International SAT December 1st 2012 Discussion for Critical Reading

<p>The answer “figuratively” was for a different question. It is definitely an irony (I think it was paradoxical in the choice.), not personification.</p>

<p>Predictions for the CR curve?</p>

<p>Any chance that a -10 (after negative marking) is a 700 (57/67)</p>

<p>Yes, one of the options was personification. The book “smiled” at that Alu person lol.</p>

<p>Derp1996: It is as important that a word does, in fact, mean something w/o context as it does in context. “Unnoted” does not mean “uninformed” in any sense.</p>

<p>Vivaciousakrish,</p>

<p>your take on the following questions:</p>

<ul>
<li>life’s chaos vs (weird) sentimental value</li>
<li>nuance and complex vs casts humans in an unflattering light</li>
<li>irony vs agreeing with the other author’s point</li>
</ul>

<p>^ A 58 is usually a 700.</p>

<p>I know, and I think that’ll be the case for this test, too. I can’t believe I got 2 easy-medium questions wrong and bombed my 700 :(</p>

<p>Oh, well, here’s to hoping that 57 is a 700 on this test.</p>

<p>Life’s chaos, without a doubt. </p>

<p>Nuanced and complex. There was this huge description that depicted the complexity of the elephant’s art, and nuanced, well, I think there was something on there to prove that too but I do not remember anymore. But I was definite that this was the correct answer.</p>

<p>I don’t quite remember the question w/ irony/agreeing with the author’s point bit? Are you referring to the “famous” thing? Was that a double-passage? :|</p>

<p>I answered one question as “figurative language”. It was the passage about the found artifact. The question was what rhetorical language was primary used in the lines. And yes there was another question with answer “personification”. </p>

<p>“Famous” was the passage about poetry. I know I was stuck between 2 answer choices. If only I knew what the other was besides irony, I would know what I chose.</p>

<p>Yes, the answer to that was figurative language. I usually do not remember the easy questions - just the ones that made me think for a moment or two. </p>

<p>Umm, “irony”, “controversial” and “agreeing with the author’s point”. The quotation marks in no sense emphasized the agreement, as the author had explicitly mentioned that he “adapted” that argument. That answer is quite silly, as quotation marks are often used to create a scathing effect. I was definitely confused in this question…</p>

<p>Looking up the definition of irony can be helpful to confirm the answer:</p>

<p>a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result; the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect (Dictionary on Mac). </p>

<p>Do you think that was the intended effect? Were “famous” not famous at all? I really don’t know, but it’d be great if you could refute me.</p>

<p>Here’s something on quotation marks:</p>

<p>Expressing irony</p>

<p>Quotation marks can also indicate irony, sarcasm, skepticism, or a nonstandard usage.
Examples<br>
My date’s car “accidentally” ran out of gas.<br>
The editor suspected that Janet’s original reporting was a little too “original,” and indeed the newspaper later discovered that Janet had invented several of her quotes.</p>

<p>The answer could very well be the “controversial” one as well. I remember this sentence structure:</p>

<p>To adapt someonesomeone’s books, “famous” poets are only famous to other poets. But, … </p>

<p>What do you guys think?</p>

<p>I FOUND IT!!!</p>

<p>To adapt Russell Jacoby’s definition of contemporary academic renown from The Last Intellectuals, a “famous” poet now means someone famous only to other poets. But there are enough poets to make that local fame relatively meaningful.</p>

<p>Well, I understood it as the author wanted to point out the irony of the word “famous”. That they are “famous” only within a closed circle so aren’t really that famous.</p>

<p>Okay, then, it must be “irony” then.</p>

<p>For the poetry passage, there is one question with the answer, “famous is used ironically” and another with the answer, “paradoxical situation.”
What’s the question for the answer, “paradoxical situation?”</p>

<p>Can you guys find the “hiker” passage?</p>

<p>So was I the only one with an experimental math section?</p>

<p>I had math experimental and scourge had it too. I have no idea which of them was the experimental one. </p>

<p>Here is what I gathered for now… I didn’t read the 2008 thread yet. </p>

<p>Sentence Completions

  1. Trust
  2. Alter … Environment
  3. Metaphor
  4. Parallel … Disparity
  5. Zealous … Ameliorate
  6. Copious … Acerbic
  7. Solicitous
  8. Noted … Discrimination</p>

<ol>
<li>Adhere … authenticity</li>
<li>Loquacious</li>
<li>Thrive … Antediluvian</li>
<li>Misplaced … unsavory</li>
<li><p>Unique </p></li>
<li><p>Elite … Function</p></li>
<li><p>Discern</p></li>
<li><p>Provisional</p></li>
<li><p>Virtuosity</p></li>
<li><p>Precluded</p></li>
<li><p>Wrongdoing … Chicanery</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Bioluminescence short passage
1.what did the author imply about “hiding in the dark with a light” – it is Foolish or paradoxical?
2. passage showed ways bioluminescence could be beneficial to sea creatures</p>

<p>Packaging Food

  1. Industry was eager to continue using its new technologies
  2. Foods were “absurd”</p>

<p>Comic Strips
Passage 1: talks about the author’s personal experiences with students who are actively engaged in creative, inspiring comics; he is frustrated that comics is not a legitimate form of art
Passage 2: author describes his frustration with critics and their disapproval of comics art</p>

