By Jessica B.—PhD English teacher.
Ah, the argument essay. If there’s one thing the AP Language and Composition exam loves, it’s a good argument.
And what’s great is that you’ve likely already written many of these types of essays in your English classes, even if you didn’t realize that’s what you were doing!
While the other two types of required essays might not be as familiar to you, the AP Lang argument essay almost definitely is. We’ll just need to walk through why.
So below, we’ll give you everything you need to understand to build a strong, effective argument essay for your AP Lang exam.
Let’s dive in.
What is the Argument essay?
The AP Lang exam requires you to write three essays—the synthesis essay, the rhetorical analysis essay, and the argument essay. These essays comprise 55% of your total score on the exam.
Synthesis essay
The synthesis essay requires a lot of reading, and asks you to craft an argument, but with this essay you’ll read six texts that are all relevant to a given topic and then you must write an argument in which you synthesize (as in, bring together) at least three of the six texts to help you formulate and support your thesis. (For a full guide to the synthesis essay, head here.)
Rhetorical analysis essay
The rhetorical analysis essay is probably different from most writing you’ve done before. In this essay, you’ll be asked to analyze someone else’s argument by reading a non-fiction text (like a speech, for example), considering the strategies the writer uses, and then arguing about the effectiveness of those strategies. So you’re still making an argument here, but in this essay, your argument is about another writer’s argument. (For a full guide to the rhetorical analysis essay, head here.)
Argument essay
The argument essay asks you to craft an argument about a given topic and then persuade your reader of your perspective by supporting your thesis with evidence and sound logic. Unlike the other two essays, you won’t be provided with outside sources but will instead need to depend on your ability to reason and to incorporate your own ideas as evidence.
The entire goal of this essay is to convince your reader of the value of your position.
What does it mean to build an argument (in the AP Lang sense)?
We probably all know what it means to argue in the traditional sense of the word: You believe one thing, someone else believes something different, and then you pelt each other with word-tomatoes until one of you caves. (Important side note that this is actually not a healthy way to argue.)
When it comes to building an argument for an AP Lang essay, we mean something slightly different.
Although you’re still arguing, your goal is to write a position piece that relies on a balance of logic, emotion, and credibility (more on that below) and that stays focused on one main line of reasoning. So, you can’t just say you don’t agree with sales tax, for example. You also need to explain why you don’t agree, include your reasons for feeling the way you do, and then link those reasons to your main argument by explaining how they support your thesis.
How is the AP Lang Argument essay scored?
Grading Rubric
AP Lang exam readers use a scoring rubric as they read and assess student essays that focuses on three key areas:
the thesis
the evidence and commentary
and the overall sophistication of the writing/argument
Each category is assigned a point value and all three categories equal a total of six points. Let’s dig a little deeper into the point breakdown.
Thesis
Your thesis counts for one point and is graded on a few things:
Does it relate to the prompt?
Does it make a claim instead of summarizing the prompt?
Is it actually “defensible?” (this is the term the College Board uses to describe whether or not you can support your thesis)
Is there actually a thesis in there?
Writers who earn the full point in this area take a clear position in the thesis, instead of hedging and just explaining what both sides of the issue are.
Evidence and Commentary
This is the big one when it comes to points as it counts for 4 out of the 6 total points for the essay.
Essay readers will look at the support you’ve provided for your argument (the evidence) and your analysis of that support (the commentary).
They’ll consider whether or not your evidence is relevant, specific, and supportive of all parts of your thesis.
And then they’ll analyze your explanation of how the evidence supports your thesis.
This last piece is essential—you have to do more than just include the evidence. Instead, you have to make clear connections between your evidence and your thesis by explaining WHY the evidence is relevant and HOW it supports your claim.
Sophistication
What does “sophisticated” writing even mean? For the purposes of the AP Lang exam, sophistication has to do with both your command of the language you use and your ability to show an understanding of the topic that reaches beyond surface level.
Essay readers are looking for a “nuanced argument” that considers the complexities of the topic and that employs precise and effective language. This component of the essay counts for one point, just like the thesis.
Example Argument Prompt
What kind of arguments might you get to make on the exam? Excellent question! And one the College Board is happy to help you prepare for by publishing past exam questions.
