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AP English Language Videos 129 videos

AP English Language and Composition 2.3 Passage Drill
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AP English Language and Composition: Passage Drill 2, Problem 3. The subject of the passage can best be described as what?

AP English Language and Composition 3.3 Passage Drill
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Take a look at this shmoopy AP English Language and Composition question and see if you can figure out which answer best describes the development...

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AP English Language and Composition 6.5 Passage Drill 224 Views


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Description:

AP English Language and Composition 6.5 Passage Drill. The tone of paragraph 3 could best be described as what?


Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by a peaceful citadel.

00:08

Until, of course, midnight comes and it's converted into a popular, swanky nightclub.

00:12

Woo-hoo!

00:14

[ sings disco song ]

00:20

All right, well, forget the Bee Gees.

00:21

Ask your parents about it when they have a break.

00:23

All right, from the poem, it can be inferred

00:25

that the author's attitude toward his youth is...

00:29

what?

00:30

And here are the potential answers.

00:31

Read 'em and weep.

00:33

And that pause waiver thing... Yeah, we know it's annoying. Tough.

00:36

So this question wants to know what we can glean from the poem about

00:39

the author's opinion of youth.

00:42

Like, is he one of those guys that shakes his fist out the front door

00:45

and shouts, "You dang kids!"?

00:47

Or is he more the forever young type?

00:50

Yeah, that guy.

00:52

We aren't directed to any specific lines, so it's basically just asking us

00:55

to look at the poem as a whole and make a broad

00:58

determination about where the writer is coming from.

01:01

Does he exhibit

01:03

bittersweet regret over his mistakes?

01:06

If he does, he doesn't let us in on it.

01:08

There's no mention of past mistakes, so we can safely assume B

01:11

is not the correct answer.

01:13

So don't pick B unless you wanna regret one of your mistakes. Haha.

01:17

Is his attitude one of sadness and remorse?

01:20

Well, again, he can't be expressing remorse if the author hasn't

01:23

hinted what he might be remorseful about.

01:26

Since we aren't given a window into the speaker's past,

01:28

we can be certain it's not about regret or remorse.

01:31

So is his attitude one of joyous acceptance about youth's passing?

01:36

Well, as far as we know, there isn't a line of his poem that says,

01:39

in essence, "Oof. High school, am I right?

01:42

I wouldn't wanna do that again."

01:45

Nah. The speaker seems pretty hot on youth, as a matter of fact.

01:48

We doubt he would diss it. Is he cautious

01:51

or fearful for what youth imports for the future?

01:54

Well, in other words, does he think youth

01:57

is like a gateway drug to some awfulness in old age?

02:01

Well, no. There are no ominous warnings here about potential threats

02:04

or anything of the kind. So we can count E out.

02:07

So our answer must be A - nostalgia and longing.

02:10

Sure enough, that's exactly what the writer is going on and on and on about.

02:14

He sees youth encapsulated in the urn

02:16

and longs for the blissful simplicity of his own youth.

02:20

Back when he was, you know, in school

02:22

taking AP tests and whatnot.

02:26

[ sobbing ]

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