English Literature or Humanities?

[Rhashad]

Which exam is easier? I know "easy" is a relative term but consider these facts: I blazed through A&I lit w/o study, failed american lit miserably but passed below listed exams with 1 or 2 weeks of study.

Not much prior knowledge of either subject.







.

[Scholar Interrupted]

Which exam is easier? I know "easy" is a relative term but consider these facts: I blazed through A&I lit w/o study, failed american lit miserably but passed below listed exams with 1 or 2 weeks of study.

Not much prior knowledge of either subject.

Rhashad, if I were you, I think I'd go with Humanities. American Lit will be much closer to English Lit than A&I. A&I is a real anomaly, being just about the only CLEP you can take cold and pass with no study and zero background. With Am Lit, you'd need to know the characters, authors, plots, and movements of about 400 years' worth of literature.

Since you've done both US Histories and Soc Sci/History, you'd probably do fine with Humanities. Not much in the way of overlap -- just similar subjects. As many here will tell you, Humanities is extremely broad but also extremely shallow. You need to know a little bit about many things, but not much about any one thing. The REA book will get you exactly where you need to be.

Good luck!

[campbell0021]

I'd try Eng Lit half of the exam is Analyzing and Interpreting Literature. Since you did so well on A&I would be a great choice for you. If you look at the specfic feedback for Eng Lit, that is all you really need to study. I got a 50 on the exam and I'm not the best at interpreting literature. Just used the feedback thats it. Good Luck :coolgleam:

[hoagland]

I, personally, would go with English Lit over Humanities. I have taken both. I also had no prior experience for either test. Since you blazed through A&I with no problem then English Lit shouldn't be that hard since 60% of the test is analyzing. All you have to do after that is memorize some famous poets and their works - English lit is not as detailed about the lives and story plots of authors as American lit. Humanities, it's true, is more broad; but with no prior experience, you would need to familiarize yourself with a wide range of people and works. Either way, whatever you choose is fine - just go with it! Good luck!!


`Dakota

[PonyGirl93]

The REA book will get you exactly where you need to be.

On the contrary, I found that the only useful part of the REA Humanities book for me was the practice tests. I didn't think that the review had much to contribute if you paid attention to the arts at all. The test is much more detailed, requiring you to know names of people and works.

OP, doesn't your siggy say you've already taken English Lit w. Essay??

Personally I thought that English Lit was "easier" because I love to read, but they were both easy for me because I also love art so I've done a lot of prior study in that. I just brushed up on the art/music/architecture periods & read lots of stuff on architecture since I was clueless. Oh, and I took English Lit first, so I already had that stuff down.

Good luck! :]

[ShotoJuku]

[COLOR="Navy"]Humanities!

REA Book

Comex Book[/COLOR]

[Rhashad]

whoops, thanks PonyGirl, that should've read "English Comp".


thanks for the feedback guys, while you all have equally useful advice, I'm still torn. I think I'm most worried because the Am. Lit totally destroyed me. You have a good point about other resources and being "dependent" on IC, it's hard to let go of something that works so well.

[PonyGirl93]

whoops, thanks PonyGirl, that should've read "English Comp".


thanks for the feedback guys, while you all have equally useful advice, I'm still torn. I think I'm most worried because the Am. Lit totally destroyed me. I'm leaning towards Humanities because it has IC cards.

Ahhh that makes sense

From what I've heard, Am. Lit is totally different than English lit. You have to remember that Eng Lit is like 60% a&i lit, which you passed. (on my test i don't think literally 60% of the questions were a&i though... More like 40%) Either one is going to require a lot of studying, though. How much attention do you pay to any or all aspects of the art world?

ETA: I've passed all my exams with NO ic cards. I think people on here depend a little too much on them. Don't pick Humanities just because it has IC cards. With just a little more "fingerwork" on the internet you can get the same amount of (or usually more) information as IC will give you, it's just slightly less convenient.

[Rhashad]

Art world? not much beyond the usual suspects, Picasso and . . . well, picasso.

This is a tough decision because I can't find a book in a b&m store, IC doesn't have literature cards AND I'm headed back to work full-time soon. (no time to wait for amazon book) I was hoping to study hard for 5 or 6 days then take the exam friday.

[PonyGirl93]

Well, either subject is totally do-able with just the internet. Here's some of the links I used for either/both:

Humanities
Humanities < Arts in the Yahoo! Directory
Tillfälligt nere (this says "temporarily down, will return" in case you can't read swedish but if it comes back in the next few days, it had a wonderful art history timeline (in english lol) which helped me immensely.
Famous Painter
Humanities CLEP Free Study Guide
Gothic architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Romanesque architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (a quick scan of the architect5ure articles & a thorough understanding of the identification of gothic/roman architecture will be enough here)
(I think I also read the Wikipedia articles on music, ballet, & opera)

English Lit
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE ON http://www.anglik.net
Literature Study Guides - SparkNotes (a MUST MUST MUST MUST for English Lit & Humanities, I could have passed EL with just this resource, although I used others)
English Literature CLEP Free Study Guide
I also googled "famous first lines books quiz" & got several excellent quizzes as a result. You should really learn them, it was entertaining & there were probably 3 questions on my test about it. I think they were the first lines of Moby Dick, Catcher in the Rye, & Pride and Prejudice, but there are other really famous ones...

Hope this helps :]

ETA: I think your safest bet would be to start studying English Lit, since that's included in Humanities (half of it, I might add)