CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Taking Tests
Taking Essay Tests
Explain why Aristotle was one of the most influential thinkers in Western culture.
Trace the development of personal freedom in England
Name the basic propaganda techniques and illustrate each.
Essay questions like these may ask you to perform a variety of thinking and writing tasks. They may require recall of specific information as well as general knowledge of a subject. In addition, they may ask you to express and defend an opinion. To answer most essay test questions, you need to state a main idea and then support it convincingly in a limited amount of time.
Before attempting to answer an essay question, look first at the direction words. They will tell you what kind of answer is sought.
Key Words in Directions
Directions Meaning
Compare Point out similarities
Contrast Point out differences
Criticize Discuss the merits or value
Describe Give details
Discuss Consider various aspects of a subject
Explain Give reasons
Illustrate Provide examples
Name List the names
Summarize Give main points briefly
Trace Present in logical or chronological order
Strategies
1. If you have a choice of questions to answer, read all of the questions before choosing one.
2. Allot the time that you will spend on each question according to the number of points that it is worth.
3. On scratch paper, jot down names, dates, facts, or formulas required in your answer, and arrange them in appropriate order.
4. Be specific in your answer, but do not pad it with unrelated details.
5. Proofread your answer at least once for correct usage, spelling, and punctuation.
Assignment 1. Write a brief essay answer on one of the following topics. Restrict your time to sixty minutes for planning, drafting, and proofreading.
1. Explain why you agree or disagree with this statement: Honesty is the best policy.
2. Describe and illustrate a special friendship between two characters on a television program or in a novel.
3. Explain why you think that entertainers are more popular with the public than scientists who make lifesaving breakthroughs.
4. In a 300-hundred-word essay explain what Lord Byron meant by writing “Yet thy banner, torn but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind.”
5. Name a writer, an artist, or a musician, and explain why you like or dislike this person’s work.
Sample Essay:
If We Are to Survive This Dark Time
by Bertrand Arthur William Russell
(An Essay on Democratic and Totalitarian Concepts
of Man and Society)
T
here is only too much reason to fear that Western civilization, if not the whole world, is likely in the near future to go through a period of immense sorrow and suffering and pain—a period during which, if we are not careful to remember them, the things that we are attempting to preserve may be forgotten to bitterness and poverty and disorder. Courage, hope, and unshakable conviction will be necessary if we are to emerge from the dark time spiritually undamaged. It is worthwhile, before the actual danger is upon us, to collect our thoughts, to marshal our hopes, and to plant in our hearts a firm belief in our ideals.
It is not the first time that such disasters have threatened the Western world. The fall of Rome
Plotinus, the founder of the neo-Platonism, was the most remarkable of the pagans of that time. In his youth he hoped to play some part in world affairs and accompanied the emperor in a campaign against Persia
He then retired into meditation and wrote books full of beauty, extolling the eternal world and the inactive contemplation of it. Such philosophy, however admirable in itself, offered no cure for the ills from which the empire was suffering.
I think Plotinus was right in urging contemplation of eternal things, but he was wrong in thinking of this as enough to constitute a good life. Contemplation, if it is to be wholesome and valuable, must be married to practice; it must inspire action and ennoble the aims of practical statesmanship. While it remains secluded in the cloister it is only a means of escape.
Boethius, who represents the very last blossoming of Roman civilization, was a figure of more use to our age. After a lifetime spent in public administration and in trying to civilize a Gothic king, he fell into disfavour and was condemned to death. In prison he composed his great book, The Consolations of Philosophy, in which, with a combination of majestic calm and sweet reasonableness, he sets forth, as imperturbably as though he were still a powerful minister, the joys of contemplation, the delight in the beauty of the world and the hopes for mankind, which, even in that situation, did not desert him. Throughout the Dark Ages his book was studied and it transmitted to happier times the last purified legacy of the ancient world.
The sages of our times have a similar duty to perform. It is their duty to posterity to crystallize the achievements, the hopes, and the ideals which have made our time great—to study them with monumental simplicity, so they may shine like a beacon light through the coming darkness.
