Amount of Uni Reading Required

Das Neonicle

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(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 1

Emerald

Well you've definitely got to take the reading into account. I'm a first year english literature student and at my uni its a book a week and thats just for one of my modules. I consider myself to be a fast reader and I still couldn't finish most of them. Then again, I am a first year.... :rolleyes:

tbh, I found most people didn't read them all and done okay. You jsut read the minimum you need for the exam or enough to be able to blag it in seminars. Out of the 20 I was supposed to read this year, I read 4, learnt them well and used them in the exam.

I think reading lists may vary from year to year as well.

Reply 2

mousey

Read ahead of time if you're a slow reader. Use your reading weeks and make sure you actually do read something every day. I have a lit book a week (sometimes two weeks if we go in depth on a book) a play every two weeks, some kind of medieval poem every week, and then an article every two weeks for theory, plus any critical reading the course requires or that i need for my essays/exams. The beauty with an English degree is even though this sounds like a lot because we get so little contact time (the maximum amount of hours i have in a day is 3 and i get 2 days off a week) you've got lots of time to do the reading. I would rather be in my bed reading than trekking into uni for lectures any day. xx

Reply 3

epitome

The amount of reading you will be expected to do will vary with the institution you end up studying in - in some you might get away with about 4 texts a term...in others you would seriously struggle if you read less than 18.
It's not really about 'reading fast' - it's more to do with the way you use your time. I'm a bit of a rubbish reader - I'm slow, and I very, very frequently have to read things two or three times before they get properly into my brain (and I can NEVER remember the names of characters...always a case of "you know, the one with the big shiny sword and the beard..."!). But so long as I allocate sufficient time to the texts, it's always fine. :smile:

If you *enjoy* reading, Das Neonicle, you will be fine. If you want to do English because it's a 'doss' then you might want to reconsider. But what looks like a lot in prospectuses etc. is, normally, fine in reality. And there are always short-cuts you can resort to occasionally if you've had a particularly busy week or whatever...!

Reply 4

silence

i suppose that you learn to read as you go along. also, don't forget, you're unlikely to have more than a dozen contact hours a week for something like english, so there is plenty of time to get it done.

Reply 5

la fille danse

Most likely, you will have to read one novel/play for each module, except for modules on poetry/language/literary theory/medieval lit.

HOWEVER, this is what they tell you you have to read. In reality, you only have to read the texts you will be assessed on. And you typically have a choice. For me, this is about 2-4 texts per module.

Emerald

Out of the 20 I was supposed to read this year, I read 4, learnt them well and used them in the exam.

Only 20?

We were "supposed" to read about 60 things this year. About 43 of which were full novels/plays, and the rest were extracts/poetry/collections of short stories.

Of course, I only read a small fraction of it. :blush:

Reply 6

silence

we had 3 literature modules this year - each module looked at a primary text each week (and the modules lasted 10 weeks each). one week it might be a shortish poem like the wasteland or a short play like everyman. other weeks it would be paradise lost or middlemarch. and obviously it helps to look at other material to provide some sort of context (i.e. reading some stuff from joyce, pound and general criticism alongside the wasteland one week)..

but as said it depends on the course you're doing and perhaps which year of study you're in.

Reply 7

mousey

I read everything. I didn't need to, i wasn't assessed on everything i was supposed to read obviously but i never knew what i wanted to focus on in essays and exams without reading them first. I had plenty of time and it was quite nice to read things i wouldn't normally. I think i'm jsut massively making up for my complete lack of effort in the first year though. xx