A lot of students wonder if there”s a specific AP English reading list of books they should be reading to big succeed on the AP Literature and Composition exam. While there”s not an official College-Board AP. reading danh mục, there are books that will be more useful for you big read than others as you prepare for the exam.
In this article, I”ll break down why you need to big read books big prepare, how many you should plan on reading, & what you should read—including poetry.
2021 APhường Test Changes Due to COVID-19
Due to big the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, APhường tests will now be held over three different sessions between May and June. Your chạy thử dates, & whether or not your tests will be online or on paper, will depover on your school. To learn more about how all of this is going big work and get the lachạy thử information on demo dates, AP.. online Reviews, and what these changes means for you, be sure big check out our 2021 APhường. COVID-19 FAQ article.
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Why Do You Need big Read Books for the AP.. Literature Test?
This might seem lượt thích kind of an obvious question—you need to big read books because it”s a literature exam! But actually, there are three specific reasons why you need to read novels, poems, & plays in preparation for the APhường Lit Test.
To Increase Your Familiarity With Different Eras and Genres of Literature
Reading a diverse array of novels, poetry and plays from different eras and genres will help you be familiar with the language that appears in the various passages on the AP Lit exam”s multiple choice & essay sections. If you read primarily modern works, for example, you may stumble through analyzing a Shakespeare sonnet. So, having a basic familiarity cấp độ with the language of a broad variety of literary works will help keep you from floundering in confusion on kiểm tra day because you”re seeing a work unlượt thích anything you”ve ever read.
To Improve Your Close-Reading Skills
You”ll also want to big read to improve your close-reading & rhetorical analysis skills. When you bởi read, really engage with the text: think about what the author”s doing to construct the novel/poem/play/etc., what literary techniques and motifs are being deployed, and what major themes are at play. You don”t necessarily need to big drill down big the same degree on every text, but you should always be thinking, “Why did the author write this piece this way?”
For the Student Choice Free-Response Question
Perhaps the most critical piece in reading to big prepare for the AP.. Lit test, however, is for the student choice free-response question. For the third question on the second exam section, you”ll be asked to examine how a specific theme works in one novel or play that you choose. The College Board does provide an example menu of works, but you can choose any work you like just so long as it has adequate “literary merit.” However, you need big be closely familiar with more than one work so that you can be prepared for whatever theme the College Board throws at you!
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Note: Not an effective reading method.
How Many Books Do You Need big Read for the APhường Exam?
That depends. In terms of reading big increase your familiarity with literature from different eras & genres & big improve sad your close-reading skills, the more books you have sad time big read, the better. You”ll want big read them all with an eye for comprehension and basic analysis, but you don”t necessarily need to focus equally on every book you read.
For the purposes of the student choice question, however, you”ll want big read books more closely, so that you could write a detailed, convincing analytical essay about any of their themes. So you should know the plot, characters, themes, & major literary devices or motifs used inside and out. Since you won”t know what theme you”ll be asked to big write about in advance, you”ll need to be prepared to write a student choice question on more than just one book.
Of the books you read for prep both in and out of class, choose four to five books that are thematically diverse big learn especially well in preparation for the exam. You may want big read these more than once, and you certainly want big take detailed notes on everything that”s going on in those books big help you remember key points & themes. Discussing them with a frikết thúc or mentor who has also read the book will help you generate ideas on what”s most interesting or intriguing about the work and how its themes operate in the text.
You may be doing some of these activities anyways for books you are assigned big read for class, and those books might be solid choices if you want big be as efficient as possible. Books you write essays about for school are also great choices to include in your four to five book stable since you will be becoming super-familiar with them for the writing you andy in class anyways.
In answer to the question, then, of how many books you need big read for the APhường Lit exam: you need big know four to five inside and out, & beyond that, the more the better!
Know the books. Love the books.
What Books Do You Need to big Read for the APhường Exam?
The most important thing for the student choice free-response question is that the work you select needs big have “literary merit.” What does this mean? In the context of the College Board, this means you should stiông xã with works of literary fiction. So in general, avoid mysteries, fantasies, romance novels, and so on.
If you”re looking for ideas, authors and works that have sad won prestigious prizes lượt thích the Pulitzer, Man Booker, the National Book Award, and so on are good choices. Anything you read specifically for your AP literature class is a good choice, too. If you aren”t sure if a particular work has the kind of literary merit the College Board is looking for, ask your AP. teacher.
When creating your own AP Literature reading menu for the student choice free-response, try to piông chồng works that are diverse in author, setting, genre, and theme. This will maximize your ability big comprehensively answer a student choice question about pretty much anything with one of the works you”ve focused on.
So, I might, for example, choose:
A Midsummer Night”s Dream, Shakespeare, play, 1605
Major themes and devices: magic, dreams, transformation, foolishness, man vs. woman, play-within-a-play
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte, novel, 1847
Major themes and devices: destructive sad love, exile, social and economic class, suffering & passion, vengeance and violence, unreliable narrator, frame narrative, family dysfunction, intergenerational narratives.
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton, novel, 1920
Major themes and devices: Tradition & duty, personal freedom, hypocrisy, irony, social class, family, “maintaining appearances”, honor
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys, novel, 1966
Major themes & devices: slavery, race, magic, madness, wildness, civilization vs. chaos, imperialism, gender
As you can see, while there is some thematic overlap in my chosen works, they also cover a broad swathe of themes. They are also all very different in style (although you”ll just have big take my word on that one unless you go look at all of them yourself), & they span a range of time periods and genres as well.
However, while there”s not necessarily a specific, mandated AP.. Literature reading danh sách, there are books that come up again and again on the suggestion lists for student choice free-response questions. When a book comes up over & over again on exams, this suggests both that it”s thematically rich, so you can use it big answer lots of different kinds of questions, and that the College Board sees a lot of value in the work.
To that over, I”ve sad assembled a menu, separated by time period, of all the books that have appeared on the suggested works các mục for student choice free-response questions at least twice since 2003. While you certainly shouldn”t be aiming to read all of these books (there”s way too many for that!), these are all solid choices for the student choice essay. Other books by authors from this menu are also going big be sando choices. It”s likely that some of your class reading will overlap with this danh mục, too.
I”ve sad divided up the works into chunks by time period. In addition to big title, each entry includes the author, whether the work is a novel, play, or something else, & when it was first published or performed. Works are alphabetical by author.