<p>good books to study?
is it true that you must be good at vocab/cr of sat1 to do well??</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>i checked out barrons and princeton review from my local library. not sure which one to study from. barrons actually was not as exhaustive as i thought it’d be on sat us history and sat math 2 so i’m probably going to end up using as many as i can. don’t know where to start first though.</p>
<p>that being said, and i don’t mean to hijack this thread chillypenguin, but is the sat lit exam a lot of ap language vocabulary ie knowing what different lit/poetry terms are? is it more sat vocab? is more cr? idk. but i’d be very interested in finding out :D</p>
<p>Kaplan
Kaplan
Kaplan</p>
<p>Dreamchaser, there’s very few questions with vocabulary pertaining to rhetoric and I only remember one question on the previous test with sat vocabulary. Most of it is like the sat cr but the passages are a lot harder, very little is as straight forward as on the cr, and the questions can seem extremely ambiguous. There’s also a wider variety of passages, like poetry, some times plays, from a wider time period it seems like</p>
<p>any tips for the old english on the poems and reading in general?</p>
<p>and the best way to prepare is??
@oscarlany, is it necessary to memorize terms, poetry specific terms, etc?</p>
<p>That seems… well significantly harder than the SAT cr. What is the curve like?
One tip I’ve learned Penguin is to look for why answer choices cannot be correct rather than why they are.</p>
<p>ive never been really able to distinguish wrong from right on the CR portion, which is why I need to get this before I take this test. </p>
<p>avoid extremes…any other tips?</p>
<p>Chillypenguin, no you don’t need to memorize a bunch of terms. I bought a Kaplan book to prepare and although I didn’t study with it (skimmed through it in 10 min) I looked at the terms list that might appear on the test and there were around 10. There were less than 5 on the actual test. It’d be a better use of your time to practice reading challenging or unconventional material critically than spending your time memorizing terms.</p>
<p>SAT II Lit barely has any rhetorical terms or vocab. AFAIK, there might have been one rhetorical term question on the exam I took this June. </p>
<p>What you need to do is:</p>
<p>1) be able to read and comprehend under pressure. You can’t be one of those readers that has to go back, reread several times, and then understand. It has to just click within 2 minutes of skimming the passage. Seriously. 2 minutes a passage - the Kaplan book has the time all calculated - and it better click. Otherwise, you can kiss your 800 goodbye. </p>
<p>2) be able to find the best answer. Don’t go jumping at the obvious answer choices. Often times, the answer choices will have two parts and you’ll need to verify that both parts are correct. And the Roman Numeral questions just suck because you have to really go back and re-read the passage and verify each answer option. </p>
<p>3) have a firm understanding of the purpose of rhetorical devices. You need to know more than “parallelism is used for emphasis; rhyme is used for a musical quality.” Remember, the purpose of rhetorical devices is not fixed in stone; it often depends on context and purpose. Also, the SAT II Lit exam won’t phrase the questions like this:</p>
<p>“The author uses parallel syntax in lines 22-44 for which of the following reasons?”</p>
<p>A) Emphasis
B) Musical quality
C) Rhythmic quality
D) Style
E) Tone </p>
<p>^No. The SAT II Lit exam tests your critical understanding of the passage by framing each of the answer choices in terms of the passage. In other words, if you don’t understand the passage, you’re screwed. For example, the answer choices would more realistically look like:</p>
<p>A) Convey more fully the experiences of being a lower-middle class immigrant in a foreign country
B) Imbue lines 22-44 with a lyrical quality to make the poem more suited for a vocal performance
C) Add rhythm to convey the sound of the drums referenced to in lines 18-23
D) Show his ability to write elegantly despite being an immigrant who migrated to America very late in life without knowing any Enligsh
E) To convey his vituperative tone toward the anti-immigrant sentiments of his boss</p>
<p>The best way to prepare is to use official material made by the College Board. Serious suggestion: first, consider your entire proposition of even taking the SAT II Lit exam. The exam is challenging. Literature literally has the lowest average score among all the SAT IIs - and by a good couple dozen points too. I got a 760 on CR on the SAT, first time, and a 2300 overall, and I consistently get 90%+ on AP Lang practice tests, yet I got my clock cleaned by the SAT II Lit exam. I’ll find out my score in about 3 days, but I almost don’t even want to know what my scores are. </p>
<p>So before you even buy any review books or cough up the registration fees for the Lit exam … try these two sample AP Lit tests:</p>
<p><a href=“Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board”>Supporting Students from Day One to Exam Day – AP Central | College Board;
<p>These AP Lit tests are very close in difficulty and identical in format to the actual SAT II Lit test. Both are meant to be taken in an hour, and both have ~60 questions. Take them. Aim for ~90% right if you want an 800. According to the Kaplan book, a raw score ranging from 57 - 63 is an 800 (although the Kaplan book is somewhat idiosyncratic in that its practice tests have 63 questions, which is 1 or 2 more than what usual Lit exams have). </p>
<p>Kaplan Curve (use this as an approximation of the real curve):
56-55 - 790
54-52 - 780
51 - 770
50 - 760
49 - 750
48 - 740
47 - 730 … and we’ll stop there ;).</p>
<p>I think Lit was hard for me even though I had studied poetry for the last three years in HS because I was not accustomed to timed poetry interpretation. I’m not exactly a fast reader when it comes to relatively dense material. So get used to interpreting poetry, timed. That’s right. EXPLICATE DONNE’S A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING WITHIN 2 MINUTES OF CONTACT WITH THE POEM. (It’s actually a very interesting poem and I’ll actually explicate it here, if the demand arises). </p>
<p>Books? The only material I used was the one test in the Blue Book for Subject Tests, the tests in the Kaplan SAT II Lit book, and all the released AP Lit tests. I think that all of the material I used were equally helpful. I didn’t try PR or Barron’s so I can’t judge. </p>
<p>Whatever you do decide to do, forum peruser - godspeed. If you feel like you can one-up Pacquiao, then you’re set for the SAT II Lit exam. Still on Mayweather’s level? Then start running, and don’t look back. And pray to the heavens that you kids don’t one day decide to take SAT II Lit and ask you for help interpreting a poetry passage. </p>
<p>Don’t you EVER underestimate the exam, as I did. I was like lol, I’mma take this Lit test with USH and get double 800s. (Boom, 1600, right?). I didn’t start studying for Lit until the week before the exam. It was then I realized the inadequacy of my reading comprehension skills. Well, we’ll see what I earned on the Lit test in three days. I’ll keep y’all posted. 'Til then, remember - THEREFORE THAT HE MAY RAISE THE LORD THROWS DOWN. EXPLICATE THAT PARADOX, YOU NEOPHYTE. 15 SECONDS AND COUNTING …</p>
<p>Thank you, IceQube!</p>
<p>…I feel like I’m following you from thread to thread, by the way. Sorry about that!</p>
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<p>Don’t apologize! It’s fine! I actually appreciate an audience - the more - the better :D! I want to know that my posts are actually making impacts.</p>
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<p>Welcome to the College Confidential forums :)!!</p>
<p>Thanks Baller! Hopefully this thread can become a sticky so everyone can see it :). </p>
<p>I’m not sure about which college I want to go to :(.</p>
<p>So how did you do on lit, IceQube?</p>
<p>I thought as well that I might get double 800s on lit and wh, but reality crashed this dream. :(</p>
<p>Rosaline: I got a 710.</p>
<p>So not great, but still decent. Hopefully everyone who reads my guide does better :).</p>