Yeah, "free-response" is only true if you're unprepared.

A significant part of taking AP English when I went through was the teacher saying: "Okay, here is the question. Now, what are the likely literature references the AP reader expects you to use? Okay, what are the likely scoring points the AP reader has on their worksheet? Okay, now write to those. Writing anything else is a waste of time."

You could count the number of students out of her class who didn't score a 5 on a single hand.