Two very different conceptions of human life are struggling for mastery of the world. In the West we see man’s greatness in the individual life. A great society for us is one which is composed of individuals who, as far as is humanly possible, are happy, free, and creative. We do not think that individuals should be alike. We conceive society as like an orchestra, in which the different performers have different parts to play and different instruments upon which to perform, and in which cooperation results from a conscious common purpose. We believe that each individual should have his proper pride. He should have his personal conscience and his personal aims, which he should be free to develop except when they can be shown to cause injury to others. We attach importance to the diminution of suffering and poverty, to the increase of knowledge, and the production of beauty and art. The state for us is a convenience, not an object of worship.
The Russian government has a different conception of the ends of life. The individual is thought of no importance: he is expendable. What is important is the State, which is regarded as something almost divine and having a welfare of its own not consisting in the welfare of citizens. This view, which Marx took over from Hegel, is fundamentally opposed to the Christian ethic, which in the West is accepted by free-thinkers as much as by Christians. In the Soviet world human dignity counts for nothing.
It is thought right and proper that men should be groveling slaves, bowing down before the semidivine beings who embody the greatness of the State. When a man betrays his dearest friend and causes him, as a penalty for a moment’s peevish indiscretion, to vanish into the mysterious horror of a Siberian labor camp; when a schoolchild, as a result of indoctrination by his teacher, causes his parents to be condemned to death; when a man of exceptional courage, after struggling against evils, is tried, convicted, and abjectly confesses that he has sinned in opposing the Moloch power of the authorities, neither the betrayal nor the confession brings any sense of shame to the perpetrator, for has he not been engaged in the service of his divinity?
It is this conception that we have to fight, a conception which, to my mind and to that of most men who appreciate what the Western world stands for, would, if it prevailed, take everything out of life that gives it value, leaving nothing but a regimented collection of grovelling animals. I cannot imagine a greater or more profound cause for which to fight. But if we are to win a victory—not only on the battlefield but in the hearts of men and in the institutions that they support—we must be clear in our own minds as to what it is that we value, and we must, like Boethius, fortify our courage against the threat of adversity.
While Russia America who suffered from the fall of France
Few things are more purifying to our conception of values than to contemplate the gradual rise of man from his obscure and difficult beginnings to his present eminence. Man, when he first emerged, was a rare and hunted species, not so fleet as the deer, not so nimble as the monkey, unable to defend himself against wild beasts, without the protection of warm fur against rain and cold, living precariously upon the food that he could gather, without weapons, without domestic animals, without agriculture.
The one advantage that he possessed—intelligence—gave him security. He learned the use of fire, of bows and arrows, of language, of domestic animals and, at last, of agriculture. He learned to co-operate in communities, to build great palaces and pyramids, to explore the world in all directions and, at last, to cope with disease and poverty. He studied the stars, he invented geometry, and he learned to substitute machines for muscles in necessary labour. Some of the most important of these advances are very recent and are as yet confined to Western nations.
In the former days most children died in infancy, mortality in adult life was very high, and in every country the great majority of the population endured abject poverty. Now certain nations have succeeded in preserving the lives of the overwhelming majority of infants, in lowering enormously the adult death rate, and in nearly eliminating abject poverty. Other nations, where disease and abject poverty are still the rule, could achieve the same level of well-being by adopting the same methods. There is, therefore, a new hope for mankind.
The hope cannot be realized unless the causes of present evils are understood. But it is the hope that needs to be emphasized. Modern man is master of his fate. What he suffers he suffers because he is stupid or wicked, not because it is nature’s decree. Happiness is his if he adopts the means that lie ready to his hands.
We of the Western world, faced with Communism’s hostile criticism, have been too modest and too defensive in our attitude. Throughout the long ages since life began the mechanism of evolution has involved cruel suffering, endless struggle for bare subsistence, and in the end, in most cases, death by starvation. This is the law in the animal kingdom, and it remained, until the present century, the law among human beings also. Now, at last, certain nations have discovered how to prevent abject poverty, how to prevent the pain and sorrow and waste of useless births condemned to premature death, and how to substitute intelligence and care for the blind ruthlessness of nature.
The nations that have made this discovery are trustees for the future of mankind. They must have the courage of their new way of life and not allow themselves to be bemused or bewildered by the slogans of the semicivilized. We have a right to hopes that are rational, that can be itemized and set forth in statistics. If we allow ourselves to be robbed of these hopes for the sake of irrational dreams, we shall be traitors to the human race.
