<p>I found this at a private SAT 2 Lit prep book:</p>
<p>THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They werent only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.</p>
<p>Some things about living still werent quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergerons fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.</p>
<ol>
<li>The narrator's tone can best be described as
(A) satirical
(B) harshly critical
(C) wholly frustrated
(D) mildly emotional
(E) excessively casual</li>
</ol>
<p>The answer is A. I chose D. .. Seriously, after some months of taking my last SAT, it's pretty hard to get back to CR prep.
Frankly, I see how A can be right, but I am still unsure. The narrator seems like a detached person in the first paragraph. He/She sounds like an automaton.. However, I felt that his tone changed in the second paragraph, becoming slightly more personal and well, emotional..? Hum..
Can someone tell me a convincing evidence of why this is satirical? (Without merely repeating how the narrator says "finally equal.") :)
He doesn't seem "harshly" critical nor "casual" (at least he's not in the second paragraph).</p>
<p>Thanks in advance :D</p>