2009 AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

 

English Language and Composition

Section II

Total Time—80 minutes

Question 1

 

(Suggested time—40 minutes.  This question counts as one half of the total essay section score.)

 

The following passage appears in a chapter entitled “The House that Sprawl Built” in Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck’s Suburban Nation.  Read the passage, and then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies the authors use to persuade the reader that the typical suburban house reflects broader issues in American society. 

 

In the sparse universe of sprawl, the elementary particle is the single-family house.  The current model is the fast-food version of the American dream—some call it the McMansion.  Its roots can be traced back to the manse on the agricultural estate, or the cabin in the woods.  Unlike its predecessors, however, the McMansion is located in the center of a small plot of land, surrounded at close quarters by more of the same.  The aesthetic deficiencies of this form of housing are so obvious that a number of well-known architects have made a name for themselves by seeking inspiration in its kitsch.  But the real problems here are not aesthetic but practical.

            Like its culinary counterpart, the McMansion provides excellent value for the price.  American homebuilders are perhaps the best in the world when it comes to providing buyers with the private realm, the insides of the house.  Dollar for dollar, no other society approaches the United States in terms of the number of square feet per person, the number of baths per bedroom, the number of appliances in the kitchen, the quality of the climate control, and the convenience of the garage.  The American private realm is simply a superior product.   The problem is that most suburban residents, the minute they leave this refuge, are confronted by a tawdry and stressful environment.  They enter their cars and embark on a journey of banality and hostility that lasts until they arrive at the interior of their next destination.  Americans may have the finest private realm in the developed world, but our public realm is brutal.  Confronted by repetitive subdivisions, treeless collector roads, and vast parking lots, the citizen finds few public spaces worth visiting.  One’s role in this environment is primarily as a motorist competing for asphalt. 

            This disjunction between the private and public realm has resulted in a uniquely American form of schizophrenia, suburban Nimbyism.  The reason people say, “I like living here, but I don’t want any others like me living here,” is that new suburban development does not provide them with any more of the satisfying private realm that they love; it only gives them more of the degraded public realm toward which they feel indifferent at best.

            While they are known to present environmental arguments, the Nimbys’ first concern is rarely ecology.  Nor do they care to discuss the link between low-density housing and dependence upon the automobile.  All they need to know is that new development, with its wide streets and vast parking lots, will be boring and unpleasant to visit and will, of course, generate more traffic.  The exchange of a woodland or farm for a new subdivision is, in terms of the public realm, an uncompensated loss. 

            This state of affairs contrasts markedly with the way development used to occur.  In America’s pre-World War II suburbs, the private and public realms were of equal quality, and the prospect of growth was invariably welcomed.  Fortunately, many of these places still exist, and most adults have encountered them.  Most American cities have at least one turn-of-the-century neighborhood that can provide a powerful example of desirable growth.  For this reason, Nimbys with a good memory or some travel experience are not beyond discussing new development in a thoughtful way.  If they can be shown that future development will provide them with a gratifying public realm—narrow tree-lined streets, parks, a corner grocery, a café, a small neighborhood school—they may even embrace growth.