<p>Empire Falls-Richard Russo
Heart of Darkness-Joseph Conrad
Death of a Salesman-Arthur Miller</p>
<p>Speaking as someone who took that exam, the books that I think are the most useful are Heart of Darkness, Crime and Punishment, Death of a Salesman, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. That last one in particular is difficult to initially grasp but if you can write on it with a decent degree of intelligence, it'll score you major points.</p>