Here’s an AP Lang argument prompt from the 2025 exam that we thought would be helpful because it includes a quotation as the basis of the topic, and this is a common strategy on the exam:
Amanda Gorman is the first National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, an honor given to a young person for exceptional artistic expression, civic engagement, and social impact. In a 2021 interview in Time magazine, when asked how to maintain optimism in challenging times, Gorman stated: “Optimism shouldn’t be seen as opposed to pessimism, but in conversation with it. Your optimism will never be as powerful as it is in that exact moment when you want to give it up.”
Write an essay that argues your position on the extent to which Gorman’s claim about the
relationship between optimism and pessimism is valid.
In your response you should do the following:
• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible position.
• 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
How to write your Argument essay
We’ll use the example prompt above to talk through how to write your AP Lang argument essay. This is a pretty nuanced topic that asks for a very specific type of argument, but before we talk about how you might respond to THIS prompt, let’s talk about how you can respond to ANY argument essay prompt on the AP Lang exam.
If these suggestions don’t work for you, that’s ok! But maybe there’s something in here that speaks to your own writing process, so pick and choose what you want to try.
Timing
You’ll get a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes to write all three essays (with a 15-minute reading period included in that time). So, you’re really looking at 2 hours for three essays, which means you should spend roughly 40 minutes on each essay.
We recommend you spend the bulk of those 40 minutes doing the actual writing, so here’s a potential plan for you to follow:
*5 minutes to pre-write (outlining, brainstorming, planning)
*30 minutes to write the essay
*5 minutes to revise (go back and look for clarity, make sure your thesis is relevant and persuasive, check for sufficient textual evidence)
We totally get the temptation to use the full 40 minutes to just write the essay, but since you won’t have much time to go back and revise, a little planning on the front end can save you the trouble of having to organize as you go.
Logos, pathos, ethos
Written arguments of the sort required for this essay should employ some combination of logos, pathos, and ethos (concepts brought to us by Aristotle, so we call this the Aristotelian triangle).
Aristotle believed the most effective arguments employed a balance of
logos (appeals to an audience’s logic)
pathos (appeals to an audience's emotions)
and ethos (the ways a speaker can convince their audience of their credibility).
So, when crafting your own argument for the exam, make sure to hit on each of these in some way.
What are the logic-based reasons you can give for your perspective?
Which of your audience’s emotions might you appeal to in order to persuade them about this specific topic?
Why should they listen to YOU?
A note on shock value
Students sometimes mistake shock value for pathos, but this strategy rarely has the intended effect.
Remember that the generally-accepted belief is that effective arguments rely on a balance of logos, pathos, and ethos, and while attempts to shock your audience might pull on their emotional heartstrings, they might also reveal the lack of logic in your argument, so tread carefully with this.
How do you write THIS essay?
First of all, you have to understand the relationship Gorman addresses in the quotation. In essence, she’s saying you can’t have optimism without also having pessimism, so she isn’t making an either/or statement here.
And the prompt isn’t asking YOU to make an either/or statement either. You aren’t being tasked with choosing optimism or pessimism but instead with offering your position on the validity of Gorman’s claim.
Some other strategies you could employ:
Define for yourself what “valid” means in this case
Note your initial response to Gorman’s statement and then build from there. Do you immediately agree or disagree? Use that as your jumping off point!
Think about the different contexts in which you could apply this idea about optimism and pessimism
Consider your own experiences with optimism and pessimism and pull from these as your evidence
Example AP Lang argument essays with official scoring
One of the clearest ways to understand the approaches and scoring we’ve covered in this guide is to look at some sample essays, examine how they build their arguments, and understand how and why they are scored the way they are.
And rather than just taking our word for it, you can spend time examining 3 sample essays in response to an AP Lang argument prompt and their scores.
Here are 3 example AP Lang argument essays with score explanations from the College Board (from 2024).
Final Takeaway
The key to writing a successful AP Lang argument essay is to remember that you’re not just throwing your opinion out there and then making your reader figure out how you’ve arrived at your conclusion.
You have to back your position up and convince them they should listen to you. And you do this by moving beyond emotional appeals to include logic and sound reasoning.
Jessica B. has a Ph.D in English from the University of Southern California and teaches English at a Los Angeles-area independent school, where she has also been English department chair and a class dean. Sandra Cisneros is her hero, and she loves books, her awesomely-sarcastic family, the beach, cozy sweaters, and more books. Oh, and her sweet pitbull/lab mix named Ruby.
Top values: Curiosity, equity, wonder
