ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


Diction and Syntax Videos 10 videos

AP English Literature and Composition 1.3 Passage Drill 1
381 Views

AP English Literature and Composition 1.3 Passage Drill 1. In the context of the passage, what does the word "compass" in line 15 mean?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.6 Passage Drill 1
268 Views

AP English Literature and Composition 1.6 Passage Drill 1. To what idea does the phrase "my opinion" in line 49 refer?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.10 Passage Drill 1
437 Views

AP English Literature and Composition 1.10 Passage Drill 1. The speaker's diction in this passage serves to characterize him as which of the f...

See All

AP English Literature and Composition 1.9 Passage Drill 3 190 Views


Share It!


Description:

AP English Literature and Composition 1.9 Passage Drill 3. What can be inferred from the frequent use of the dash in this passage?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your shmoop du jour...

00:07

You may not have missed this passage, but it missed you. Hit pause and spend a minute or two with it.

00:20

What can be inferred from the frequent use of the dash in this passage?

00:25

And here are the potential answers...

00:31

Looking back over the passage, it's certainly true... there are more dashes here than at the Olympic games.

00:37

So to answer this one, we really just have to fall back on our understanding of punctuation

00:42

and literary devices.

00:44

What's the author's reason for packing this passage chock full of dashes?

00:50

Does he think they're visually appealing? Is his "period" key broken? Did the "Dash

00:55

Mafia" get to him? Nah. Dashes don't imply censoring, abridgment,

01:00

or unknown information.

01:02

They are used for one thing and one thing only -- to indicate an abrupt halt or transition in speech.

01:16

Looking over our five answer choices, B is the only one that fits the bill.

01:20

The moral of this question? Don't cut people off mid-sentence...

01:24

...or the Dash Mafia will come for you...

Related Videos

AP English Literature and Composition 1.2 Passage Drill 4
842 Views

AP English Literature and Composition 1.2 Passage Drill 4. As which of the following is the object being personified?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.4 Passage Drill 3
515 Views

AP English Literature and Composition 1.4 Passage Drill 3. How is Burne's view of pacifism best characterized in lines 57 through 67?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.6 Passage Drill 5
245 Views

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

AP English Literature and Composition 1.7 Passage Drill 5
239 Views

AP English Literature and Composition 1.7 Passage Drill 5. Which line indicates the turn or shift in this poem?

AP English Literature and Composition 1.9 Passage Drill 4
259 Views

AP English Literature and Composition 1.9 Passage Drill 4. Lines 32-34 are best understood to mean what?