Essentially free online Cliffnotes. There are other sites too, Sparknotes is just the most popular. Cliffnotes might be free online now, but I don't think they used to be, while Sparknotes has always been free.
Back in my high school days, I liked to use the combination of Pink Monkey, Cliff Notes, and Spark Notes. I think there were only 2 books I didn't actually or fully read the book and tried to use notes-A Separate Peace and Tale of Two Cities. Both got me C's- 1 was a test and one was a project. Tale of Two Cities was worth it to not read the book.
If you are in HS then the answer is yes. You can easily pass the test without touching the book. How do you already have a test though? when does school start these days?
I did it sophomore, junior, and senior year of high school. The first two years, I got high A's. The senior year, my teacher was pretty tough, and I got B's. These were AP English classes, and I still got my college credit...
I don't think I read a single book in high school, I only read sparknotes and I was in Honors/AP English all 4 years
I was wondering the same thing. I'm so thankful for Cliff's Notes, though. Saved my lazy butt a million times in high school AND in college. Then again I'm a good enough writer that I can BS most anything well enough if I'm remotely familiar with the work itself. To OP: yes, they can help, but it really depends entirely on your writing and BS-ing ability.
Yes, this is very true. To an extent, also, like others have said, it depends on the teacher and what types of questions he or she is asking.
At least skim the book so you can get a feel for what it looks like, how the characters act and the author writes. The notes are useful as a general road map, and may help you pass some easier multiple choice tests, but I wouldn't make a habit of it in the future. They're supposed to be a supplement and not a substitute... like to understand some of the more strangely written stuff.
No kid in high school read books anymore, everyone reads sparknotes as a substitute, and 90% of college kids do the same.
I think Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn and Willie Mays Hayes read those books and it helped them score the girl and win the pennant. So... recommend. Seriously though, why dont you just read the book. It'll only take a few hours.
Reading the book helps me more considering some of the books have motifs or themes that can't really be understood or explained if you haven't actually read the book. A combination of both resources the book and SparkNotes ensures that you have the right information and you can the SparkNotes info to the text that you have already read, which is huge in essays... ... That and I suck at BSing.
Sparknotes has an entire section for each book named "motifs and themes" But I am a great BSer, so it always worked well. Except for a British Lit class I took in college, the teacher chose a bunch of obscure 14th-18th century works that did not even have wikipedia articles on them.
