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AP English Language and Composition 2.7 Passage Drill 262 Views


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AP English Language and Composition 2.7 Passage Drill. The speaker's choice of syntax in the phrase, "he... guilt" (line 17) places most emphasis on which of the following words?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Parliament.

00:06

Sort of like our Congress, but where laws can actually get passed.

00:10

Yeah.

00:11

Check out the passage again.

00:13

Yeah, again. How many times have you read this?

00:18

Keep reading, keep reading... This is awful.

00:21

[ mumbles ]

00:27

Okay, let's go.

00:28

The speaker's choice of syntax in the phrase,

00:31

"he... guilt" (line 17)

00:34

places most emphasis on which of the following words?

00:38

And here are the potential answers.

00:39

[ mumbles ] Hmm.

00:42

All right, well, let's go.

00:43

Okay, so this question wants us to zero in on a particular

00:46

line and figure out what is being emphasized most.

00:49

Unfortunately, none of the words are italicized, so there goes that shortcut.

00:53

Well, here's the line they're citing, plus the one before it for a little context at no extra charge.

00:58

"He conjured them to think of the blood that would be shed,

01:02

and to remember that it would lie at their door;

01:05

they retorted the charge;

01:07

he was the aggressor and his would be the guilt."

01:11

All right. Rather than taking these five choices one by one,

01:14

let's dissect this thing a bit and figure out what it's saying.

01:17

"He conjured them to think of the blood that would be shed, and to remember that it would lie at their door."

01:22

So the king's warning the Houses about all the blood

01:25

that'd be spilled and that it would be in their neighborhood.

01:28

Not a good thing.

01:29

But then "they retorted the charge;"

01:32

(that is they came back with)

01:34

"he was the aggressor and his would be the guilt."

01:37

I.E. it was the king who started it,

01:40

so whatever nasty stuff went down,

01:42

he was the one who'd have to live with it.

01:44

In other words, the Houses are trying to take the blame

01:46

off their shoulders and put it on the king's.

01:49

Well, with that in mind, it seems like "he" and "his"

01:52

are the two most likely candidates here.

01:55

However, we give "his" the nod here because

01:58

"he was the aggressor" is more of a statement of fact,

02:01

while "his would be the guilt" is more of an accusation.

02:05

And people tend to emphasize accusations a bit more than facts.

02:08

So our answer is C.

02:10

And if we're wrong, well, we're just blaming the king.

02:12

[ whining ] [ evil laughter ]

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