If bad times lie ahead of us, we should remember while they last the slow march of man, chequered in the past by devastations and retrogressions, but always resuming the movement toward progress. Spinoza, who was one of the wisest of men and who lived consistently in accordance with his own wisdom, advised men to view passing events “under the aspect of eternity.” Those who can learn to do this will find a painful present much more bearable than it would otherwise be. They can see it as a passing moment—a discord to be resolved, a tunnel to be traversed. The small child who has hurt himself weeps as if the world contained nothing but sorrow, because his mind is confined to the present. A man who has learned wisdom from Spinoza can see even a lifetime of suffering as a passing moment in the life of humanity. And the human race itself, from its obscure beginning to its unknown end, is only a minute episode in the life of the universe.
What may be happening elsewhere we do not know, but it is improbable that the universe contains nothing better than ourselves. With increase of wisdom our thoughts acquire a wider scope both in space and in time. The child lives in the minute, the boy in the day, the instinctive man in the year. The man imbued with history lives in the epoch. Spinoza would have us live not in the minute, the day, the year or the epoch but in eternity. Those who learn to do this will find that it takes away the frantic quality of misfortune and prevents the trend towards madness that comes with overwhelming disaster. He spent the last day of his life telling cheerful anecdotes to his host. He had written: “The wise man thinks less about death than about anything else,” and he carried out this precept when it came to his own death.
I do not mean that the wise man will be destitute of emotion—on the contrary, he will feel friendship, benevolence, and compassion in a higher degree than the man who has not emancipated himself from personal anxieties. His ego will not be a wall between him and the rest of mankind. He will feel, like Buddha, that he cannot be completely happy while anybody is miserable. He will feel pain—a wider and more diffused pain than that of the egoist—but he will not find the pain unendurable. He will not be driven by it to invent comfortable fairy tales which assure him that the sufferings of others are illusory. He will not lose poise and self-control. Like Milton
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
Above all, he will remember that each generation is trustee to future generations of the mental and moral treasure that man has accumulated through the ages. It is easy to forget the glory of man. When King Lear is going mad he meets Edgar, who pretends to be mad and wears only a blanket. King Lear moralizes: “Unaccommodated, man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.”
This is half of the truth. The other half is uttered by Hamlet:
“What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason; how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!”
Soviet man, crawling on his knees to betray his friends and family to slow butchery, is hardly worthy of Hamlet’s words, but it is possible to be worthy of them. It is possible to every one of us. Every one of us can enlarge his mind, release his imagination, and spread wide his affection and benevolence. And it is those who do this whom ultimately mankind reveres. The East reveres Buddha, the West reveres Christ. Both taught love as the secret of wisdom. The earthly life of Christ was contemporary with that of the Emperor Tiberius, who spent his life in cruelty and debauchery. Tiberius had pomp and power; in his day millions trembled at his nod. But he is forgotten by historians.
Those who live nobly, even if in their day they live obscurely, need not fear that they will have lived in vain. Something radiates from their lives, some light that shows the way to their friends, their neighbours—perhaps to long future ages. I find many men nowadays oppressed with a sense of impotence, with the feeling that in the vastness of modern societies there is nothing of importance that the individual can do. This is a mistake. The individual, if he is filled with love of mankind, with breadth of vision, with courage and with endurance, can do a great deal.
As geological time goes, it is but a moment since the human race began and only the twinkling of an eye since the arts of civilization were first invented. In spite of some alarmists, it is hardly likely that our species will completely exterminate itself. And so long as man continues to exist, we may be pretty sure that, whatever he may suffer for a time, and whatever brightness may be eclipsed, he will emerge sooner or later, perhaps strengthened and reinvigorated by a period of mental sleep. The universe is vast and men are but tiny specks on an insignificant planet. But the more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more astonishing becomes what human beings have achieved.
It is to the possible achievements of man that our ultimate loyalty is due, and in that thought the brief troubles of our unquiet epoch become endurable. Much wisdom remains to be learned, and if it is only to be learned through adversity, we must endeavour to endure adversity with what fortitude we can command. But if we can acquire wisdom soon enough, adversity may not be necessary and the future of man may be happier than any part of his past.
Taking Standardized Tests
Standardized tests measure your accumulated knowledge as well as your potential. Your scores are compared with those of other students who have taken the same tests. Such tests may be a requirement for high-school graduation or a prerequisite for entering college. Most colleges require scores from the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), given by the College Entrance Examination Board.
