool. When used to promote a
product that has serious health risks, however, it can also be a topic of great controversy.
Assignment
Read the following sources (including the introductory information) carefully. Then, write an
essay in which you develop a position (support, refute, qualify) on whether alcohol
advertising influences teen drinking.
You may refer to the sources by their titles (Source A, Source B, etc.) or by the descriptions in
parentheses.
Source A (Marshall)
Source B (Levy)
Source C (Butterworth)
Source D (Jernigan)
Source E (Barns)
AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions
Source A
Marshall, Ann. The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, “Alcohol
Advertising and Youth,” Fact Sheet, July 2005.
How Alcohol Ads Influence Teens
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A study on alcohol advertising in magazines from 1997 to 2001 found that the number of
beer and distilled spirits ads tended to increase with a magazine's youth readership. For
every 1 million underage readers ages 12-19 in a magazine, researchers generally found
1.6 times more beer advertisements and 1.3 times more distilled spirits advertisements.
A recent study of eighth-graders showed that those with greater exposure to alcohol
advertisements in magazines, on television, and at sporting and music events were more
aware of the advertising and more likely to remember the advertisements they had seen.
A study of 12-year-olds found that children who were more aware of beer advertising
held more favorable views on drinking and expressed an intention to drink more often as
adults than did children who were less knowledgeable about the ads.
A federally-funded study of 1,000 young people found that exposure to and liking of
alcohol advertisements affects whether young people will drink alcohol.
Another study found that, among a group of 2,250 middle-school students, those who
viewed more television programs containing alcohol commercials while in the seventh
grade were more likely in the eighth grade to drink beer, wine/liquor, or to drink three or
more drinks on at least one occasion during the month prior to the follow-up survey.
AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions
Source B
Levy, Robert A. “Liquor and Beer Ads Are Not the Problem,” The
Chicago Tribune, December 8, 2003
It's not as if this issue has escaped scrutiny. The Federal Trade Commission's 2003 Report on
Alcohol Marketing and Advertising, approved by the commission without dissent, looked at nine
major companies and analyzed their ads, marketing plans and consumer research. The report
"found no evidence of targeting underage consumers" in the increasingly popular market for
flavored malt beverages, which combine beer and distilled spirits. The purpose of ads for
alcoholic beverages, like ads for vehicles, is to encourage brand shifting, not to convert nondrinkers into drinkers.
There's another key concern when courts are asked to enjoin private companies from exercising
their commercial speech rights. In a 1983 case, Bolger vs. Youngs Drug Prods. Corp., the U.S.
Supreme Court remarked that government must not "reduce the adult population ... to reading
only what is fit for children." Then, 13 years later, the court held that even "vice" products like
alcoholic beverages are entitled to commercial speech protection (44 Liquormart Inc. vs. Rhode
Island). Indeed, our Constitution protects Ku Klux Klan speech, flag burning and gangsta rap,
which is targeted directly at teenagers. Yet if Coors wants to advertise Keystone Light in Sports
Illustrated, Boies and his team of lawyers would bring the boot of government down hard on the
company's neck.
However serious the problem of underage consumption of beer and liquor, there are
countervailing values that are implicated when speech restrictions are proposed.
The choice between preserving core 1st Amendment values and regulating ads for alcoholic
beverages is a particularly easy one when there is little evidence of any connection between
those ads and underage drinking. We need not sacrifice commercial free speech to reduce
alcohol consumption by minors. Nor should we sit back and allow the trial lawyers to add one
more notch to their expanding tobacco belt. Their message is simple: The doctrine of personal
accountability is out the window. In its place is the insidious notion that you can engage in risky
behavior, then force someone else to pay for your mistakes. That message is far more pernicious
than any beer or liquor commercial.
AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions
Source C
Butterworth, Trevor. and Rebecca Goldin, PhD, "Targeting Youth?
Alcohol Advertising in Magazines," STATS, August 1, 2006.
www.stats.org.
Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY)
In part, the answer to whether the alcohol industry targets teens depends on what you mean by
"targeting." According to CAMY, targeting occurs whenever alcohol companies advertise in
magazines with a youth readership over 15 percent—"youth" in this case being defined as being
between the ages of 12 and 20 (for some reason CAMY doesn't think 11-year-olds read popular
magazines). The percentage of youth in this age group in the population is about 14 percent, so,
CAMY reasons, a magazine that appeals to more youth than the population average is one that
alcohol companies would avoid if they weren't "targeting" youth.
Magazines that fall into this category include Sports Illustrated, Popular Mechanics, Rolling
Stone, Vogue, and others. From a statistical point of view, these magazines "oversample" youth,
meaning that they have a disproportionately high youth readership compared to the general
population. For CAMY, any advertisement for alcohol in such a magazine is automatically
targeting youth.
CAMY's argument is bolstered by a per capita exposure rate: Underage youth see more adds for
beer, wine, distilled spirits, and alcopops than those over age 21 (though the amount of additional
exposure is decreasing).
But this measurement is controversial: While most of us are worried about very young kids
becoming turned on to alcohol, the per capita exposure rates mixes in young adults between the
ages of 18 to 20. For the alcohol companies, these underage drinkers are difficult to avoid when
"intentionally" targeting people age 21 and over. And these are not typically the kind of "young"
people whose parents are rallying behind cries to limit alcohol advertising.
Implicit in CAMY's language is that alcohol companies are purposefully looking for youth in
order to advertise to them. But CAMY neglects to mention that alcohol companies do not
advertise in magazines whose main audience is youth; for example, Seventeen and YM do not
accept alcohol ads. Magazines that target youth are generally alcohol-ad free.
Furthermore, the magazines that CAMY refers to are not primarily written for (or sold to)
underage youth. In most cases, more than 80 percent of their readership is of legal drinking age.
So is "targeting" a fair word for alcohol advertisements in these magazines? Are the alcohol
companies really after underage drinkers?
AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions
Source D
Jernigan, David. "Intoxicating Brands: Alcohol Advertising and Youth,"
Multinational Monitor, July-August 2008.
Between 2001 and 2007, alcohol companies spent $6.6 billion to place more than 2 million
alcohol product advertisements on television. From 2001 to 2006, they spent $2 billion to place
19,466 alcohol product advertisements in national magazines.
Because the four broadcast networks—NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX—have a voluntary ban on
distilled spirits advertising on television, beer companies have traditionally dominated spending
on television. However, since 2001, distilled spirits marketers have driven a dramatic increase in
alcohol advertising on cable television.
Advertising placements, spending and youth exposure have all grown on television since 2001,
while placements and youth exposure have declined in magazines. The number of magazine
advertisements placed by alcohol companies fell by 22 percent from 2001 to 2006. Spending in
magazines peaked at $361 million in 2004 but fell to $331 million in 2006. Youth, young adult
and adult exposure to this advertising fell by 50 percent, 33 percent and 28 percent respectively
over the six-year period. Overall, the shift from magazines to television means that there has
been little change in overall youth exposure to alcohol advertising across the two media since
2001.
AP English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions
Source E
Barns, Mitch. "An anti-smoking billboard shows a sickly character
named Joe Chemo in his hospital bed suffering..." UXL
Encyclopedia of Drugs and Addictive Substances. Ed. Barbara
C. Bigelow. Vol. 4. Detroit: UXL, 2006. Gale Opposing
Viewpoints In Context. Web. 15 Oct. 2010.
An anti-smoking billboard shows a sickly character named "Joe Chemo" in his hospital bed
suffering from cancer due to years of smoking. The character is a takeoff of the famous "Joe
Camel," who was once featured on packs of Camel cigarettes.