<p>My worst subject by far is English...But I'm planning to take ap literature as a junior and aiming for a 5. The thing is, I'm pretty bad at writing, and reading literature and pretty much everything that's required for the class.... (still gotta take it though, because I want to and its good for me).Any advice on how to manage a 5 on the test. I'm definitely willing to put in the effort but I'm afraid it won't get me anywhere.
What should I study or work at? Specific Tips and advice from 5 ers who actually studied and didn't just naturally get a five?</p>
<p>I got a 5 this year and barely studied. Of course, you could say I’m an “English person” so most of it comes naturally. But it’s not as hard as you think! What I found to be the most important thing was finding a deeper meaning behind what you read. AP Lit assumes that everything ever written contains some deeper meaning and symbolism - and most of the time, it actually does. You don’t have to be a good writer or big reader to do well in Lit (but it obviously helps). What you need to be is a detective - finding out why something was done. Why did the poet structure his poem like that? Why is that punctuation there? Why did that author focus on the color blue? Why did she choose to use the word “odor” instead of the more common word “smell?” </p>
<p>When studying, it helps to read essays and look over multiple choice questions that other students have done. Read the stories or poems and come up with your own interpretations. Then, see how you compared with the test-takers. Practice taking multiple choice questions to get used to the format. When writing, make sure you communicate your ideas effectively. Interpretations of literature are opinions, so you really can’t be wrong as long as what you’re saying makes sense and is profound and supported by examples and quotations from the text. Practice using and explaining quotations in your writing. That’s really all you can do. </p>
<p>In the long run, don’t worry about details like learning and studying literary terms or information about authors’ lives. Worry about 1. recognizing a deeper meaning and 2. communicating your ideas about the deeper meaning in an effective way. Read previous years’ essays, practice multiple choice questions, and grab an AP Lit practice book to help you with more specific test-taking strategies (like timing and test format). Good luck!</p>
<p>Hello there,</p>
<p>I took AP Lit this year as a sophomore and got a 5. No, i’m not a genius, and no, I don’t go to a fancy private school. I took the class because I like reading and, well, I wanted the GPA weighting. Getting a 5 is definitely manageable if you are willing to put in the time (English is not necessarily my strongest suit, i’m much more of a science-y person.) </p>
<p>There really isn’t much studying you can do for the test, unlike many other AP’s, mostly because you’ll never know what type of literature exactly will be on the test. One thing that is important to accomplish by rote memorization is the internalization of literary devices. I don’t mean so that when you see the word, you know exactly what it means: you should be able to see it while reading actively. Of course, one must know basic terms such as personification and imagery and simile, but more difficult and lesser-taught terms such as litotes, chiasmus, synecdoche, and metonomy come up once in a while in the multiple choice sections. Advanced literary terms also make your essays shine compared to those who only use the basic terms. </p>
<p>Be comfortable with poetry. I advise that you find some poems on the internet or in an anthology or something like that and just write short little paragraphs about what the poet is trying to convey. Poetry can be such a drag, everyone knows it… but if you find poems that you enjoy and that resonate with you then it makes the experience much more memorable and helpful.</p>
<p>Don’t try to read like 20000319328052 books on your own. Don’t even try to read 10 this year. Depth is SO much more important than breadth. We only read 2 books in class this year and it worked out fine for me. When test time is nearing, take the time to reread the books, more for theme and plot devices than for enjoyment. I made a list of 6 books that I had read previously in school, reread them, and wrote ~3 essays for each book so I was sure I had a grasp for the material. That was overkill, in foresight, but it did really help me and it might help you. A large number of books is not necessary as ammo for the final free-response question because if you know a book well enough, you can make it fit the prompt.</p>
<p>I bought the Princeton Review book as review supplementary material. Although I did read the whole thing, I don’t really think it was responsible for my 5. The PR book has very useful sections on the different eras of poetry which help to give context for essays, and the glossary at the end of the book is helpful for memorizing those darn vocabulary words. If you don’t buy one, no big deal. You’ll do well without it.</p>
<p>The TL;DR version of this post is: </p>
<p>-read a few books well, not a lot of books poorly.
-be comfortable with poetry.
