Analyzing & Interpreting Literature

[LuBee]

I am taking American Literature on Tuesday, how in the world did you pass this CLEP. Everyone I know has failed it. I have American Lit for Dummies. Did you use Instacert to study...the closest study guide is Analyzing & Interpreting Literature. Was this helpufl/similar to the CLEP test?

I also used the Idiots Guide. It was sufficient for me to pass. I made my own flashcards from it and for only a few things did additional look up on Wikipedia. When I don't have IC I like to turn my study material into flashcards by typing the material into a word doc. Then I cut it out and glue it on flashcards. By the time I've done this I've reviewed it three times - reading it, writing it, and glueing it. Then I take the cards around with me and study the material whenever I have a few minutes available or longer. I focus on the things that I am not able to keep in my brain. I know that I am ready when I know the material on the cards.

Check out some of the other threads on what to focus on. At this point I don't remember too much of the specifics of the questions. I do recall that there were at least a few on Thoureau, Emerson, and the Transcendalists, also Jonathan Edwards, and the characters of the Great Gatsby and of the Sound and the Fury, what the Yellow Wallpaper was about, the Puritans, Walt Whitman, TS Eliot's Wasteland and Prufrock, Mark Twain, and the Harlem Renaissnance. Pay attention to the excerpts in the Idiots Guide that give you the actual text of novels, poems and sermons. There were some questions where you have to identify who wrote it and what it meant. Remember, you only have to find the right answer from the choices. It is not fill in the blank - thank goodness!

I feel that if you know the material in the Idiot's Guide you will be fine. I like to say that I know a whole lot 'about' Amer Lit without actually having read much of it. It got me 6 credits and maybe someday when I have more time I may read some of what I haven't read, which is quite a lot.