Ahhhhh!!!! Heeeeeelpppp!!!!!!!

[MaieJaie]

:confused: I took the American Literature test today and failed with a 49! I needed a 50. I was so bummed. I cried all the way to night class. I felt like I studied alot of important material, and it was not all on the actual test. This forum suggested The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature, which I searched for to no avail in the short amount of time that I needed it. I found the Complete Idiot's Guide for English Literature. Has anyone out there passed the CLEP English Literature from just studying that? I need help, in order to graduate in Dec. It is a must that I pass that one ASAP if I can. I passed Analyzing and Interpreting Literature last week with a 58. Please someone help!!

Please don't be too hard on yourself.

The Idiot's Guide's are all very useful. For the literature exams, a decent anthology (i.e. Norton, Oxford, or Longman) should cover anything you need to know, and then some. Your local library almost certainly has at least one of these anthologies.

Another good source is the Vade Mecum: A GRE for Literature in English Study Guide . Although designed primarily for students preparing for the GRE Subject Test in Literature in English, it will nevertheless have pretty much everything that could possibly appear on either the English literature or American CLEP. It's definitely thorough, albeit more in-depth than is required for the CLEP exams.

There are other resources on the web, as well, such as Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events, 1620-1920 for American literature or The San Antonio College LitWeb British Literature Index for British literature.

Good luck with the exams.

[cookderosa]

I hate to say not to study something, but I wouldn't have passed the American Lit exam if I studied anthologies. You are talking about reading thousands of pages of content- when what you really need is basic trivia type info. Who wrote this or that- when-etc. What was this writer's style, who wrote during this time in history, etc.
You don't have to read all of Twain's works- just know what they were and the key themes/plots/characters.
I think reading the works is overkill (and too targeted). At one point, I read some Poe's more famous works, and I also looked up some of the interesting books I never had time to read in the past (James Fenimore Cooper and Rudyard Kipling) but then I had to snap out of it and get back to studying.

I'd guess Idiot's guide covers over 500 works- no way you could/should read all of those for a multiple choice exam.

Just my opinion!

[MaieJaie]

I hate to say not to study something, but I wouldn't have passed the American Lit exam if I studied anthologies. You are talking about reading thousands of pages of content- when what you really need is basic trivia type info. Who wrote this or that- when-etc. What was this writer's style, who wrote during this time in history, etc.
You don't have to read all of Twain's works- just know what they were and the key themes/plots/characters.
I think reading the works is overkill (and too targeted). At one point, I read some Poe's more famous works, and I also looked up some of the interesting books I never had time to read in the past (James Fenimore Cooper and Rudyard Kipling) but then I had to snap out of it and get back to studying.

I'd guess Idiot's guide covers over 500 works- no way you could/should read all of those for a multiple choice exam.

Just my opinion!

I completely agree that no one should read the entire anthology & try to memorize every detail; that's not the purpose of anthologies, anyway. Anthologies provide an introduction to the major literary periods, as well as presenting major authors and samples of their works. Working through an anthology offers the knowledge needed about each time period, familiarity with representative authors and their works, and glimpses of the styles used by those respective authors. It also gives a brief view of the major plots, characters, and themes of those works. In-depth reading of every page is grossly unnecessary; a decent skim should suffice. Doing so would presumably be less time-consuming than reading the Idiot's Guide.

Sorry, I should have explained my strategy more thoroughly in my earlier post.