Subject: Re: AP Test, Salinger Essay, cry for help!!!
From: Your Very Own Secret Admirer (mws4c@faraday.clas.virginia.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 30 1997 - 12:42:52 GMT
> My question is this: Has anyone on this list used Catcher as an essay
> topic for an English Lit AP Test? I was thinking about using it, but I
> need to refresh my memory, maybe Cliff Notes would help???
for the ap test critical essays they give you a long list of suggested
topics - salinger's works are seldom on any of them. if you have time,
read thoroughly (or at least committ to memory the cliff notes of):
1 - Billy Budd - no matter what the question or the theme, you will be
able to write about this work of fiction 99% of the time. i hated
it at first reading, but i took a seminar with a law professor here and
upon that reading, i really really like it.
2 - Hamlet / Julius Caesar
3 - something by thomas hardy or charles dickens (i.e. Jude the
Obscure or Great Expectations)
4 - Siddartha by Hermann Hesse
kafka's the Metamorphosis, Huck Finn, one of Hemingway's works (i.e.
for whom the bell tolls), the Razor's Edge by somerset maugham and the
Scarlet Letter are also good bets.
from my memory of when i took practice and real AP exams 3 years ago,
these books were on virtually every question list (unless they changed the
format of the exam since i did it). not that salinger isn't one of
literature's great contributors and that you shouldn't write about catcher
in the rye if the opportunity arises, but i guess ap exam graders don't
regard his works and themes as all-encompassing. AP exams are easy - just
make sure you read every question very carefully and write tightly focused
essays, and tell the readers exactly what they want you to tell them. and
above all, don't sweat it. all in all the ap's are just another useless
exams like the SAT's and LSAT's and MCAT's. sad but true!
the cliff notes for catcher are a joke, as are cliff notes in general.
-myron
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