AP® English Language and Composition · The Multiple-Choice Questions on Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning (Skill Categories 3, 4, 5, 6)
Multiple-Choice: Line of Reasoning and Structure
Structure questions ask how an argument's parts fit together, not what it says. You can often answer them from paragraph openers alone, since those reveal the shape: objection, evidence, turn, concession, verdict.
A structure question is really an elimination task dressed up as a comprehension question. It asks you to name the shape of the argument: does it open with an objection and answer it, build case by case toward a claim, or narrate a history before judging it? You can often sketch that shape from paragraph openers alone, before reading the body. The first few words of each paragraph usually signal its job: 'Critics say' flags an objection, 'The record shows' flags evidence, 'Therefore' or a reframing sentence flags a turn toward the writer's own claim. Read those openers in order and you have the skeleton of the argument's movement, which is exactly what these questions test.
Worked example of the shape: an essay opens with an objection to a tax levy, answers it with data from comparable counties, then turns that answer into a reason for the levy. That is three moves: state, rebut, repurpose. Wrong answers usually get one move right and scramble the other two, or describe the topic instead of the motion.
The trickiest version drops a stated thesis. Then the structure is the argument: count the weight. An essay with three paragraphs on who benefits from a tariff and five on who pays more is leaning toward the payers, even without a sentence saying so. This connects structure questions to the reasoning and claim questions nearby: once you can see the shape, you can usually tell what the shape is for.
Key terms
- line of reasoning
- The path an argument takes from its opening move to its final claim.
- paragraph opener
- The first clause or sentence of a paragraph, often signaling its function in the argument.
- concession
- A point where a writer grants part of an opposing view before responding to it.
- turn
- The moment an argument pivots from addressing an objection to building its own claim.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow do you sketch an argument's shape from its paragraph openers before reading any option?
- Worked exampleWalk me through describing the structure of an argument that opens with an objection and answers it.
- Going furtherWhat changes about a structure question when the argument never states its thesis outright?
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't the order events happened in tell you the order an argument moves in?
Check yourself
End of topic.