Verbal standardized tests, such as the SAT, measure your vocabulary and your ability to think precisely and logically. The test questions may take many forms, including antonyms, analogies, sentence completions, reading-comprehension passages, sentence corrections, and tests of writing ability.
You cannot study for these tests as you would for classroom tests! The best way to do well is to read as much as possible and to use the test-taking strategies in this chapter. Also, remember to write your answers clearly.
Vocabulary Questions
The vocabulary portion of the SAT has three types of questions: antonyms, analogies, and sentence completion. (Note that more often than not antonyms are not included on the SAT.) These items measure the extent of your vocabulary and your ability to determine the relationships between words.
Assignment 2. On your paper, write the letter of the word that is most nearly opposite in meaning to the capitalized word. Use a dictionary to check your choices after you have finished.
SAMPLE AFFLUENT: (a) afflicted (b) effluent (c) indigent (d) fluid (e) wealthy
ANSWER (c)
1. MOCK: (a) tease (b) struggle (c) think (d) compliment (e) ask
2. INSPIRE: (a) discourage (b) aspire (c) estimate (d) shrink (e) distort
3. SABOTAGE: (a) cover (b) reveal (c) assist (d) include (e) reduce
4. FLAMBOYANT: (a) whispering (b) drab (c) fair (d) stupid (e) pleasant
5. POTENT: (a) timid (b) bare (c) weak (d) sincere (e) key
6. TRITE: (a) modest (b) serious (c) unusual (d) sincere (e) unwritten
7. APATHY: (a) self-control (b) strength (c) interest (d) experience (e) credit
8. ALLURE: (a) neglect (b) question (c) sneer (d) repel (e) confuse
9. DEFUNCT: (a) sharp (b) evil (c) flourishing (d) tired (e) sly
10. FLORID: (a) juiceless (b) animalistic (c) pallid (d) abstaining (e) thirsty
Sentence-Completion Questions
Sentence-completion questions require you to complete a sentence by supplying a missing word or words consistent with the rest of the sentence. In order to do so, you must first understand the ideas expressed in the sentence. Generally, sentence-completion questions do not require any special knowledge beyond an understanding of all of the words in the sentence itself and in the answer choices. You must determine which word or words best complete the sentence based on the context in which they will appear.
The city should build a .......... of the proposed stadium so that taxpayers can see how it will look when the construction is .......... .
(a) model ... completed
(b) design ... finished
(c) building ... done
(d) facsimile ... initiated
(e) report ... taxed
In the preceding example, the sense of the sentence is that the city should build something so that taxpayers can see how a proposed stadium will look. First, read the choices. You know that the first blank will be filled by a word meaning “something built” and the second blank will be filled by a word meaning “done.” Read the choices. Eliminate (b) because a design is drawn, not built. Eliminate (c) because it is not logical—it sounds as if the building is being built twice. Eliminate (d) because it is not logical. The taxpayers will want to see how the building looks when the construction is finished, not started. Eliminate (e) because reports are not built. The correct answer is (a), model ... completed.
Use the following strategies when answering sentence-completion questions.
Strategies
1 Read the sentence and analyze its structure and its probable meaning. The sentence may present a contrast, offer reasons, or give a definition.
2. Look for context clues. The correct choice may be based on logic, tone, grammar, or word choice.
3. Look for transitional words or phrases that may signal a reason or an example. Such words include because, since, but, therefore, and so that.
4. Read the choices and eliminate as many wrong answers as possible.
5. Insert your choice in the answer blank, and read the sentence to make sure that your answer makes sense. In a sentence that has two blanks, make sure that both answers make sense.
Assignment 3. On your paper, write the letter of the word or words that best fit the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
SAMPLE Hypocrites portray emotions that they do not .......... but that they feel that they should .......... .
(a) condone ... suspend
(b) respect ... motivate
(c) tolerate ... improvise
(d) possess ... display
(e) exemplify ... repress
ANSWER (d)
1. To avoid having to repeat the announcement, she deliberately waited until everyone was .......... before speaking.
(a) compiled
(b) forged
(c) cloistered
(d) swarmed
(e) assembled
2. Gorillas look fierce and .........., but actually they are shy, friendly creatures who need companionship and attention.
(a) moody
(b) belligerent
(c) isolated
(d) alarmed
(e) insensitive
3. The anteater .......... open ant nests with its strong front claws, then .......... up the ants with its sticky, foot-long tongue.