-no purchase necessary (in regards to a review book, anyway)
-know your vocab.</p>
<p>I hope this helps you. I estimate I put in ~50 hours of my own time starting in April outside of class-required work to get my 5. You can definitely do it. If you have any questions about my experience with the course or things in general HMU.</p>
<p>How do you know which books are acceptable for usage on the exam? Also, what will be a solid number of books to read? If you have any particular books good for terms and poetry, please mention. Thank you guys for all your advice.</p>
<p>Hello,</p>
<p>I took AP Lit my junior year and got a 4 (missed the 5 because I ran out of time). I read about 13 books during the course, excluding poems and short stories. I don’t think you can name a “solid” number of books, but I’d say 10 or more books is safe. BUT you have to get a good, deep understanding. It’s more of quality than quantity that will help you score high on the exam.</p>
<p>Hey! I was in the same boat as you. I hate English with a passion and i cant write an essay to save my life. Also, i dont even understand anything about poetry really…the poems on the AP test were definitely my hardest part.</p>
<p>With that being said, i did 0 studying for this test and pulled a 4. Not bad, considering i only took the test to be exempt from my english final. Here’s some tips on the AP Lit exam:</p>
<p>1. At Least Try to Understand Poetry</p>
<p>This is a HUGE part of the exam, including half of the MC and an entire essay. I suggest reading up on the many different literary devices poets use in their poems (enjambment, alliteration, and all that jazz), as well as the different styles of poems (vignette, sonnet, and everything else invented before anyone cared about poetry) as well as some of the different main ideas of poetry (metaphysical, insert other example here, etc.). A review book should help with these (since you’re not taking the course and suffering like the rest of us)</p>
<p>2. Read Well-Written, Universal (and usually incredibly boring) Novels</p>
<p>By universal, I mean books that have complicated plots with great character development. This will definitely help you on the essay which requires you to answer a prompt USING A BOOK YOU’VE READ OF LITERARY MERIT (that means no 50 Shades of Grey). So obviously, you need a few books under your belt to make sure you’ve covered every prompt possible. Here’s 5 books that I think cover a HUGE span of ideas/possible questions on future AP Tests (at least the ones I read in my AP Lit class):</p>
<ul>
<li>Hamlet (this one was cool. WARNING: Shakespeare)</li>
<li>Crime and Punishment (also cool, long read though)</li>
<li>Wuthering Heights (good storyline, boring/slower than a glacier)</li>
<li>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (pretty good)</li>
<li>Tess of the d’Urbervilles (incredibly boring, but interesting characters/settings)</li>
<li>Special shoutout to “Heart of Darkness”, which i hear is a really good book</li>
</ul>
<p>3. Practice MC (and practice guessing, like I did on all the poetry stuff…yay…)</p>
<p>Nothing kills you more than reading a MC question and all 5 of the possible answers are LITERALLY possible answers. I mean seriously, sometimes even the weirdest answers seem logical after a couple minutes. They key, of course, is to pick the best one.</p>
<p>You’ll have 2 regular passages and 2 poems (i think…i’ve really done a good job blanking it all out apparently). So theres no time to waste.</p>
<p>Practice, practice, practice! This is really the only way to get a feel for the MC that you wont have enough time for when you have to read the same line of poetry 23592352 times because it looks like Arabic to you.</p>
<p>HINT: Take a look at the multiple choice questions/answers after you read the passage/poem, and then read it again. The answers might give you an idea of what to look for (or it could backlash and send you down the wrong path…but that didnt happen to me =D)</p>
<p>4. The Most Important Tip Besides Breathing: Perfect Those Essays</p>
<p>Obviously, since the essay portion comprises half of the exam, essays are important. There are literally several prompts available to you at Collegeboard, as well as rubrics and i assume you have English teachers to look over them for you (because who doesnt want to randomly read essays for fun? YAY).</p>
<p>Shake off that stupid 5 paragraph essay and find what suits you. If you find 5 paragraphs are what suit you…great! If you can only crank out 2 really good body paragraphs, then DO IT! 2 awesome body paragraphs are much better than 2 awesome BP’s and then a really mediocre BP that will make the reader go “Huh? HOW DARE THEY RUIN AN ESSAY WITH THIS ABOMINATION!!!”</p>
<p>And definitely practice the 3 different types. Obviously you need to write different kinds of essays for the poetry prompt and the “choose your own book” prompt.</p>
<p>The Bottom Line (this thing turned out way longer than I expected…the opposite was said for all 3 of my AP Lit essays)</p>
<p>If you can prepare for this exam in a month flat. Read those 5 books (6 if you want), look up/study those poetry terms/literary devices in general, and practice a couple of those essays. You will definitely need a teacher to help, because no one crushes your dreams better than an English teacher who tells you that you might be able to get a 3 on the AP exam based on their impossible midterm that you got the 2nd lowest grade in the class on.</p>
<p>Now if you’ll excuse me, i need to rub my 4 into a particular someone’s face. Hope i was able to help!</p>