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Every time you Shmoop...an angel gets its wings.

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The attitudes of the two passages toward the use of telephones or cell phones is best characterized

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by which of the following statements?

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In this case, attitude is less about sarcasm and insults than the general tone and perspective

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of the passages.

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Mama Shmoop thinks they're the same thing, apparently, or else we wouldn't get yelled

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at so much.

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Similar to sentence completion, we can treat this question like a two-parter and start

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process-of-eliminating our way to a solution.

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For example, all we have to do is look at the first part of choice (B) to know that

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it's all kinds of wrong. All Passage 1 does is go on and on about how big and important

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the invention of the telephone was.

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Kinda like when Mama Shmoop goes on and on about the importance of mayonnaise to a healthy diet.

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The first part of choice (E) smells as funky as old mayo. Passage 1 says that the telephone

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contributed a ton to society...

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We can toss choice (E) in the trash where it belongs.

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Now we can move on to the second part of the answer choices.

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All Passage 2 does is complain about the trouble telephones eventually caused, so it's very

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wrong to say that it encourages people to use them. We can definitely hang up on (C).

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Let's hope it doesn't call back. Choice (A) is a tricky one for sure. Both

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parts seem kinda sorta plausible.

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We're going to go ahead and nix it though, because Passage 2 doesn't necessarily argue

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against Bell's invention specifically.

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It's more concerned with the effect of the telephone's modern incarnations like cell

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phones and the texting they allow.

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This leaves us with choice (D), which works great for us because both parts fit.

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The first passage does celebrate the usefulness of telephones, while the second passage would

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text you major sad faces about the modern use of phones--if it didn't hate texting so much.

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