2024 AP Open Argument: Value of Possessions (Practice)

In a 2019 interview, award-winning poet and memoirist Jimmy Santiago Baca asserted: “In America we value possessions. We would much rather talk about a new car than talk about a story that happened between grandfather and me. We’d much rather get on the computer and play video games and enact some cataclysmic(1) epic(2) than to talk about the epics in our own lives.”

Write an essay that argues your position on the extent to which Baca’s claim about the value of possessions is valid.

(1) destructive on a large scale

(2) a narrative or story of grand proportions

In your response you should do the following:

• Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible position.

• Provide evidence to support your line of reasoning.

• Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.

• Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.