(a) pries ... looks
(b) rips ... licks
(c) carries ... gobbles
(d) slurps ... forces
(e) forces ... chews
4. Scientists .......... that Antarctica , now .......... and covered with ice, was once warm and filled with plant life.
(a) demand ... distant
(b) insist ... withered
(c) believe ... barren
(d) warn ... subdued
(e) debate ... sloped
5. A person may find it easy to .......... the behavior of a group when the group is .......... of people who share similar values.
(a) force ... tolerant
(b) conform to ... composed
(c) pretend about ... filled
(d) substitute ... made up
(e) alter ... contrived
6. It is .......... that when Marina
(a) tragic ... mistrusted
(b) comic ... demanded
(c) ironic ... desired
(d) puzzling ... disliked
(e) rational ... wanted
7. Museums usually .......... only a(n) .......... of their collections at one time.
(a) display ... fraction
(b) hide ... area
(c) show ... total
(d) extend ... section
(e) piece ... exhibit
8. A person who is .......... is generally .......... to be with.
(a) cranky ... enjoyable
(b) contented ... mournful
(c) confused ... insulting
(d) irritable ... unpleasant
(e) cheerful ... merciful
9. Of all the animals that ever .......... the earth, only 10 percent still .......... today.
(a) inhabited ... exist
(b) roamed ... last
(c) colonized ... survive
(d) crowded ... overflow
(e) settled ... remain
10. If hot water is suddenly .......... into a container made of glass, the glass is more likely to break if the glass is thick than it is if the glass is thin; therefore, test tubes are .......... thin glass.
(a) gushed ... invented in
(b) poured ... fabricated of
(c) dumped ... coined by
(d) put ... originated by
(e) flowed ... made of
Analogy Questions
Analogies test your ability to understand the relationship between two words and to recognize a similar or parallel relationship between two other words. In an analogy test, you must first establish the relationship that exists between a capitalized pair of words. Then, from a list of choices, you select another pair of words with the same relationship. Most analogies follow the format shown here.
MOUNTAIN : SUMMIT
(a) corporation : executive (b) zenith : moon (c) success : peak (d) pyramid : apex (e) cone : vortex
Strategies
1. When reading analogies, substitute “is to” for the single colons. Substitute “as” for the double colons. Read the preceding example as “MOUNTAIN is to SUMMIT
2. Determine the relationship between the capitalized pair of words. Relationships may include antonyms, synonyms, characteristics, size, cause and effect, part and whole, and so on.
3. Try each pair of terms to see if it has the same relationship. Formulate a sentence that contains the capitalized words and their relationship. For example, “The top of a MOUNTAIN is the SUMMIT
4. Eliminate the word pairs that have different relationships.
5. Check for grammatical patterns in the relationship. If the given pair is a noun/adjective, then the correct choice must be a noun/adjective pair.
6. Select the answer that most closely duplicates the relationship.
Reading-Comprehension Questions
Reading-comprehension questions test your understanding of what is directly or indirectly stated in a passage. They may also test your ability to interpret and to analyze what you read. Reading-comprehension passages vary in length, but they always contain all of the information that you need to answer the questions that follow. When answering reading-comprehension questions, follow these strategies.
Strategies
1. Read the passages, asking yourself, “What is the main idea?” Also, be alert for reasons, examples, and summary statements.
2. Read the questions before reading the passage if the passage is long or is on a subject unfamiliar to you. Reading the questions first may help you to understand the passage more easily and to find important points.
3. Read the questions that follow the passage. Do not reread the passage for each question, or you will not finish the test on time.
4. Read all the answers, and select the best one. Select your answer solely on the basis of what is in the passage, not on your personal knowledge or opinion.
5. If you can’t answer a question, go on to the next one. Do not allow a difficult question to distract you from other questions.
Study these passages and the questions that follow:
Is creativity associated with a high intelligence quotient (IQ)? When the lives of children who had very high IQ scores were followed, few, if any, developed into truly creative geniuses—into world-famous inventors, authors, artists, or composers. And the comparisons of people’s scores on IQ tests and on tests of creativity have found only modest correlations. It seems that the qualities that might lead a person to score high on an IQ test are not the same as those that lead to creative abilities.
The main point of the passage is that
(a) advanced scores on intelligence tests are a result of an advanced education.
(b) no one knows where creative ability comes from.
(c) children with genius level IQs do not usually develop into famous writers.
