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AP English Language and Composition Videos 152 videos

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Description:

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 of the passage.


Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Lego Movie.

00:07

Why? Because everything really is awesome.

00:10

[ singing ] Everything is awesome... Everything is...

00:13

Yeah. Like that.

00:14

All right, we're skimming, skimming...

00:16

[ mumbles ]

00:20

Okay.

00:21

Which of the following best describes the development of the passage?

00:24

And here are the potential answers.

00:26

[ mumbles ]

00:31

All right, well, here we go.

00:32

When the question tells us to think about the development of the passage,

00:34

it's just asking how the whole thing goes down.

00:37

How does it start and where does it go from there?

00:39

What does it like to eat? Where does it like to hang out on the weekends?

00:42

Well, strike those last two questions. They're getting a little stalker-y.

00:45

Okay, let's keep going.

00:46

This is probably gonna be easiest if we go through and cross out

00:49

what the passage is not.

00:51

For example, we can cross out choice A because the narrator never gives us

00:54

any opposing ways of interpreting anything.

00:56

In this passage, we only get the author's point of view

00:59

and the points of view of people that probably agree with him.

01:01

What a tyrant.

01:02

We can nix choice C for a similar reason.

01:05

The author doesn't talk about different fields.

01:07

In the passage, it's all science all the time.

01:10

Option B isn't a contender, either.

01:12

As far as we can tell, this author isn't having any

01:15

personal revelations.

01:16

Maybe B is thinking about some other passage in which the author

01:19

gets his groove back.

01:20

All right, we're also gonna say no to answer E.

01:23

The author doesn't kick off with any widely held beliefs

01:26

and he doesn't end with any modern perspectives.

01:29

This option's a real phony.

01:31

It sounds smart, but it doesn't have anything to do with the development of the passage.

01:34

Option D, on the other hand, totally nails it.

01:37

The passage begins as a closer look at the nature around us.

01:40

After a slightly random mention of some guy's glass eye,

01:43

the author hits us with the thesis:

01:45

Science is awesome,

01:46

and, in fact, necessary if we wanna live a worthwhile life.

01:50

Next, the author starts supporting his argument with a bunch of

01:52

quotes from people who must have mattered back when the passage was written.

01:56

Well, there we go. That's choice D to a T.

01:58

Incidentally, if we ever got a glass eye, we'd put

02:01

a tiny lightbulb inside so that it glowed.

02:03

That'd be kind of cool. Thoughts?

02:06

[ belly laughter ]

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