GRE Literature Subject Test

October 18, 2006 9:27 AM

A friend of mine is taking the GRE English Literature Subject test in a couple weeks. She was an English major in undergraduate. Any tips on a quick study plan?

She will be getting her hands on some Norton anthologies, and has a Kaplan book. Anybody have specific pieces of advice?

Thanks!

posted by mammary16 to education (7 comments total)

It sounds like she has already figured out the most helpful study plan that I found: quickly paging through the Norton Anthology, reading the headnotes on each major author as a quick refresher on the received wisdom, and just glancing at the most famous works. Since the test is largely a game of spot-the-author (and spot-the-allusion), a quick, superficial glance at authors' characteristic styles and forms combined with some biographical knowledge is more useful than any deep familiarity with the work.

(That's why I've yet to meet a single literature scholar who takes the GRE seriously as a measure of students' competence: multiple-choice passage identifications and other such guessing games are very far removed from the deep insights of sustained close reading.)
posted by RogerB at 9:52 AM on October 18, 2006

(On second thought, I do know at least one literature scholar who takes the GRE quite seriously: Prospero. Perhaps he will have some other useful study tips.)
posted by RogerB at 9:58 AM on October 18, 2006

I took this test after literally not having read 90% of the material covered on the test. (I studied something else in college, although it too went by the name of literature.) I did really really well, and I attribute that to using the Cracking the GRE Lit book. I made a few lists from the material presented there, I read a few things that they referenced, but, mostly, the book was so spot on that I really just needed to look at the book.
posted by OmieWise at 10:01 AM on October 18, 2006

RogerB has it. The only way to study for the test is to skim the Norton and the test booklets and then hope for the best. Speaking generally, it's a very hard test, very few people do well on it, and most departments don't put much stock in it.
posted by BackwardsCity at 10:03 AM on October 18, 2006

I'd just like to second (and third) the above comments. The Literature Subject Test is not a deal breaker or a deal maker. Graduate admissions committee look primarily at your written work (personal statement and writing sample). Study for the test by figuring out what kinds of questions, and what authors, you're likely to see on the test. The best sources for this information are the already mentioned Cracking the GRE Lit book as well as the sample tests published by ETS. Do not, under any circumstances, use those phonebook-thick collections of subjects tests (the publisher escapes me at the moment). They will only make you feel worse about the test and are by no means an accurate reflection of what kinds of questions you'll see on the test. They may or may not be an accurate reflection of what texts you should know to have a decent general knowledge of the discipline, but that's not what the subject test measures.
posted by mcgillicutty at 11:39 AM on October 18, 2006

I third the Cracking the GRE Lit book. I used that and did well on the exam. It was also the stupidest, randomest, most useless exam I've ever had to take (which is saying a lot), so don't let your friend get too hung up on it.
posted by Falconetti at 2:56 PM on October 18, 2006

My strategy was to make flash cards based on a couple of practice tests then flip through the stack in idle moments. I may have read a poem or four to get a sense of a few authors' styles, but that's really it.

Without reading most of the works/authors/critics, on very little sleep, with a nasty flu coming on (including a 20-minute-solid coughing fit in the middle of the exam), I still scored in the 96th percentile. Your friend will be fine.

One thing she might take seriously is the caution my study guide offered that simple identification of works and authors isn't quite enough. Instead, sometimes you get stuff like, "In the following passage Person X was alluding to the spouse of Person Y who edited the letters of _______." Then again, sometimes you get something as simple as a passage that mentions Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy by name then asks for the author.

Also, I know I would have done better if I'd known more about criticism and critics. (In my case, that should read, "if I'd known anything.") In particular there were five (or ten?) passages where you had to match the passage to the style of criticism. I guessed.

Oh, and I wasn't even a proper English major as an undergrad but a Humanities major with a puny Eng. lit. concentration. She'll be fine. Again, I recommend a power skim of the book, one afternoon spent making flash cards, and a glance through the cards when odd moments permit.

I'm glad I took the test, though: making those cards whet my appetite to read certain things later - I just love William Dunbar these days, and I totally get the John Webster character in Shakespeare in Love now.
posted by Liffey at 8:18 PM on October 18, 2006 [1 favorite]