English Lit CLEP

[Dolce]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone had any new information on the English Literature Clep Exam? I am taking it in two weeks. I must have to pass so every little bit of information helps. I have also conducted searches on the forum and downloaded a few attachments from a few posters. It is possible I missed something.

Thank you in advance.

[jrwatson1]

I just finished the English Literature CLEP this morning and passed with a 56. I wouldn't have done so without the help of this website and all of the posters for their valuable insight so now it's my turn to give back. I would say all of the suggestions on this board are right on. I neglected studying the literary terms and focused mainly on the works and authors. I would strongly suggest knowing those terms. I missed out on a few easy points that I could've picked up. As for study materials I would recommend in this order: This website, Barron's 101 Study Key's, Wikipedia to give a more in depth overview. I put together the suggestions from different board members into one file and studied that extensively. I'll post links to some things that may be helpful.
  Less than 1 minute ago">litterms.xls (Size: 27 KB / Downloads: 4)
  Less than 1 minute ago">Litstuff.xls (Size: 29 KB / Downloads: 3)
  Less than 1 minute ago">LitTips.docx (Size: 18.97 KB / Downloads: 3) Again, I cant take credit for this as they are from previous posts but hopefully it will help to have it all in one location. Quizlet has some flashcards for this particular test already made. I found a few errors in some but for the most part they are accurate. Good luck to all.

[bbdog]

Thanks to all of you guys who have posted on this forum I was able to pass my English Lit CLEP with a 53. Not outstanding, but I am happy, considering English has always been a subject I hated, and have absolutely no prior experience with English Lit.

Let me start out by saying, if you cannot analyze poetry or other literary works, you're fighting an uphill battle with this test. I would say that of the 95 questions that they asked me, 50 to 55 were a poem, selection from a poem, or a selection from a narrative, and them asking what the author meant when he used a certain word. Or what is the overall tone of the passage.
GUYS AND GALS, IF YOU ARE NOT GOOD AT THIS, START WORKING ON IT NOW. If you can get good at this, you have a good chance at passing this thing.

They also will give you many passages and ask who wrote this, Two from shakespeare, one from Milton, others I think I missed.

You guys hit it spot on, Barons 101 keys to English Literature Study Guide is a good read. Pretty much any of the historical questions with pairing authors and works will be in this book. I would definitely recommend this book, I got it used off amazon for 3 bucks with 2.99 shipping, and it was worth every penny.

It is important to know Sheakspeares main plays and the main characters in each. Sparknotes video on Youtube has each of them with a good discription if you want to save some time.
Given a passage from Mid-Summers night and had to identify the title.
Given the characters King Lear.
Also asked a question about Julius Caesar.

Was asked 3 questions about Chaucers Canterbury tales, one of which was describe the moral meaning of the fox story.

Dickens-oliver twist
two questions on Jonathon Swift, one about Guillivers Travels, and I can't remember the other.

Given two passages where the answers ended up being alliteration. Side note: make sure you know the basics of alliteration, Irony, allusion, paradox, personification among others. They popped up a bunch.

No questions on Pilgrams progress which I was surprised because everyone mentioned that on this forum that it showed up.

Milton had a question

know who wrote don juan

know Jane Aestin

Know John Donne

Know Edmund Spenser

There were more but I am starting to forget the questions that were asked. If you have more questions about what you should possibly study, I would be more than willing to help you out to the best of my abilities.

Thanks!!!

[EZstreet]

I took my CLEP test today and passed with a 65! I was expecting to barely pass, but the information provided in the other threads made all the difference. I recently took the BIO CLEP and passed with a 56 only using the information provided in the REA/CLEP study manuals you can order online. Unfortunately, as you probably already know, CLEP does not make an English Literature Study manual. The research I had done lead me to purchase BARRONS EZ-101 STUDY KEYS. If you are taking this test I HIGHLY recommend using it. I also purchased Sparknotes 101- Literature ( Same info as Sparknotes.com ) I used this for the story summaries and character lists. When I started studying (Prior to joining this site) I found it overwhelming! There are entirely too many Authors,Poets,Diarists,Novelists Etc. to study without narrowing it down. The information provided from other posts did just that. I relied HEAVILY on the information provided in other replies. I took all of the authors, topics, famous works that were mentioned and created flashcards on Flashcardexchange.com. When you get to the site type Clep into the search bar and it should take you there or copy and paste ( English Literature CLEP Flash Cards - FlashCardExchange.com ) into your browser. These flashcards are literally the only thing I studied. It should help you get a grasp on just about everything you need to know. A few of the other posts I read suggested that if you aren't good at analyzing literature, you should think twice about taking this test. I AM NOT SKILLED AT ANALYZING AND INTERPRETING. If you feel the same don't freak yourself out too much, just make sure you practice a little before the test. The best practice tests are from the peterson site mentioned in another reply. It gives 3 tests that have similar A&I questions to what you will find on the test. If you are not good at A&I go back through the questions you missed and read the explanation of why they are right and you are wrong. This is the only real way to practice A&I without a teacher or tutor who is proficent. I know someone mentioned that the site is only for military personel. Although I AM the son of a retired marine, I am fairly confident if you "pretend" to be, the Department of Defense isn't going to come knocking at your door. I hope this information helps you as much as it helped me( 12 Credits in 2 weeks). GOOD LUCK!

SUMMARY:
1. Buy Barrons EZ KEYS
2. Use Peterson site to practice A&I
3. Study the Flashcards
4. PASS THE TEST

[Westerner]

*Barron's 101 study keys is amazing! I learned the most from this tiny little book! Amazon.com: English Literature (Barron's Ez-101 Study Keys): Benjamin W. Griffith: Books

*The complete Idiots guide to English Lit - I really didnt find all that helpful... Infact the author refered to Christian's as a cult at one point, and that just made me mad. haha

* USE THE ON-LINE SPARKNOTES!!! Both the poetry and Lit sparkcharts are a MUST!

