<p>luckily our teacher makes us pick a primary work, which is basically us choosing a novel of literary merit at the beginning of the year which we study and do projects on the entire year to prepare us for the #3 question.</p>
<p>I actually chose 3 books to really familiarize myself with: The Stranger, Notes From Underground and A Clockwork Orange. I felt that the open question was kinda lame because all three of my novels were centered around one character. My friend told me he used The Stranger and talked about how the Sun was a foil for Meursault. I was totally peeved because I forgot about that.</p>
<p>Instead I wrote about the invisible audience in the first part of Notes From Underground...ugh.</p>
<p>I kinda blanked on the last one. I was going to use Lear but I just couldn't remember the details finely enough so I used 1984. My essay was a little abstract but I think it fit the qualifications.</p>
<p>i was so excited on the MC because i've read the last novel excerpt and we discussed the first poem at length in class one day, hahaha. i breezed through those parts.</p>
<p>the free response were pretty easy, too. the second one i really had no idea and was kind of fibbing my way through it, but eh.</p>
<p>i tried to use "emma" for the third but i couldn't remember the one guy's name, oh jeez. i ended up using the great gatsby instead, but i'm not it was that... accurate or great.</p>
<p>Whoa. I totally think I owned that.
MC was fairly easy - I had time to take a nap after I finished.</p>
<p>I started my essays by writing #3 because I found it easiest =) I used Marguerite Duras's Moderato Cantabile and managed to get out a whopping 5 pages. #1 was okay, 3 pages for that. #2 was complete and utter BS from me, spanning 2 pages.</p>
<p>MC wasn't bad, but there was one that made me cry. Essays were chill, got done right before the proctor would announce that we needed to move on for each new essay.</p>
<p>I'm normally not a good English student, but I actually didn't think it was as bad as I expected it to be. MC was good, but there's not one essay that I feel confident about. My first and third, if I'm lucky, might be considered ... innovative/creative? I don't know. I /kind of/ answered all the prompts though.</p>
<p>test was way easier than i thought it would be. i wrote on billy budd for the last essay. and the first poem on the multiple choice was one we had discussed in class. the kid that read it aloud even dedicated it to me (we hate each other).</p>
<p>I cheered (very quietly, of course) when I saw the open question because it fit The Brothers Karamazov so perfectly. I even managed to work a Faust reference in there. Of course, I now realize that I refered to Rakitin as "Ratikin" for the whole essay. I guess I'll see if they really do forgive that sort of thing. Come to think of it, I misspelled "Krasotkin" too.</p>
<p>I thought it was a breeze. I was worried because I had spent all of my time for Calc. I thought it was just like the CR section in the SAT, which I've taken a thousand times. Essays were much better than I had expected. The first one took a long time for me to decipher, but once I got it, it was not bad at all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Kite Runner? How do they classify that as having Literary Merit (especially when it's placed next to King Lear). That's like allowing us to consider writing about Harry Potter.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, I don't think so. Harry Potter doesn't have literary merit because it doesn't have enough of a point to it. Had The Kite Runner been published in the 1960's, there would be a greater acceptance of it (The Color Purple, which although is controversial, doesn't seem to be short of "literary merit" particularly because Alice Walker is renown.) The last time I checked, The Kite Runner has been praised by enough literary critics in modern times to be considered worthy of "literary merit." But you have to know the genre of great literature; it's not a Dan Brown novel or a Janet Evanovich book or anything truly "fantasy" (Kafka's Metamorphosis seems like this, but it's not). It's more like books like The Kite Runner or Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake or even Joy Luck Club. Granted, I'm using "ethnic" books, but they have a lot going on in them. There are others around.</p>
<p>the kite runner is considered as having literary merit. it was on the list of works on the 2007 free response questions (look it up on the college board). So don't stress!</p>
<p>I think I did alright. The multiple choice was easier than I was expecting. My first essay rocked, my second was alright, and my third was pretty awful. It was partially a result of me getting sick of writing and partially because I wrote about invisible man, when I should have chosen a different book.</p>
<p>MC was decent, nothing altogether new here.
First essay was awesome - I knew a ton of stuff about the first piece's author, so I put all of that in.</p>
<p>Second essay - I'm Indian - so that instantly got me awake. Then I realized that I had read the book before, so that got me even more pumped. Then I saw that they chose a boring as f*** passage, so that was slightly depressing. Related the person to Thoreau though, so it was all good :)</p>
<p>Third essay. Owned. Completely. No question. I had just written an essay in Lit class about that EXACT topic - needless to say, I had all my quotes and whatnot memorized....I even knew the exact citation for my quotes :D
When I walked into the test, I resolved not to use Hamlet. Then I got to the question. BAM! Whew. I'm done :)</p>
<p>All in all, great test. I actually somewhat enjoyed taking it. I know, shocking right? But, true :)
I'm guessing 4 or 5, depending on curve.</p>
<p>To really discuss it, just go on AIM - someone ought to make a chatroom.</p>