June 2010: Literature

<p>@jr5570: The only answer choices I rememeber are "string of beads"and “the Great Soul” but I can’t remember the rest.</p>

<p>@Ivoire: I put the Great Soul because like the jumble of things, everything is combined into one single mass.</p>

<p>haha I hope we’re right!
What did people say the answer was to the question in the African American woman passage about the narrators focus throughout the passage?</p>

<p>@sakuraino: But the one single mass is not sustained. It’s put into separate bags. Furthermore, the passage never mentions a “Great Soul”, only a “Great Stuffer of Bags” (i.e. God). Therefore I think it’ll be too much of a stretch to say it’s a “Great Soul” when its meaning is not at all defined within the passage.</p>

<p>Oh and another question from Thoreau’s train passage: What is the antecedent to the pronoun “which” in the sentence? I put rising</p>

<p>@jr5570: Ooh I remember that one… asking for the narrator’s point, right? Do you remember the choices? :S</p>

<p>I got the same answers as you did for all those questions.</p>

<p>The “jumble” of things was a big collection of goods that were once all together but were later separated into individual bags, similar to the “great soul” which links together all of humankind. </p>

<p>I choose the planetary motion answer because planetary motion described the curvature of the train tracks, not the train itself.</p>

<p>I choose “if the snow were…seed” because, unlike all the other choices, it did not contrast potential positive traits of the train with it’s actual negative characteristics (for example, “If only the train were as cool as it is totally poopy”)</p>

<p>The only choice I remember was the one that I chose, which was that she doesn’t see any individual life as unique or significant.</p>

<p>@ExceptMe: Okay awesome! I was unsure about the planetary motion answer choice, but finally decided on it b/c the passage later said that the motion was more like a comet rather than planetary motion since it was unlikely the motion was circular/reutrning.</p>

<p>@jr5570: Hm, that’s definitely not what I chose. If she didn’t see any individual life as unique or significant, she would not devote a large part of the passage to describing the contents of a bag.</p>

<p>I don’t remember any of the other answer choices to the question about the narrator’s focus either. I think I put what jr5570 put.</p>

<p>For the train passage, what did you all put for the narrator’s view of the train/horse? My answer was admiring but skeptical.</p>

<p>@Ivoire: None of the other options made sense to me, and in the passage she says that if you pour the contents of each bag out into a giant pile and put random pieces back into each bag, the contents of the bags would not be any different, and that “a bit of colored glass more or less would not matter,” indicating that ultimately our traits are more or less collectively the same and that individually we are insignificant when compared to us as a whole. This is also reaffirmed when she says that she is “merely a fragment of the great soul” that the country is comprised of.</p>

<p>@Sakuraino: I was really caught between admiring but skeptical and nostalgic. I initially put admiring but skeptical, but couldn’t find anywhere where he showed skepticism, so I put nostalgic. I didn’t really get the sense that he was talking about the past, though, so I think I got that question wrong. I think it is admiring but skeptical.</p>

<p>I put admiring but skeptical as well. In the first paragraph he highly praises the train for its power and majesty, but in the second paragraph he begins to question some aspects of the train ( for example, “If the enterprise were as innocent as it is early!”, “If the enterprise were as heroic and commanding as it is protracted and unwearied”)</p>

<p>And thinking back on it, I’m not sure if planetary motion is the answer I put. Do you remember any of the other choices? The planetary motion sentence is “I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off with planetary motion” which seems to pretty clearly be describing the train.</p>

<p>I think “returning curve” or something close to that was what I choose, but honestly, I don’t even remember if that was a choice.</p>

<p>I actually studied the Zora Neale Hurston essay ( the “Great Soul” passage) along with another one of her works in my English class. It’s certainly not that she found human life insignificant. </p>

<p>It’s more likely that the answer was along the lines of all humans being linked together somehow or that the characteristics of human life are almost by chance. I know I choose an answer similar to the latter of those two possibilities, but I can’t remember if it was for a different question.</p>

<p>@jr5570: I think he was being skeptical because he kept on using If… as … statements. Overall, I thought this test was HARD. Hoping for a lenient curve.</p>

<p>Some answer choices to the question “All of the following describe the train EXCEPT” were: planetary motion, demi-god, cloud compeller</p>

<p>A question from the Kid Jones passage just occured to me: “The last paragraph serves the purpose of” My answer was sustaining the synthesis of music/memory</p>

<p>I can’t remember if the answer was that she found human “life” insignificant or if she found our differences or different traits insignificant.</p>

<p>@Sakuraino: Yeah I said synthesis of music and memory.</p>

<p>@ jr: I’m seeming to recall some answer being about differences in appearance/personality being unimportant/by chance and that would be the right answer, especially since the essay is about overcoming the difficulties of being black during the early 20th century. But I remember there also being a choice about human existence being unimportant, and that is without a doubt incorrect.</p>