IMPROVING READING HABITS
In the multiple-choice section of the AP Lit exam, you will have 60 minutes to carefully read five to six
texts, a combination of fictional prose, essay, and poetry and answer approximately 55 questions on those
texts (see Chapter 19). In the essay section, you will have two texts to read—generally a poem and a
prose passage. If you don’t understand what you’ve read, you will not be able to write intelligent essays.
In either case, you will not have time for leisurely reading. However, you still must be able to read
actively and reflectively with all your faculties engaged. You may only have time to read each text once,
so you need to read carefully and with purpose.
You know your reading habits need some improvement if any of the following is true for you:
you find yourself thinking of something else about every other sentence
you have to reread a paragraph about five times to know what it means
you have to look up about every other word
you are bored by the passage so you just skim through it, but then you have no idea what it is about
you sometimes characterize the text as “stupid,” “dumb,” “pointless,” etc.Some of the problems listed above have to do with your attitude about the reading. It is fair to say that
not all the passages and poems on the AP Lit exam will be to your liking, but it will be important for you
to control your negative emotional response. Negative emotions will interfere with your motivation and
will cloud your ability to think clearly. The fix? Approach each passage as something you can mostly
understand. You aren’t expected to be an expert on any of them.
If you find yourself rereading a lot, you may actually be reading too slowly—allowing outside thoughts
into your head. This is a matter of concentration and it is something you can control. Before exam day,
practice reading complex texts at a rate faster than you would normally read—not so fast that you are
skimming the text—but quickly enough to concentrate on the text and to keep those outside thoughts at bay.
Remember, you do not have to read every single word in a prose passage to know what the author is
saying.