Honors American Literature Exam Study Guide
Vocabulary lessons 1-10: this section will be multiple choice
How to study: I suggest making flash cards.
Close reading section: this section will test your knowledge on the works that we
have studied. Those works include:
Anne Bradstreet poetry
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards
“Of Plymouth Plantation” by William Bradford
The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Birth-mark” and “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Tell-tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
Walt Whitman poetry
Benjamin Franklin’s “The Way to Wealth”
Thomas Jefferson’s “The Declaration of Independence”
Abraham Lincoln’s “The Gettysburg Address”
Mark Twain’s “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”
Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”
Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” and The Great Gatsby
Willa Cather’s “Paul’s Case”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Transcendentalism writers: Thoreau and Emerson
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King
How to study: Make a study guide that includes characters, themes and
important quotes from each work. Review your class notes and pathway
questions.
Literary terms: alliteration, aphorism, dramatic irony, verbal irony, situational
irony, slant rhyme, end rhyme, metaphor, simile, free verse, iamb, trochee,
personification, meter, anaphora, and symbol.
How to study: Make flashcards for the terms and then practice applying them.
Short Essay: You will be asked to read a poem and to analyze it. You will have to
apply your knowledge of literary terms to the poem.
How to study: Review literary terms and practice applying them to poetry.
Longer Essay : The question will deal with a theme that is applicable to two of the
major works we have studied this quarter (The Scarlett Letter and The Great Gatsby)
How to study: Review each of these works carefully. Review pathway
questions and class notes. Know the major themes of each and do some
thinking about common themes—we will also be discussing this in class.
There is no grammar on the exam. I expect you to apply the grammar lessons
we have had to your writing.