Deb­bie Ja­cob

When it comes to the Scholas­tic Ap­ti­tude Tests (the SAT) I know I sound like a bro­ken record (for those who re­mem­ber what a record is). But here goes:?Stu­dents who want to do well on the Eng­lish part of the SATs, which are the en­trance ex­ams for most US uni­ver­si­ties, need to read, read, read and read. A good SAT class will help stu­dents hone in on the skills they need to do well on the ex­am, but?stu­dents must ded­i­cate time to read­ing in or­der to have the speed, com­pre­hen­sion skills and an­a­lyt­i­cal skills they need to ace this ex­am. The SAT ex­am is an ex­tra­or­di­nary op­por­tu­ni­ty to get schol­ar­ships to US uni­ver­si­ties, so it is well worth the ef­fort. Be­low is a sug­gest­ed read­ing list for stu­dents who want to im­prove their skills in Eng­lish. Re­mem­ber, prepar­ing for the SAT will help you with your school work in gen­er­al for every ex­am.?

Read­ing is like ex­er­cise for the brain.?It helps you to get in shape for those ex­ams. Once again–and I've said it ad nau­se­am–the Col­lege Board (the or­gan­i­sa­tion that runs the SAT ex­am)?states that sec­ondary stu­dents need to read 25 books a year (an av­er­age book is 75,000 words) to do well on the ex­am and in US uni­ver­si­ties.?The Col­lege Board says that stu­dents who are av­er­age read­ers can achieve this goal by read­ing half hour a day, sev­en days a week. The books list­ed be­low are chock­full of op­por­tu­ni­ties to analyse all the el­e­ments of lit­er­a­ture. Most of the books are edgy as well, so they're an en­ter­tain­ing read.?

SAT read­ing list:

1. Read any good mys­ter­ies by au­thors such as?Sir Arthur Co­nan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Jean-Fran­cois Parot or Claude Izn­er Mys­ter­ies. They?pro­vide am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties?for stu­dents to process in­for­ma­tion in or­der to un­der­stand an out­come. That's an in­valu­able ex­er­cise.?It's pos­si­ble to find mod­ern mys­ter­ies, his­tor­i­cal mys­ter­ies, Vic­to­ri­an mys­ter­ies–you name it and you can find it. Choose mys­ter­ies that have ap­peal­ing char­ac­ters and set­tings.

2. Lord of the Flies by William Gold­ing–Even boys who don't like to read en­joy this book about a?group of boys strand­ed on an is­land. There are con­flicts ga­lore and much to pon­der in this pop­u­lar book that ex­plores the age-old ques­tion about good vs evil. Are we all born pure and in­no­cent? Do cir­cum­stances change us? There are end­less ques­tions to think about.?

3. No Coun­try for Old Men by Cor­mac Mc­Carthy–Al­ways a bit vi­o­lent,?Mc­Carthy's writ­ing is edgy and eerie. It chal­lenges read­ers to ex­plore the ex­treme.? Mc­Carthy's writ­ing lends it­self to deep think­ing and lots of analy­sis. No Coun­try for Old Men is the sto­ry of the tense bor­der area be­tween the US and Mex­i­co where drug traf­fick­ing is wreak­ing hav­oc on small, sim­ple towns. Those who read this nov­el?will al­so be more aware of the ten­sion and con­flict that is go­ing on be­tween Mex­i­co and the US right now.

4. Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire by Vikas Swarup–If you liked the movie, about a Mum­bai-based young man?who reach­es the high­est lev­el of a game show, the book is even bet­ter. Again, it's how the pieces come to­geth­er that chal­lenge a read­er's?an­a­lyt­i­cal skills.?

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5. The?Mys­tic Masseur by VS Naipaul–There's no bet­ter book for un­der­stand­ing and analysing voice than The Mys­tic Masseur, and there's the movie di­rect­ed by Mer­chant Ivory to go with it. The Mys­tic Masseur is a fun­ny, tongue-in-cheek look at how one man rein­vents him­self and gives his life a sense of pur­pose. Many Naipaul fans love Miguel Street but some­how miss The Mys­tic Masseur, an equal­ly good read and a re­fresh­ing de­par­ture for the heav­i­ness that lat­er de­fines Naipaul's writ­ing.

6. Broth­er Man by Roger Mais–Many post-CXC stu­dents study Broth­er Man, and there's no bet­ter nov­el?to bring home the im­por­tance of struc­ture in lay­ing out the frame­work for un­der­stand­ing the pur­pose and mean­ing of a book.?Broth­er Man, the first se­ri­ous nov­el about a Rasta­far­i­an, is a chal­leng­ing read be­cause of its struc­ture. It is writ­ten like a piece of jazz mu­sic with un­der­ly­ing mo­tifs. There is am­ple room for de­vi­a­tion from the ba­sic struc­ture, but the core re­mains sol­id. Those who can work their way through Broth­er Man?will have ac­com­plished a mile­stone in their ef­forts to tack­le chal­leng­ing lit­er­a­ture. There is a study com­pan­ion pub­lished by Macmil­lan that goes with the nov­el. Study com­pan­ions can be very help­ful in aid­ing?stu­dents in their quest to im­prove an­a­lyt­i­cal skills.

7. Heart of Dark­ness by Joseph Con­rad–This small book is a gold mine when it comes to analysing lit­er­a­ture.?Read­ers will al­so find it help­ful in de­vel­op­ing the vo­cab­u­lary they need to get great marks on the SATs. Heart of Dark­ness is about a jour­ney up the Con­go Riv­er to re­trieve a com­pa­ny's rep­re­sen­ta­tive who has gone "na­tive." Heart of Dark­ness is a very chal­leng­ing read. Again, tack­ling this nov­el and see­ing it through to the end means?achiev­ing a so­phis­ti­cat­ed lev­el of analy­sis. ?

Next week: More sug­ges­tions for SAT read­ing that will im­prove your skills in Eng­lish.