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ACT Reading 1.4 Prose Fiction
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ACT Reading Prose Fiction Drill 1, Problem 4. How does the narrator feel about the prediction made at his birth that he would have the ability...

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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