American Literature
Description of the Examination
The American Literature examination covers material that is usually taught in a two-semester survey course (or the equivalent) at the college level. It deals with the prose and poetry written in the United States from colonial times to the present. It is primarily a test of knowledge about literary works—their content, their background, and their authors—but also requires familiarity with the terminology used by literary critics and historians. The examination emphasizes fiction and poetry and deals to a lesser degree with the essay, drama, and autobiography.
In both coverage and approach, the examination resembles the chronologically organized survey of American literature offered by many colleges. It assumes that candidates have read widely and developed an appreciation of American literature, know the basic literary periods, and have a sense of the historical development of American literature.
The examination contains approximately 100 questions to be answered in 90 minutes. Some of these are pretest questions that will not be scored. Any time candidates spend on tutorials and providing personal information is in addition to the actual testing time.
An optional essay section can be taken in addition to the multiple-choice test. The essay section requires that two essays be written during a total time of 90 minutes. For the first essay, a common theme in American literature and a list of major American authors are provided. Candidates are asked to write a well-organized essay discussing the way that theme is handled in works by any two of those authors. For the second essay, candidates are asked to respond to one of two topics; one requiring analysis of a poem, the other requiring analysis of a prose excerpt. In each case, the specific poem or prose excerpt is provided and questions are offered for guidance.
Candidates are expected to write well-organized essays in clear and precise prose. The essay section is graded by faculty at the institution that requests it and is still administered in paper-and-pencil format. There is an additional fee for taking this section, payable to the institution that administers the exam.
Knowledge and Skills Required
Questions on the American Literature examination require candidates to demonstrate one or more of the following abilities in the approximate proportions indicated.
- Knowledge of the content of particular literary works-their characters, plots, setting, themes, etc. (about 46 to 60 percent of the examination)
- Ability to understand and interpret short poems or excerpts from long poems and prose works presented in the test (about 25 to 40 percent of the examination)
- Knowledge of the historical and social settings of specific works, their authors and influences on them, and their relations to other literary works and to literary traditions (about 10 to 15 percent of the examination)
- Understanding of the critical theories of American writers and of critical terms, verse forms, and literary devices (about 5 percent of the examination)
The subject matter of the American Literature examination is drawn from the following topics. The percentages next to the main topics indicate the approximate percentages of exam questions on those topics.
| 10-15% | The Colonial Period (1620-1830) |
| 25% | The Romantic Period (1830-1870) |
| 25% | The Period of Realism and Naturalism (1870-1910) |
| 25% | The Modernist Period (1910-1945) |
| 10-15% | The Contemporary Period (1945-Present) |
Study Resources
To prepare for the American Literature exam, you should read critically the contents of at least one anthology, which you can find in most college bookstores. Most textbook anthologies contain a representative sample of readings as well as discussions of historical background, literary styles and devices characteristic of various authors and periods, and other material relevant to the test. The anthologies do vary somewhat in their content, approach, and emphasis; you are advised to consult more than one or to consult some specialized books on major authors, periods, and literary forms and terminology.
You should also read some of the major novels that are mentioned or excerpted in the anthologies, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Other novelists whose major works you should be familiar with include Melville, Crane, Wharton, Cather, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Ellison, and Wright. You can probably obtain an extensive reading list of American literature from a college English department, library, or bookstore.