<ol>
<li>The relationship between the two passages: passage 2 elaborates on a concept brought up in passage 1</li>
<li>How would the author of passage 2 respond to the words of the critics mentioned in passage 1, line x?
answer: the disapproval of comics is undeserved. </li>
<li>What does the author of passage 2 imply when he says “The Puritans thought novels were once tasteless…”
answer: that comics too should be an accepted art form (both were once under the scrutiny of the people)</li>
<li>How does the author of passage 1 differ from the author of passage 2? answer: he focuses on the experiences of some artists</li>
</ol>

<p>Artistic Elephants (Long Double)

  1. personal anecdote/general overview
  2. sori drew with her own initiative
  3. authors agree that elephants deliberately paint
  4. “right” means “direct”
  5. Ruby can’t be used for experiment because she was taught to paint in captivity
  6. substance is “reality”
  7. quote: nuance and complex
  8. numerous and unrecorded
  9. Author of passage 1 regards the drawings as artistic compared to the handlers from the 2nd passage
  10. Pebble used to draw art
  11. Does the elephant fit the quotation of passage 2. No, because there is no human supervision.
    12.</p>

<p>Uncle’s book

  1. solemn
  2. Raised by friends
  3. Relief – Verma’s reaction after Alu explained his behaviour
  4. Overjoyed – how Alu felt
  5. book held her captive
  6. Composed – Verma’s attitude compared to that of Alu
  7. book was reliable escape from life’s chaos
  8. “quarelling friends” explained father’s attitude
  9. passage in general showed how past experiences influenced current attitudes
  10. Personification (the book smiled at Alu)
  11. Eagerness (primary attitude going through book’s pages)
    12.???</p>

<p>Hiking/Artifact – please someone find the passage, what was the name of the tribe? H…

  1. significance of personal experience
  2. finding an ancient pottery in the bush while looking for a soccer ball – analogous situation
  3. to show how old the object was – 1450 AD
  4. map was misleading (no water)
  5. imaginative speculation*
  6. “settle” means rest
  7. Figurative language
  8. earth coming alive with shards or something, “she was unaware of it until she found the stone”</p>

<p>Poetry:

  1. “famous” is ironical
  2. statistical evidence was misleading
  3. paradoxical situation – what situation was this?
  4. bemoaning a trend
  5. students referred to specialization of poetry
  6. principal audience

8.</p>

<p>And Hiking passage:</p>

<p>Not long ago I went backpacking in the Eagle Tail Mountains. This range is a trackless wilderness in western Arizona that most people would call Godforsaken, taking for granted God’s preference for loamy topsoil and regular precipitation. Whoever created the Eagle Tails had dry heat on the agenda, and a thing for volcanic rock. Also cactus, twisted mesquites, and five-alarm sunsets. The hiker’s program in a desert like this is dire and blunt: carry in enough water to keep you alive till you can find a water source; then fill your bottles and head for the next one; or straight back out. Experts warn adventurers in this region, without irony, to drink their water while they’re still alive, as it won’t help later.</p>

<p>Several canyons looked promising for springs on our topographical map, but turned up dry. Finally, at the top of a narrow, overgrown gorge we found a blessed tinaja, a deep, shaded hollow in the rock about the size of four or five claw-foot tubs, holding water. After we drank our fill, my friends struck out again, but I opted to stay and spend the day in the hospitable place that had slaked our thirst. On either side of the natural water tank, two shallow caves in the canyon wall faced each other, only a few dozen steps apart. By crossing from one to the other at noon, a person could spend the whole day here in shady comfort–or in colder weather, follow the winter sun. Anticipating a morning of reading, I pulled Angle of Repose out of my pack and looked for a place to settle on the flat, dusty floor of the west-facing shelter. Instead, my eyes were startled by a smooth corn-grinding stone. It sat in the exact center of its rock bowl, as if the Hohokam woman or man who used this mortar and pestle had walked off and left them there an hour ago. The Hohokam disappeared from the earth in A.D. 1450. It was inconceivable to me that no one had been here since then, but that may have been the case–that is the point of the trackless wilderness. I picked up the grinding stone. The size and weight and smooth, balanced perfection of it in my hand filled me at once with a longing to possess it. In its time, this excellent stone was the most treasured thing in a life, a family, maybe the whole neighborhood. To whom it still belonged. I replaced it in the rock depression, which also felt smooth to my touch. Because my eyes now understood how to look at it, the ground under my feet came alive with worked flint chips and pottery shards. I walked across to the other cave and found its floor just as lively with historic debris. Hidden under brittlebush and catclaw I found another grinding stone, this one some distance from the depression in the cave floor that once answered its pressure daily, for the grinding of corn or mesquite beans.</p>

<p>How long can a pestle stone lie still in the center of its mortar? That long ago–that recently–people lived here. Here, exactly, and not one valley over, or two, or twelve, because this place had all a person needs: shelter, food, and permanent water. They organized their lives around a catchment basin in a granite boulder, conforming their desires to the earth’s charities; they never expected the opposite. The stories I grew up with lauded Moses for striking the rock and bringing forth the bubbling stream. But the stories of the Hohokam–oh, how they must have praised that good rock.</p>

<p>At dusk my friends returned with wonderful tales of the ground they had covered. We camped for the night, refilled our canteens, and hiked back to the land of plumbing and a fair guarantee of longevity. But I treasure my memory of the day I lingered near water and covered no ground. I can’t think of a day in my life in which I’ve had such a clear fix on what it means to be human.</p>

<p>I don’t think I can remember either. They were all so alike, though the level 5’s were better than I expected. Your CR list is pretty accurate…</p>