(d) very high intelligence and a high degree of creative ability are not the same.
(e) a genius IQ and genius-level creative ability are the same.
By following the strategies, you can eliminate (a) and (b) because, while they may be true, they are not in the passage. Eliminate (c) because it covers only part of the reading. Eliminate (e) because it contradicts the reading. The correct answer is (d).
Puritan parents in New England exercised a good deal of control over their adult children. Young men could not marry without acreage to cultivate, and because of the communal land-grant system, they were dependent on their fathers to supply them with that land. Daughters, too, needed the dowry of household goods their parents would give them when they married. Yet parents needed their children’s labor and were often reluctant to see them marry and start their own households. That at times led to considerable conflict between the generations. On the whole, though, children obeyed their parents’ wishes, for they had few alternatives.
1. The main point of the passage is that
(a) Puritan parents were unreasonable.
(b) Puritan parents and their children often had conflicts.
(c) Puritan young adults who wished to marry were dependent on their parents for land and dowries.
(d) Puritan young adults had less freedom than modern young adults.
(e) Puritan young adults had miserable lives.
2. A daughter’s dowry consisted of
(a) household goods.
(b) goats.
(c) land.
(d) land and equipment.
(e) money.
3. If young adults had marriage plans that did not agree with the plans that their parents had set out for them,
(a) they ignored the parents’ wishes.
(b) they moved to a new community.
(c) they asked the parents to reconsider their plans.
(d) they usually ended up doing what the parents wanted.
(e) they often offered to work the parents’ land in addition to their own.
4. Based on the passage, one can infer that most people worked as
(a) doctor.
(b) farmers.
(c) Puritans.
(d) cattle ranchers.
(e) office workers.
Test of Standard Written English
The SAT also has a section called the Test of Standard Written English (TSWE). This test is not used as a college admission test. It is used to determine what English courses you should take after you have gained admission to a college.
The questions on the TSWE test your knowledge or grammar, usage, mechanics, and logical word choice. These questions may appear in a variety of formats, including sentence correction and error identification.
Parrot-like cramming will not help you to prepare for this test. However, there are things that you can do to improve your chances of performing well. First, read works by skilled writers (included in Book Two of the present edition) so that you become accustomed to standard usage. Second, review the rules of grammar, usage, and mechanics. Finally, revise and proofread all of your written assignments on a regular basis so that you become more adept at recognizing errors and eliminating them.
Develop your study skills by applying techniques for improving your comprehension and retention of what you read. Learn to take useful notes when you read and when you listen to lectures. Studying is an active, continual process and requires planning, repetition, and writing to help you remember and use newly acquired information.
First, plan a reasonable study schedule.
Examine your week’s activities, and develop a realistic plan for studying. Consider all the demands on your time—eating, sleeping, attending classes, doing homework, exercising, socializing, commuting, watching TV—and set aside time for regular studying. Some students make a weekly chart of their activities so that it’s easier to keep track of their hours. If you do block in regular activities and study time on a calendar, leave a number of free periods so that you have time for relaxing and for making adjustments. When exams or special projects come up, for example, you’ll need blocks of time over several days, even weeks, to complete your work on time. Try to avoid cramming for tests, because the stress it produces prevents deep learning and memory. If you must cram, try to outline the major points you need to cover and concentrate on learning the central ideas and facts.
Learn and retain information by reading actively.
You can improve your ability to learn and retain material by approaching your reading with a clear plan and by taking various kinds of notes.
1 Survey your text before you read it carefully.
Surveying—looking at the text for information without reading every word—gives you an outline of the material so that you can focus on what you are about to read. When you survey a book, look for chapter titles and subtitles, headings and subheadings, charts, graphs, illustrations, and words in boldface or italics. Skim the opening and closing paragraphs of a chapter or of chapter sections. Surveying like this can give you the sense of a book very quickly.
2 Write out questions in advance so that you can read with a purpose.
Once you have looked quickly through the reading material, jot down some questions about it. Writing will help make things stick in your mind, and your written questions will provide a good short review. It is always better to write your own questions about a text you are reading, but if questions do appear at the end of a chapter, consider them carefully before you read. Then let them guide your reading.
Keeping specific questions in mind as you read will get you actively involved in the material at hand. Your reading then has a purpose: you are trying to find answers to your questions.
