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SAT Reading: Why Does Thoreau Use the Phrase "Mechanical Aids" in this Passage?
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Thoreau was all about simplicity; anything that took away from his vision was the enemy. Mechanical aids were one of them. Guess he had to train a...

SAT Reading: Suggesting a Reason for Thoreau's Word Choice
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Thoreau wants our lives to be simplified. He claims that we gain less from life when we over-complicate things.

How Does Thoreau Feel about Commerce?
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How does Thoreau feel about commerce? He writes, "We don't ride upon the railroad; it rides upon us." He wants and end to the war fighting for the...

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SAT Reading 2.6 Sentence Completion 808 Views


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Description:

SAT Reading Sentence Completion Drill 2, Problem 6

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Put this in your pipe and Shmoop it... Which words could fill in the blanks so that

00:07

the sentence below makes sense?

00:09

Because Holden Caulfield is often surrounded by people, many of whom he knows, isolation

00:15

in The Catcher in the Rye is much more of a(n) blank concept than a concrete blank.

00:21

Here are the potential answers.

00:23

Our two missing words should represent opposing concepts, since this sentence pits one concept

00:30

against another. Arena-style.

00:35

The word that fits in the first blank, for example, should be an antonym of "concrete."

00:40

"Abstruse" means hard to understand, which isn't exactly the opposite of concrete...

00:44

...so choice (B) gets fed to the lions.

00:49

Holden might be thinking "deep" thoughts, but "deep" isn't an antonym for concrete,

00:56

either, so it's lions for (C) as well.

01:00

"Abstract," "philosophical," and "intellectual" all... kind of work at least.

01:04

We'll dub them safe for now.

01:08

(D) is a goner, because "recondition" means to restore something.

01:12

A "concrete recondition"? No way.

01:17

"Transcendence" can mean the act of surpassing

01:19

others, or moving beyond the material universe.

01:22

Neither of these meanings work, though, because "concrete transcendence" is total gibberish.

01:26

Unfortunately, blank two spells doom for (E).

01:29

Looks like it's going to be (A)...

01:33

"Concrete reality" makes sense, and "abstract" is the opposite of concrete, so both blanks

01:38

check out.

01:39

(A) is the winner of this battle.

01:41

As in, "ASPCA."

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