Home / Flashcard library / High school & admissions / AP English Literature and Composition

High school & admissions

AP English Literature and Composition flashcards

3 decks · 199 cards · built into Willys · free samples below

Get the app Study a free sample

Written against: College Board AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description (literary terms, devices and forms). Updated 2026-10-10.

What's in it

Every deck follows the course outline, with tags you can study or suspend topic by topic. Open a deck to study its free sample right here.

Learn · 2 decks · 139 cards

Concepts, mechanisms and the questions a course or exam asks about them.

Terms and Devices Character, setting, plot structure, narration and point of view, tone and irony, imagery, figurative language, symbol and theme — the prose-analysis vocabulary, applied to short original passages and public-domain classics. 10 free · 70 cards in the app Poetry and Forms Meter and scansion, rhyme types, lines and stanzas, fixed forms from the sonnet to the sestina, blank and free verse, the speaker, sound devices and poetic devices, with brief public-domain examples. 10 free · 69 cards in the app

Practice · 1 deck · 60 questions

Multiple-choice practice questions, one best answer each, with the reasoning.

Practice Questions Multiple-choice practice questions, one best answer each, on character, setting, structure, narration, figurative language, poetic form and literary argument, using short passages. The exam does not ask you to name a meter, rhyme scheme or form, so items that do are vocabulary practice. 6 free · 60 questions in the app

Study guide

Topics covered

The decks follow the order of the course outline. Numbers are cards per topic.

  • Character 17
  • Setting 10
  • Structure 81
    • Plot and Arrangement 16
    • Meter 20
    • Rhyme 9
    • Lines and Stanzas 11
    • Fixed Forms 18
    • Open Forms 7
  • Narration 37
    • Point of View 15
    • Tone and Irony 15
    • Speaker 7
  • Figurative Language 43
    • Imagery and Diction 6
    • Comparisons 11
    • Symbol and Allusion 7
    • Sound Devices 8
    • Poetic Devices 11
  • Literary Argumentation 11
    • Theme and Interpretation 11

A study plan

  • 8 new cards a day covers everything in a month, leaving the last weeks for review.
  • 5 new cards a day covers everything in two months, leaving the last weeks for review.

Willys schedules reviews for you (FSRS spaced repetition), so the daily number above is only for new cards; reviews of what you have learned come back on their own. Study a topic's cards right after you meet it in class, suspend topics you have not reached yet, and use the app's quiz mode in the final two weeks.

How to get these decks

  1. Install Willys on your iPhone, iPad or Mac — App Store. 14-day free trial, then $14.99 a year.
  2. In Willys, tap Exam Library at the top of your Decks (or Browse Exam Library… under the + button), find the exam on its shelf or by search, tick it and tap Add.
  3. Study. The exam comes in as its own collapsible folder, every card scheduled by FSRS spaced repetition. Nothing you already have is changed.

Every deck is built into Willys

All 3 AP English Literature and Composition decks (199 cards), with FSRS spaced repetition, quizzes and mock tests, on iPhone, iPad and Mac. 14-day free trial, then $14.99 a year.

Get the app

In Willys, tap Exam Library at the top of your Decks (or Browse Exam Library… under the + button), find the exam on its shelf or by search, tick it and tap Add.

About these cards

Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.

Checked against:

  • Topic order follows the big ideas of the College Board AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description (effective Fall 2024; character, setting, structure, narration, figurative language, literary argumentation), used as a skills outline only (no text copied).
  • Literary terms checked against M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms (reference only; no text copied). Example passages are original; works are named, not quoted.
  • Topic order follows the big ideas of the College Board AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description (effective Fall 2024; structure, narration, figurative language), used as a skills outline only (no text copied).
  • Prosody and form terms checked against M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms; The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics; Chris Baldick, The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms; The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature; the Poetry Foundation and Academy of American Poets glossaries; the University of Virginia's For Better For Verse; the University of Toronto's Representative Poetry Online; and Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary (reference only; no text copied). Quoted lines are brief excerpts from public-domain poems; other examples are original.
  • Facts follow this folder's two study decks, whose terms were checked against M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, and The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (reference only; no text copied). Topic order follows the big ideas of the College Board AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description (effective Fall 2024), used as a skills outline only (no text copied).
  • Stimulus passages are original, except brief excerpts from public-domain poems by William Shakespeare and John Donne, named where quoted.

These are independent study notes written for Willys. They are not official exam material, may contain mistakes, and are no substitute for your course, your teacher or the exam owner's own publications. Found an error? Tell us — corrections ship as a new version of the deck.

AP® is a trademark registered by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, this product.

Use of these pages is covered by our Terms of Use.