* Sparknotes Lituratre was also a BIG help! Its a pretty easy read, that at least helps you to become well aquantied with authors, and their works.

* I didnt really find any of the other AP study prep stuff helpful at all.

* Learn about the major authors! Some questions will ask you to say who a paragraph was written by. If you know even a little bit about the authors (Especially old old old english lit, like Bewolf), you will be able to ID, "okay, this isnt a poem, and these guys are poets, so its not A, and C, this guy used old english, and this is in modern english so its not him" etc etc.

* The first part of the test really focused on old english authors

*Know the difference between old english, and middle english.

*Know the basics of rhyming, and meters. (sparkchart is enough)

* Read though some of Shakespears sparknotes - be able to ID the main charctors

* Know who John Milton was, and what he wrote - it comes up several times

* About 2 out of every 3 questions had to do with A&I lit

* Unlike the A&I lit test, the pieces of lit that you read, are no more then 30 lines. Most of them were only 4-5 lines.

* Speaking of which, be sure you understand the [Official Clep Study Guide] practice test. why? Because someone forgot to take the practice test questions out of the actual test. Yes. Seriously. You will find at least 2-3 questions that are identical to the practice test questions.

* some people to know...

The Rossetti's
John Keates
John Gay
Dorthy Osborne
Lewis Carroll
John Milton
James Joyce
Thomas Hardy
George Eliot
George Orwell
Geoffry Chaucer
Edumund Spenser
-Fairie Queen
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The Bronte Sisters
Katherine Mansfield
Daniel Defoe
Shakespear
Robert Burns
Oscar Wilde
Rudygard Kipling
Charles Lamb
Virgina Wolf

* Be sure to know the basic story of King Author.. ya know, the disney cartoon we watched on saturday mornings where the kid pulls the sword outta the rock? Yeah, that will suffice!

* Be able to read old/middle English. There are a several A&I Old english lit questions... yuck!

*Know who wrote Pilgrims Progress, and the basics of what it was about!

* If you can - it really would be a good idea to take A&I Lit before this test...

* Know Lit terms. Like, Allerteration, Ottamotapedia, biography vs autobiography, etc. Spark Chats Lit is good for this!

This advice is VERY good!!!!

[testtaker12345]

hi everyone! I took this test this morning and BARELY passed. I thought I'd add to the help everyone has given. I used the flashcards above (thanks!) and got Barron's ez 101 study keys, which I barely read. Here's what I have to add:

-Know William Butler Yeats - I didn't see him mentioned here at all, I was/am clueless who he is. I had 5 questions on him, and he was reference also as W.B Yates in separate questions.
-Know the Author of "Goblin's Market"
-LOTS of questions about John Donne. I knew he was a metaphyiscal poet but had NO IDEA what he wrote, and questions asked a lot about that.
-Question about who wrote Frankenstein
-Question about who were some of the first NOVELISTS (NOT diarists, although it did ask that too) -- the correct answer on these forums is listed as George Elliot and Anthony Trollope BUT that wasn't even a choice on my test- just a heads up!
-Know WHAT "Rape of Lock" by Pope is about - a question directly asked what it was.
-Know the name of Author's sword was Excalibur
-I also had that question someone above had about the story of an orphan girl who grew up to be a .... (Jane Eyre)
-The main character name Winston Smith was in what novel? (1984)
-Asked about the 2 stream of consciousness authors
-Pre-Raphaelites came up once or twice.
-"Who wrote In Memorium?" -Tennyson
-Who whote the Lighthouse & Mrs. Dallaway?
-Know that Miller's tales or whatever is a Falibaux

I did have a question about Mary Wolfstone Craft, but I don't remember if she was the answer or the question...

Other questions for me were who wrote about "Yahoo's" (Jonathan Swift), Who wrote a (novel? poem?) based on the characters of Shakespeare's Hamlet? --that was also the ONLY question I had about Shakespeare at all- I had studied the characters in his plays in depth but not a single one came up.

The rest was A&I which was much easier than the A&I test. A few questions asked me about "Is this poem an example of ____" (malaproprism, terza rima, satire, etc). I had no idea on those. Even though I KNEW what each thing was, I had a difficult time applying it to the poems in front of me. Often I could get it down to 2 answers and either choice seemed good so that was a little though. A lot of poems seemed to be romantic or about lovers quarreling and or life and death. Another poem given was something like about how life is is chasing you on the horizon, and how nobody wants to go to their grave- the answer to what does this poem mean was "life is fleeting."

Had an excerpt about someone's bossom bore a cross- I think someone mentioned it up here. I can only remember pieces of the other poems and google isn't giving me any hits, sorry!

I guessed on about 12 questions in a row, ended up w/ a 56. I'll take it. Good luck!!!!! The info here is truly INVALUABLE.

[Perkfamily]

Just took it today. Passed with a 65. Studied using Baron Study Keys and this thread. This thread is the key to passing besides being able to to do A&I. Just read the most recent posts and study that content. There will be other stuff that was left off, but not enough to tank the score. Thank you all for your helpful information!!

[OE800_85]

Yeah, the Barron's book should be enough, but it's so condensed that you should read it a few times, not just once. If you are willing to sign up, the specific exam feedback for this section is very good and provided me with lots of other useful info

[danielleeadams]

Has anyone taken the essay part? My school requires it and I have no clue what it is going to be like! please help!

[rwalsh1422]

Taking this exam tomorrow. Any recent feedback on this exam? The most recent posts are from 2013...