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SAT Reading 2.3 Passage Comparison 171 Views


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Description:

SAT Reading: Passage Comparison Drill 2, Problem 3

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

A Shmoop a day keeps the doctor away...

00:16

The phrase "climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions" functions as...what?

00:29

This phrase comes directly from one of Hurston's quotes, so we can take a look at what she's saying.

00:34

First things first: she didn't climb aboard the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.

00:39

If she did, something like this would happen...

00:42

It's a wagon full of illusions, right? This tips us off that it's not real and probably not good.

00:48

There's not a chance that (D) is the right answer.

00:50

We just figured out that this wagon isn't real, so there's no way this is a reference

00:54

to a wagon she rode when she was a child. The context around the quote lets us know

00:59

that the "wishful illusions" to which Zora is referring are the ideas of other writers.

01:05

She thinks that a lot of her critics get on her case because she writes things the way

01:08

they are, not the way she'd like them to be.

01:11

Knowing this, we can leave (A) by the wayside. A person with that much gumption is probably

01:16

not the sort who'd be unwilling to do the work to further her craft.

01:22

There's no talk in the passage about Hurston avoiding metaphors, making (E) easy to leave

01:26

in the dust as well.

01:30

We're pretty sure the real Hurston could come up with a better one.

01:33

Choice (C) is kind of heading down the right path. Zora does express the idea that other

01:37

writers are representing things in a way that she feels is untrue.

01:44

But the topics the other writers are writing about aren't necessarily "unrelated,"

01:49

or not connected, with the topics Zora writes about. She just disagrees about the ways those

01:53

topics are represented. It seems our journey is at an end. (B) is

01:57

the only answer left, and it totally makes sense.

02:00

"Figurative" refers to language that uses lots of "figures of speech" like metaphors

02:05

and all that good stuff. This covers our requirement that the "wagon of wishful illusions"

02:09

not be real, making (B) the correct answer.

02:12

It's too bad; we like a "wishful illusion" every now and then.

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