<p>Hello all!
I'm going to be taking the AP Literature test in the May without the class due to a limited schedule but a desire to save money in college. In order to get a score of 4 or 5, is reviewing books I've studied in previous classes through spark/cliff notes good enough to get me through the open essay or should I invest time into seriously rereading the books? Obviously I mean to pick up some of the important quotes throughout, but it would be preferable to use the time I would spend rereading to study for Subject tests or my other AP's...</p>
<p>TLDR: Short on time to study for AP Lit, no class. Sparknotes of read books good enough?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance and sorry for the wall of text!</p>
<p>It really isn’t. Sparknoting won’t ground the information in to you. In my AP Lit class this year, I’ve read six required works (Cry, the Beloved Country; The Glass Menagerie; Hamlet; Macbeth; Wuthering Heights; Nineteen Eighty-Four). I will say this: the three I am prepping for the Question 3 (Hamlet, Wuthering Heights, Nineteen Eighty-Four) are the books that I most enjoyed reading and had the most personal effect on me. I would not have the passion for them, nor my understanding of them, from just sparknoting them. </p>
<p>I really don’t recommend sparknoting. It’s great for clarification and analysis, but IMO should be avoided altogether so that you can develop your own literary analysis skills. Perhaps use it at first and gradually let go of it.</p>