FRQ 1 – Email Reply

This guide organizes advice from past students who got 4s and 5s on their exams. We hope it gives you some new ideas and tools for your study sessions. But remember, everyone's different—what works for one student might not work for you. If you've got a study method that's doing the trick, stick with it. Think of this as extra help, not a must-do overhaul.

📌 Overview

• Students read and reply to a Spanish email/text message
• 13% of Exam Score
• Spend 15 minutes
• 5 Pt Rubric
  • Demonstrates excellent interpersonal writing (5)

💭 General Advice

Tips on mindset, strategy, structure, time management, and any other high level things to know

• Leading up to d-day, take some time to practice writing email replies in Spanish and in general. Like the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect!” If you don’t take the time to experience the format of this section, then you have no way of knowing how you are going to be graded.
  • Past exam questions are one of the best resources to use as the feedback given by the exam graders are similar to what will
• During the exam, don’t overthink! If you know that you have practiced and studied, you’ll be more than prepared!
• Don’t try to add extra information if you’re running out of time! Make sure to hit all the points specified in the prompt, and then think about filler.
• Make sure to first answer the prompt. While you are doing that, you have to add as many details as possible. This shows your vocabulary knowledge and ability to properly formulate sentences.
• Think of what the email is missing (in terms of date, time, setting), and include those questions in the email. If there is nothing missing, then you need to come up with questions that you would ask.
• Set aside at least two minutes at the end to review and check for mistakes such as spelling, misplaced accents, and more. While you may instinctively want to write as much as you can, it’s typically better to have a high quality, if somewhat short, email.
• Strategic Time Management: Familiarize yourself with the instructions before the exam to maximize efficiency.
  • Utilize the extra minute gained by knowing your instructions in advance to begin reading the email promptly. Minimize your reliance on instruction-listening time.
• For the email response, it’s always best to have 2-3 idioms memorized so that you can drop them in the email at different times. It might be good to have one towards the beginning and one towards the end to showcase your knowledge and use of them. You can also drop one in the middle if it fits. Many of AP Spanish Language “5” standards require you to use idioms, so in general, memorizing about 2-4 and how to use them is very helpful.

🤔 Before you Write

What should a student do in the first few minutes, before they start writing?

• Before you start writing, read through the prompt and the email once to get a general gist of what the question is asking. Then, go through and quickly circle or underline (whatever you do for annotating) the important parts that you’ll need to focus on to write a reply. If one of the questions asks about why you want to study a particular subject at a university, find keywords or phrases that will help you create a reply.
  • It also helps to mark for tone and figure out formalities (i.e., whether the email reply is to a CEO or childhood friend).
• Give yourself at least a minute to write down some vocabulary words that connect to the prompt and what you plan to write.
• Consider selecting words or phrases that you want to use in your email, for example, a specific subjunctive trigger or si clause that can help guide your train of thought while achieving a high level of complexity.
• You can give yourself about five minutes of the time to plan out what you’re going to say. While this method doesn't work for everyone, but it can help to bullet point everything that you’re going to talk about in the first five minutes (very short bullet points) and then use the next 10 minutes to flesh out the email response.

🏛️ Structuring Your Response

• Generally, you should start out your email addressing the sender!
  • One way to address a greeter is using Estimado(a) insert position + name,
• The College Board looks for adequate use of multiple tenses, including the subjunctive. Utilizing suggestion sentences (ex. sugiero que add subjunctive) and impersonal statements (ex. es fantástico que me haya ofrecido esta oportunidad!)
• While writing, keep in mind that the whole email needs to use usted and be written in a formal tone. This also means conjugating the verbs with a formal tense.
• Simple one sentence responses tend to not be sufficient when trying to achieve a higher score, so if you’re looking for that 4 or 5 try to connect the answers to yourself within the context of the prompt.
• Make sure to finish the email with “Atentamente” or some other sign-off word like “Sinceramente” and add your name. For instance

  • (Atentamente,

    Nicole Barber)

• The College Board looks for some Spanish idioms within your email as well, to show a bit more knowledge instead of using simple words. For instance
  • Ser pan comido → a piece of cake
  • Hablar hasta por los codos → talk your ears off
  • Costar un ojo de la cara → cost an arm and a leg

😬 Common Mistakes

• Make sure to add a question at the end or inquire for more details at the end.
  • Since you only have 15 minutes to read and write the email, it is very important to be able to scan for possible questions to ask while you are reading!
• Trying to include a smooth flow between at least 3 or 4 different tenses demonstrates proper knowledge of Spanish grammar. Sticking only in the present or past tense will not serve you well!
• Make sure to input a variety of vocabulary. Try not to repeat yourself.
• One major mistake that sometimes happens in emails is a false equivalence in translation: idioms and turns of phrase in English do not always translate directly, so be sure that you are very clear with your intended meaning.
• AUDIENCE AWARENESS: Understand your audience to avoid this common mistake of not using the proper form of address and greeting. Make sure to tailor your language to the level of formality suitable for the recipient, considering the professional or casual nature of the email.
• Especially non-native speakers, some students may try to process the information by translating it into English in their heads and translating their responses from English to Spanish. While this isn’t a problem, this may take a long time if you don’t necessarily understand what the email is saying. Context clues are very important in order to generate a response that makes sense in the event that you don’t understand the prompt. Don’t waste too much time trying to understand the prompt in the event you don’t recognize a word or too, try to replace it with a familiar word with similar prefixes and suffixes.