3 Take notes on your reading.
Take notes on what on what you read. Learn how to make summaries. When you read, try to summarize every paragraph by composing a single, short sentence. Be ruthless in cutting out the nonessential, and put the author’s thoughts into your own words. Don’t try to duplicate the style of the book or article you are reading: you can easily see for yourself that it is pretty difficult to be another Nikos Kazantzakis. Putting somebody else’s ideas into your own words is a good way of making sure that you truly know those ideas.
Many students underline as they read. Underlining has several disadvantages. Obviously, you cannot underline in a library book; so if you underline material, you will have to own the book. Underlining is also a passive way of learning; it is merely a signpost to tell you that something here is worth remembering. But oftentimes, when students come back to passages they have underlined, they cannot remember why they put those lines down in the first place. Often, too, they underline too much, and too much emphasis becomes boring and confusing. Underlining is never as effective as writing down a short summary sentence for each paragraph. Writing a summary sentence ensures that you will reconsider the thoughts in the book, translate them into your own words, and put them on paper.
4 Look up your reading topic in some reference books.
You can also aid your memory by looking for the same information or closely related information in another source. Your teacher may require you to buy one or more books for the source, and you should read these books and make notes about them. But it is also an excellent idea to check information mentioned in your reading by looking things up in some of the many reference books available in the library or in the bookstore. Try an encyclopedia, various dictionaries, and other reference books your librarian may help you find. When you read the same information several times, presented in slightly different ways, you will find that each source has some details that the others do not have. This seeking of variety in your learning will provide wonderful help to the mind in remembering. If you have taken careful summary notes on the various things you have read, your memory will be all the more strengthened.
5 Learn to analyze what you read by asking questions about it.
Another skill required in study is the ability to analyze, to tell what things mean, to discover how they fit with other things you know. Here again, writing will help you to study. Many writing teachers advise students to keep a notebook in which they can jot down their notes from sources on one page and then jot down their thoughts about those notes on a facing page. If you ask yourself questions about the things you put down, you will develop your analytical powers. Pay attention to your own feelings. Do you like a book? Make yourself set down reasons why you like it. Do you dislike a book? Again, write down the reasons for your preference. Whether you feel interested, bored, repelled, or excited, ask yourself what there is in the book (or movie or whatever else you may be studying) that rouses such feelings. Then write your reasons down. Don’t think that you have to like a work of literature or art or a study in history merely because someone else does. But you should be able to justify your opinions, not merely to others but to yourself. And as you get into the habit of writing out these justifications, you will find your analytical ability improving steadily.
6 Look up unfamiliar words, practice using them, and build them into your vocabulary.
With the aid of a dictionary, keep a record of new words; write them on index cards or in a notebook. Include correct spelling, pronunciation clues, clear definitions that you write yourself, and a phrase or a sentence using the word properly. Arrange the words in related groups to help yourself study (business words, economics words, psychology words, literature words, and so on.) Incorporate new words in your speaking and your writing vocabulary. Here is an example of a word written down for further study.
puerile (PYOO ar il)
juvenile in a bad sense. People who are puerile are not just children; they are childish. He was puerile when he refused to let her name appear before his on the program for the play.
7 Review your notes and your reading assignments.
Immediately after you finish reading, and at convenient intervals thereafter, look over whatever questions, notes, summaries, or outlines you have created from your reading. Don’t try to read every word of the original material in the book or article every time you review. Skim over it. You will learn better from many rapid readings than from one or two slow readings. Skimming will help you get the shape of the material in your mind, and as you study your own notes, you will recall many of the supporting details.
Use your written work to help you complete your assignments. It often helps if you close your book, put away your notes, and try to jot down from memory a rough outline of what you are studying. The more different ways you can write about material you are learning, the more effectively you will learn it.
Learn to write useful notes on your lectures, and compare notes with your classmates.
Taking good notes during a lecture is a skill that requires practice. Some students tape-record lectures so they can listen again to what the teacher has said. But even if you have a tape recorder and the teacher is willing to be recorded, writing can still help you understand and remember the lecture.
Never try to write down everything you hear in the lecture as it is going on. Unless you know shorthand, you cannot write as fast as a person speaks, and while you are struggling to get a sentence down, the lecturer will have gone on to another point. In your haste, you may garble both what has been said and what is being said.
Your best bet is to write down words, phrases, and short sentences. Use these jottings to stimulate your memory later on. As soon as possible after the lecture is over, take your notes to a quiet place and try to write down as much of the lecture as you can remember. If you do this regularly, you probably will find yourself remembering more and more of each successive lecture.
