Counting down to prelims

Today I had the pre-exam meeting with the Advisor, and it was not what I had anticipated. He had not recieved questions from the other committee members yet, so he did not know for certain what would be on the exam. So he could not vaguely allude to questions, which, as I understood was the purpose of the meeting. But I did learn some things:

• There will likely be no identification questions on the exam. I have spent the last two days reviewing my books and listing potential ID questions, but those efforts have not been wasted because now I can probably recall some details that will in fact be useful in answering essay questions.
• The test will likely consist of four one-hour essays, some of which will be required questions and some of which will offer choices.
• A common mistake that people make is not giving specific examples in their essays. The work I have done preparing for IDs should help me to avoid that.
• I should not neglect the earlier twentieth century even though (because) my dissertation is on contemporary works.
• I should be prepared for questions that diverge from my diss topic. Wow. That really narrows it down.
• Questions should not be such that require me to address any specific work, but they will require me to address a specific number of works from the three lists.

So I feel okay about the whole thing, but not like I know any more than I did yesterday. Except no IDs. That is good news--such specific questions sometimes make me freeze up. I'm still not sure what to do about the poetry--I just can't fathom writing about poetry without the poem in front of me. But it looks like maybe I won't have to do that, and I enjoyed reading the poetry, anyway. How can anyone have an American literature reading list with no poetry on it?

I was trying to talk to my mother yesterday about the exam and she asked, "So did you actually read the books on your list?" Um...yes. What a wierd question. My family has no idea what I do. But they try.