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ACT Reading: Humanities Passage Drill 1, Problem 1. Which of the following best describes the main purpose of this passage?
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SAT Reading 1.2 Passage Comparison 233 Views
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Description:
SAT Reading: Passage Comparison Drill 1, Problem 2
- Foreign Language / Spanish Subtitled
- Foreign Language / Chinese Subtitled
- Foreign Language / Korean Subtitled
- Foreign Language / Arabic Subtitled
- Rhetoric / Analyzing word choice
- Product Type / SAT Reading
- Literary Nonfiction / Syntax, Diction, Voice, Tone, Imagery
- Reading Assessment / Connections/Comparisons in Two Passages
- Rhetoric / Analyzing word choice
Transcript
- 00:04
Shmoop. A little shmoop'll do ya...
- 00:10
It's pause and review time. You know the drill.
- 00:20
Compared to the rest of the passage, the tone of the parenthetical statement in line 4 is
- 00:24
best described as...what?
- 00:27
And here are the potential answers...
Full Transcript
- 00:31
In case it wasn't mind-blisteringly obvious, a parenthetical statement is a statement that's...
- 00:35
surrounded by parentheses.
- 00:37
Sounds terrifying.
- 00:38
Anyway, this question isn't asking us if the tone of this particular parenthetical statement
- 00:43
is different from the tone of the rest of the passage—it's telling us that it is.
- 00:48
Now it's up to us to figure out how. The "rage" in "outraged" reminds us
- 00:54
that the word describes somebody who's ridiculously angry. Like this guy...
- 01:00
Now that's outrage.
- 01:02
Knowing this definition, we can nix (A). It's not like the author is angry about Al Gore
- 01:06
being Al Gore. Oh, look, here's our negative friend, the
- 01:11
prefix "un."
- 01:15
Whenever this guy is in front of a word, he negates it.
- 01:18
Therefore we know that "uncertain" translates to "not certain." All this lets us know
- 01:23
that choice (B) is no bueno.
- 01:25
The author's passage probably shouldn't be on the SAT if he's uncertain of who Al
- 01:30
Gore is. The parenthetical statement isn't showing
- 01:34
support for Al Gore, his ex-wife, or anybody else. Choice (D) is a no-go.
- 01:40
If the parenthetical statement was being harsh, that would mean it was doing some Al Gore
- 01:45
bashing. We bet the prefix, "un" would love that.
- 01:49
But that's not what's going on here, so (E) is off the list.
- 01:52
All righty then, looks like we're down to our last choice, which luckily makes total
- 01:56
sense.
- 01:57
Despite the subject matter, Passage 1 stays fairly matter-of-fact.
- 02:00
The parenthetical statement, however, sounds like something we might hear on the streets...
- 02:05
or at least in normal conversation.
- 02:07
So (C) is tour correct answer.
- 02:09
Can someone put a muzzle on that guy?
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