six or seven sources accompany the prompt, using information from all of the sources is not necessary, and may even be undesirable. The source material used must be cited in the essay in order to be considered legitimate. The analysis prompt typically asks students to read a short (less than 1 page) passage, which may have been written at any time, as long as it was originally written in modern English. After reading the passage, students are asked to write an essay in which they analyze and discuss various techniques the author uses in the passage. The techniques differ from prompt to prompt, but may ask about strategies, argumentative techniques, motivations, or other rhetorical elements of the passage, and how such techniques effectively contribute to the overall purpose of the passage. The prompt may mention specific techniques or purposes, but some leeway of discussion is left to the student. The argument prompt typically gives a position in the form of an assertion from a documented source. Students are asked to consider the assertion, and then form an argument that defends, challenges, or qualifies the assertion using supporting evidence from their own knowledge or reading. Scoring The multiple-choice section is scored by computer. Formerly, the test was scored by awarding 1 point for correct answers, while taking off a 1/4 point for incorrect answers. No points were taken away for blank answers. However, the College Board discontinued the policy for all AP Exams in 2011; now they only award 1 point for each correct answer, with no 1/4 point deductions. The free-response section is scored individually by hundreds of educators each June. Each essay is assigned a score from 0–6, 6 being high. Scoring is holistic, meaning that specific elements of the essay are not assessed, but each essay is scored in its entirety. The FRQ scoring was changed in 2019 from a 9 point scale. The scores from the three essays are added and integrated with the adjusted multiple-choice score (using appropriate weights of each section) to generate a composite score. The composite is then converted into an AP score of 1-5 using a scale for that year's exam. Students generally receive their scores by mail in mid-July of the year they took the test. Scores can be viewed on the College Board website using My AP. Alternately, they can receive their scores by phone as early as July 1