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ACT Reading 1.4 Prose Fiction
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AP English Language and Composition 1.1 Comprehension
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AP® English Language and Composition: Comprehension Drill 1, Problem 1. The speaker would agree with all of the following statements except what?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.6 Passage Drill 5
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AP English Literature and Composition 1.6 Passage Drill 5. Death is primarily characterized as what?

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AP English Literature and Composition 1.6 Passage Drill 5 245 Views


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AP English Literature and Composition 1.6 Passage Drill 5. Death is primarily characterized as what?

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English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Bones. Because without them, skeletons

00:07

just wouldn't be nearly as terrifying.

00:18

Death is primarily characterized as... what?

00:21

And here are the potential answers...

00:28

Okay, time to call out Death on all his shenanigans.

00:31

What got this hooded baddie's goat? What put him in such a bad mood that he has to take

00:35

it out on all us poor, breathing people?

00:38

We've got five possible answers... let's run through 'em and see what makes sense...

00:42

In the poem... is Death mysterious and elusive?

00:46

Mysterious? No.

00:47

If Death was mysterious, we wouldn't know so much about him... and the author comes

00:50

across as quite knowledgeable about his dastardly deeds.

00:53

...which will also rule out E -- mysterious and unexplainable.

00:56

So we're down to B, C or E...

00:57

Is Death powerless and fearful?

00:59

The "fearful" part rules this one out. Death inspires fear, but he doesn't seem to be type

01:03

to lock all his doors and keep a baseball bat at the side of his bed.

01:07

What exactly would Death even be afraid of? Rejection?

01:10

"A powerful master of fate and chance" sounds good...

01:13

...but line 9 starts, "Thou art slave to fate."

01:17

And if you're a slave to something... you can't exactly be its master as well.

01:20

Or else our nation's history of slavery would have been much more confusing.

01:24

But D -- "a powerless slave to circumstance" is right on the money.

01:28

Just because Death gets to be executioner doesn't mean he also gets to be judge and jury.

01:32

So D is our answer.

01:33

As in, "Dead tired."

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