AP English Language and Composition 3.9 Passage Drill

We're just gonna skim. Skim, skim, skim. And... skim.

Which of the following words is most grammatically parallel to

"faculty" in line 23? All right, where's line 23?

Right here. All right, and here are the potential answers.

[ mumbles ]

All right, well, first, we've gotta take another look at

the incredibly long and convoluted sentence from whence this line comes.

Did you like how we threw in "whence" in there?

Just trying to get into the spirit, people.

Okay, now for the sentence, right here.

Ugh. Who writes like this?

All right, uh-huh, that is definitely a wordy jungle.

Never fear, we brought a machete.

We're trying to find the answer choice that is the most similar to the word "faculty."

So let's start by figuring out what's up with that word.

If we isolate "faculty," we can see that it's a

noun being modified by the prepositional phrase "of observation."

Cool. So now we know that we're looking for another noun

that's in the same boat as "faculty."

Only one more will fit in this boat, otherwise it'll capsize.

So we better hurry up. All right, well, let's start by nixing choice B.

At their most basic, prepositional phrases

are made up of a preposition, like the word "of"

and a noun, like "observation,"

which functions as what we call the object of the preposition.

Well, in this phrase, "observation"'s

job is to help the prepositional phrase describe "faculty."

It's describing something,

not being described, so it isn't parallel to faculty.

Basically, we need another noun that's being described by a prepositional phrase.

What can we say? Some nouns just need more attention than others.

Since we know we need a noun, A is easy to eliminate.

"Dormant" is an adjective whose job it is to describe nouns.

So this one's barely worth our time.

Options D and E are both nouns, but, like "observation," they're both

objects of the preposition.

If you don't believe us, just whittle down the extra words around them. Like that.

We end up with "power of generalization" and "habit of method."

See how these nouns are parallel to "observation" and not "faculty"?

Option C is the one and only answer.

Like "faculty,"

"power" is a noun being described by a prepositional phrase.

In this case, the prepositional phrase "of generalization."

Side note: the "power of generalization"

would probably be the worst superpower ever.

On X-Men, can you imagine?

Like the guys steps up, "I have the power of generalization."

[ mumbles ]

[ rimshot ]