Once you have written up your notes, compare what you have with the notes taken by another member of the class. If four or five of you get together to share your notes, you will each acquire an amazingly complete set, and in your discussions of gaps and confusions, you will further your learning.
Take breaks.
Don’t try to sit for hours without a break, writing notes about your reading or your lectures. Get up every forty-five minutes or so and walk around the room and stretch. Then sit back down quickly and go to work again. Taking a break will relax your body and perhaps stimulate your mind to some new thought that you can use when you start studying again.
Here is a list of recommended authors in English and American literature:
James Agee, A Death in the Family
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Jane Austin, Emma
Lady Susan
Pride and Prejudice
James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain
Charlotte Brontл, Jane Eyre
Villette
Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness
Stephen Crane, The Open Boat
Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge
Great Expectations
Little Dorritt
Nicholas Nickelby
Our Mutual Friend
Margaret Drabble, A Summer Bird-Cage
George Eliot, Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man
William Faulkner, Collected Stories of William Faulkner
Intruder in the Dust
Sartoris
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon
The Great Gatsby
E.M. Forster, A Room with a View
Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford
Sylvia’s Lovers
William Golding, Lord of the Flies
Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
Our Man in Havana
The Power and the Glory
The Third Man
Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
Jude the Obscure
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
For Whom the Bell
The Nick Adams Stories, “The Last Good Country”
The Sun Also Rises
Wm. Dean Howells, A Modern Instance
Henry James, The American
Daisy Miller
The Portrait of a Lady
The Turn of the Screw
James Joyce, Dubliners, “Araby”
Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon
D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers
Women in Love
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Herman Melville, Billy Budd
Moby Dick
George Orwell, Animal Farm
1984
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
The Warden
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Man at Arms
Mary Webb, The House in Dormer Forest
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
The House of Mirth
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
To the Lighthouse
Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
Sentence Correction The test questions require you to choose the best way of stating an underlined portion of a sentence. There may be an error in logic or in sentence structure. If more than one answer seems correct, choose the one that is most effective in context. If the underlined portion of the sentence does not contain any errors, choose (A) for your answer. In sentence-correction tests, choice (A) is always the same as the underlined portion and means “Make no changes.”
Study the following sample test item.
(A) school, he won’t be home for dinner.
(B) school and he won’t be home for dinner.
(C) school, therefore, he won’t be home for dinner.
(D) school: therefore he won’t be home for dinner.
(E) school; therefore, he won’t be home for dinner.
Strategies
1. Read the entire sentence and study the underlined portion to determine if it is incorrect.
2. If there is an error, read all of the choices and pick the answer that best corrects the sentence error.
3. Write (A) if there is no error.
Look again at the example question. By following the strategies, you will determine that the sentence is a run-on sentence. The correct answer is (E).
Error Identification The test questions require you to identify writing that does not follow the conventions of standard usage. These items test your understanding of subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, correct use of verbs, correct use of pronouns, correct use of modifiers, and so forth.
Usage questions follow the format shown here.
You could easily divide the work between Lisa, Skip, and me. No error.
A B C D E
Strategies
1. Read the sentence for meaning.
2. Look carefully at each lettered part and decide if it is correct or incorrect. Sometimes a sentence will have no errors. No sentence ever has more than one error.
3. If there is no error, write (E).
Look again at the example. The answer is (C). The word between is used to refer to two persons; among is used to refer to three or more persons.
Bibliography
1. Prof. Brown Ann C., Prof. Kinkead J., Prof. Millett Nancy C., Prof. Morgan Sarah J., Prof. Vivion Michael J., Prof. Rico Gabriele A., English—Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990
2. Dr. Marius Richard, Dr. Wiener Harvey S., College Handbook, Second Edition—McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1988
3. Dr. Fowler H. Ramsey, The Little, Brown Handbook, Third Edition—Boston
4. Spasov D., The Verb in the Structure of English—Sofia, Naouka i Izkoustvo, 1978
5. Neufeldt V., Guralnik David B., Webster’s New World Dictionary—New York
6. Shrodes C. of San Francisco State University, Finestone H. of California State University, Northridge, Shugrue M. of The College of Staten Island of the City University of New York, The Conscious Reader—New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, fourth edition, 1988
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