ShmoopTube

00:04

Shmoop. A little shmoop'll do ya...

00:10

It's pause and review time. You know the drill.

00:20

Compared to the rest of the passage, the tone of the parenthetical statement in line 4 is

00:24

best described as...what?

00:27

And here are the potential answers...

00:31

In case it wasn't mind-blisteringly obvious, a parenthetical statement is a statement that's...

00:35

surrounded by parentheses.

00:37

Sounds terrifying.

00:38

Anyway, this question isn't asking us if the tone of this particular parenthetical statement

00:43

is different from the tone of the rest of the passage—it's telling us that it is.

00:48

Now it's up to us to figure out how. The "rage" in "outraged" reminds us

00:54

that the word describes somebody who's ridiculously angry. Like this guy...

01:00

Now that's outrage.

01:02

Knowing this definition, we can nix (A). It's not like the author is angry about Al Gore

01:06

being Al Gore. Oh, look, here's our negative friend, the

01:11

prefix "un."

01:15

Whenever this guy is in front of a word, he negates it.

01:18

Therefore we know that "uncertain" translates to "not certain." All this lets us know

01:23

that choice (B) is no bueno.

01:25

The author's passage probably shouldn't be on the SAT if he's uncertain of who Al

01:30

Gore is. The parenthetical statement isn't showing

01:34

support for Al Gore, his ex-wife, or anybody else. Choice (D) is a no-go.

01:40

If the parenthetical statement was being harsh, that would mean it was doing some Al Gore

01:45

bashing. We bet the prefix, "un" would love that.

01:49

But that's not what's going on here, so (E) is off the list.

01:52

All righty then, looks like we're down to our last choice, which luckily makes total

01:56

sense.

01:57

Despite the subject matter, Passage 1 stays fairly matter-of-fact.

02:00

The parenthetical statement, however, sounds like something we might hear on the streets...

02:05

or at least in normal conversation.

02:07

So (C) is tour correct answer.

02:09

Can someone put a muzzle on that guy?

Full Transcript