AP® English Literature
The public-domain titles that keep coming back in question 3
The College Board publishes no AP Literature reading list: the course description says teachers choose their texts locally. But each year the free-response question 3 prints a list of about 40 works students may write about (36 titles in 2025, 43 in 2026).
We counted the seven lists published for 2023 to 2026. These public-domain novels appear most often:
| Title | Lists (of 7) |
|---|---|
| Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë | 6 |
| Frankenstein, Mary Shelley | 5 |
| Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë | 5 |
| The Awakening, Kate Chopin | 5 |
| The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne | 4 |
Three other works appear five times (Kindred, Ceremony, Fences), but they are in copyright, so we make no checks for them. Count by READ FRANCE in October 2026 from the College Board's published free-response PDFs, for example 2025 set 1 and 2026.
Checks for these titles
| Title | What you get | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Macbeth William Shakespeare | 5 checks, 40 questions | Free |
| The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald | 9 checks, 63 questions | Ready |
| Frankenstein (1831 text) Mary Shelley | 25 checks, 150 questions | Ready AP Q3 |
| The Awakening Kate Chopin | 13 checks, 78 questions | Ready AP Q3 |
| Hamlet William Shakespeare | 5 checks, 40 questions | Ready |
| The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne | 13 checks, 78 questions | Ready AP Q3 |
| Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë | 17 checks, 102 questions | Ready AP Q3 |
| Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë | 19 checks, 114 questions | Ready AP Q3 |
Checks test the reading, chapter by chapter. They are not essay prompts and do not reuse any College Board material.