AP Literature Exam - Popular Titles

Below, on the left, is a list of the 13 works cited most frequently, at least ten times, in AP Literature exams of the 35 years from 1973 to 2007.(Based on a list found at www.dothgrin.net/AP_readinglist.doc).

The frequency with which titles are used changes over time and some titles recently referred to in the exams had not even been published 35 years ago. Thus, it may be instructive to look at the titles most frequently cited in the 10 years 1998 to 2007 - the list on the right.


 

Most Popular, 1973 - 2007


Used 20 times in 35 years

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison


Used 16 times in 35 years

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Used 14 times in 35 years

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Moby Dick by Herman Melville


Used 13 times in 35 years

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte


Used 12 times in 35 years

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain


Used 11 times in 35 years

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad


Used 10 times in 35 years

Billy Budd by Herman Melville
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Most Popular, 1998 - 2007

Used 7 times in 10 years

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Used 6 times in 10 years

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (1977)
Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Used 5 times in 10 years

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)
Billy Budd by Herman Melville
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977)

Used 4 times in 10 years

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (1973)
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Obasan by Joy Kogawa (1981)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte



T Dakubu. March 2008