The secret to success on standardized exams is doing very well on the English section. Most highscoring students have a voracious appetite for reading. If you are the type of individual that only reads the sides of cereal boxes and the cartoons inside gum wrappers, we at BeatTheTest highly recommend that you register for one of our courses.
If you are a student who has an appetite for reading, we recommend that you read the following books over the summer of you freshman and sophmore years. Otherwise your will need to take either the 1300 Review or IVY Verbal.
| Title | Author |
|---|---|
| Julius Caesar | William Shakespeare |
| The Mahabharata | R. K. Narayan |
| The Tales of Genji | Murasaki Shikibu |
| Their Eyes Were Watching God | Zora Neale Hurston |
| Invisible Man | Ralph Ellison |
| The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemingway |
| I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings | Maya Angelou |
| The Jungle | Upton Sinclair |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck |
| The Color Purple | Alice Walker |
| The Catcher in the Rye | J. D. Salinger |
| Song of Solomon | Toni Morrison |
| The Great Santini | Pat Conroy |
| The Wealth Of Nations | Adam Smith |
| The Protestant Work Ethic | Max Weber |
| The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| Leaves of Grass | Walt Whitman |
| The Art of War | Sun Tzu |
| The Big Sea | Langston Hughes |
| Crime And Punishment | Fyodor Dostoevsky |
| The Will To Power | Friedrich Nietzche |
| Bhagavad Gita | Translation by Barbara Miller |
| The Joy Luck Club | Amy Tan |
| The Autobiography Of Malcolm X | Alex Haley |
| The Path To Power | Robert Caro |
| The Souls of Black Folk | W. E. B. DuBois |
| The Shame Of The Cities | Lincoln Steffens |
| The God of Small Things | Arundhati Roy |
| Black Boy | Richard Wright |
| The Jewel In The Crown | Paul Scott |
| Title | Author |
|---|---|
| The Book Of Proverbs, Holy Bible | King James Ed. |
| The Old Man And The Sea | Ernest Hemingway |
| The Stranger | Albert Camus |
| Macbeth | W. Shakespeare |
| A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man | James Joyce |
| Henderson the Rain King | Saul Bellow |
| Tender Is The Night | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| Native Son | Richard Wright |
| The Ramayana | R. K. Narayan |
| Noble House | James Clavell |
| The Pearl | John Steinbeck |
| Wise Blood | Flannery O’Connor |
| Roots | Alex Haley |
| Shogun | James Clavell |
| For Whom The Bell Tolls | Ernest Hemingway |
| The Trial | Franz Kafka |
| The Bluest Eye | Toni Morrison |
| The Power Broker: Robert Moses And The Fall Of New York | Robert Caro |
| Angela’s Ashes | Frank McCourt |
| The Metamorphosis | Franz Kafka |
| The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens | Wallace Stevens |
| The Prince | Niccolo Machiavelli |
| The Merchant of Venice | William Shakespeare |
| The Canterbury Tales | Geoffrey Chaucer |
| Wuthering Heights | Emily Bronte |
| David Copperfield | Charles Dickens |
| The Water Is Wide | Pat Conroy |
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens |
| The Red Pony | John Steinbeck |
| Of Mice And Men | John Steinbeck |
Many parents may object to some of the above literary works, but you need to understand that the test preparers have read all of the above books. These books are viewed by many as some of the greatest works written in (or translated into) English. So we highly recommend that your kids read some of them prior to taking the exam.
Students should read the texts and pay close attention to interesting passages and focus on how the authors create moods (especially optimism and confusion). As your children read more of the books on the list, be ready for questions about many of the adult situations in the books. Your child, although in the seventh grade, will need help in understanding why adults behave the way they do. The answers are not simple, and unfortunately BeatTheTest cannot answer these questions for your children.
We also highly recommend that your children read The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. They do not have to read the entire paper. However, they will need to read the editorial pages every day. Editorial pages are full of opinions, and that is what standardized exams test. Most exams confront students with other people’s dubious opinions in order to trick them into answering questions based on emotions, as opposed to the facts stated by the passage. The more students are aware of the one-sided views of adults (what many conservative academics call “right thinking”), the more they will not be fooled by trick questions. They can then read the paragraph objectively and answer the questions correctly.
The passages that follow are designed to trick you and to confuse you. You will get many of the questions wrong, as the questions are designed to make you think. Don’t get upset. You will find that as you do more questions, the sections will become easier.