Analysis and Interpretation of Literature CLEP

[15%Luck]

AIL is my highest score yet. I thought it was very easy all you have to do time your practice tests so you keep it within the time limit.

[mongoose65]

You'll smoke it based on those practice tests. Be aware of the time and you'll be fine. I found reading the passages casually, as if for pleasure worked better than trying to anticipate what the questions would be and getting bogged down with the passage as a whole. It was quicker to read and each question referenced the line in the passage it pertained to so you had to reread the lines above and below anyway. My advice is to read quickly and casually the first time and then focus more on the lines in question after. Don't get bogged down trying to understand the complete passage on first pass. You just need to understand enough to find the clues that pertain to the question(s).

Just my 2 cents. Good luck.

[PonyGirl93]

I found reading the passages casually, as if for pleasure worked better

Yes yes yes yes!!! Maybe this wouldn't work as well for a naturally slow reader, but this totally works for me, for anything where I have to read a passage. If I try to "hurry up and read it," I get to the end and realize that not one word of what I just read computed in my brain Don't dilly-dally, but take the time to actually understand what it says.

Of course, if there's no "general meaning" questions, I just go straight to the lines that they are talking about, read a little before & after it and answer the question. But if you have to grasp the whole passage, see above

[ssmokem]

I too am studying for AIL and found this website:

Flashcard 16.: Analyzing and Interpreting Literature at Free Flash Cards Maker

Hope it helps.

[charleydear]

Wow, thanks. I will be taking the exam on tuesday. Need all the help I can, so not to get to anxiety driven. Have a tendency to do that right before an exam.

[sweet30200]

Used REA, Petersons, also Kaplan and Barrons AP English Literature and Composition workbooks from Libary. I read a lot of Emily Dickenson, Frost, Eliot beforehand from an old Literature book. Studied the Literature terms on the tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/ site. Two poems were excerpted from Petersons and REA on the test, but with very different questions.
I was scoring 58, 60, 62 on Petersons and running out of time. On REA I scored 50, 52 and improved my time management. But the scores really had me worried. When I tested, I found the questions were still pretty puzzling, but the selections were much less ambiguous than the REA book. Process of elimination helped a lot and knowing the terms cold saved me about 8 questions.

I had Ms. Emily and skipped ahead before answering, finished the rest and all of it was easy. Yes, there is some Shakespeare and Greek stuff but they were actually easier than several of the more recent pieces. I enjoyed reading to prep and found the AP books really helped me along. It has been 40 years since my High School Lit - where I was ruined by being force fed Beowulf. Now I appreciate the poetry. I read a lot for pleasure and business, but skim too much. YOU have to READ the paragraph to "get it". Some Q's like what does the line 12 mean - you can skate on. However, I had a few that upon reading further (due to next questions) forced a change to the skate choices. I did skim the questions not the answers before plunging into the reading. Then I could deposit the gist learned more clearly when the questions and choices were presented on the following screens. This resulted in about 15 minutes to spare which I used to change 3 answers.

If you are a good reader you can do this cold, I would still recommend the REA and a Peterson test or 2 to get the timing down.

Good luck - with the proper preparation this test is easy - my school requires more than 65 to get credit - so I was sweating it.