โ๐ฝAP English Language
โ๐ฝAP English Language
FRQ 2 โ Rhetorical Analysis
Practice FRQ 1 of 1651/165
2. Henry Adams was an American historian and a member of the prominent Adams political family, which included two U.S. presidents. In 1918, his autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, was published posthumously, detailing his intellectual development and struggle to adapt to the 20th century. The following is an excerpt from the first chapter of that book.
Read the passage carefully. Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Adams makes to convey his complex attitude toward the influence of his family heritage and social position.
In your response you should do the following:
- Respond to the prompt with a thesis that analyzes the writer's rhetorical choices.
- Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning.
- Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation.
- Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.
Par.
1
Under the shadow of Boston State House, turning its back on the house of John Hancock, the little passage called Hancock Avenue runs, or ran, from Beacon Street, skirting the State House grounds, to Mount Vernon Street, on the summit of Beacon Hill; and there, in the third house below Mount Vernon Place, February 16, 1838, a child was born, and christened later by his uncle, the minister of the First Church after the tenets of Boston Unitarianism, as Henry Brooks Adams.
2
Had he been born in Jerusalem under the shadow of the Temple and circumcised in the Synagogue by his uncle the high priest, under the name of Israel Cohen, he would scarcely have been more distinctly branded, and not much more heavily handicapped in the races of the coming century, in running for such stakes as the century was to offer; but, on the other hand, the ordinary traveller, who does not enter the field of racing, finds advantage in being, so to speak, ticketed through life, with the safeguards of an old, established traffic. An old and established traffic is a practical guarantee of security, as the pilgrim of the middle ages found when he followed the road to St. James of Compostella.
3
Henry Adams never got to the point of playing the game at all; he lost himself in the study of it, watching the errors of the players; but this is the only interest in the story, which otherwise has no moral and little incident.
