<p>I’m pretty sure I have an 800 here. I’ve achieved an 800 in CR several times before, and I had at least 10 minutes to review all of my answers. I put the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>A (Ideas exist whether humans think about them or not).</li>
<li>vehement (Caustic is an extreme word. There was no evidence of bitterness in that passage. Just strong feelings. The answer “emphatic” supports this, too.)</li>
<li>Handling. (An author handles the details of a person’s life. She does not execute them in the pages of a book. Nor does she manage them—that would indicate the subject was still alive).</li>
</ol>
<p>Do you remember the question from the detour/art/literature passage that referenced lines 1-4 and asked about the “extremes” ? What answer did you put? That was the hardest question IMO</p>
<p>For me personally the hardest question was How would the author describe Walden? It seems that question still hasn’t been resolved yet. EssayTrees can you share what you put for that?</p>
<p>The problem I had with that choice was that all the lines before the passage indicated Thoreau, and therefore Walden, was nature-central not human-central. The point of the author is that these nature books are dull and boring, and most people don’t find them interesting…in fact, the youthful question in Walden has been forgotten. If humans are instinctively human-selfish and Walden is fundamentally human, why would the book be forgotten?</p>
<p>The debate is between “dull and dry” and “appropriately scientific”. The dull and dry argument is that the book is now long forgotten. The appropriately scientific(which I chose) comes from the fact that his later works were more scientific in nature, but he wasn’t overwhelming with the scientific, objective descriptions of nature- he used a good balance of it. If you find the original article, the previous paragraph says Walden created a genre- he is epitomizing it as what a genre should be.</p>
<p>Then again, it also says Walden is “personal and idiosyncratic”. I am torn between appropriate and fundamentally human.</p>
<p>“Strange that a book like “Walden,” so outside of genre and driven by such a boldly personal and idiosyncratic quest – “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. . .” – should have created a genre that is so often dry and impersonal.”</p>
<p>Now I realize…it is fundamentally human…sigh CollegeBoard trolls lol
Since it is not impersonal, in fact it is very much about a human sees the world around him…it’s not scientific at all…</p>
<p>Yeah. Thoreau says that people have gone to do more world related instead of human related things, a trend he predicted. The author says some positive things about it, but then says that it is largely a dull movement (gains+losses). He then references Walden as a classic to the human movement, which is now drying up (fundamentally human)</p>
<p>independent of human consciousness, 100% sure</p>
<p>I said caustic but the consensus is leaning toward vehement - it depends whether they regard caustic as “bitter” or as “severely critical.” My logic was that caustic is more critical and vehement is more passionate/emotional so it didn’t fit as well since the author was leveling a rational criticism of coal, but I in the respect that it was strongly expressed it could have been vehement. I’m pretty sure at this point that caustic was wrong, though.</p>
<p>Handling is a word often used to describe how an author deals with a topic. Almost certain that was the answer.</p>
<p>I agree with EssayTees:
"1. A (Ideas exist whether humans think about them or not).
2. vehement (Caustic is an extreme word. There was no evidence of bitterness in that passage. Just strong feelings. The answer “emphatic” supports this, too.)
3. Handling. (An author handles the details of a person’s life. She does not execute them in the pages of a book. Nor does she manage them—that would indicate the subject was still alive). " I put down all of the same.</p>
<p>As for Walden, I said “appropriately scientific,” I think. The author seemed to commend Thoreau for his writings and the provocative questions that they posed, despite the fact that they are now too boring for many “world centered” people. The passage seemed to imply that Walden was nature-centered, which made the questions really confusing even though I read a lot of Thoreau stuff last year It was definitely not “dull and dry” – that’s for sure. </p>
<p>That passage was weird, though, and the author seemed to be rambling and making contradictory remarks. (And this is coming from someone with a 5 on AP Lit…)</p>
<p>I’m thinking that there’s going to be a really generous curve this year… Anyone else??</p>
<p>Lots of people have been saying B for the first one, but I feel fairly certain it was A, for reasons other repliers to this thread have stated.</p>
<p>I said Walden was human centered, because at the end didn’t it say that nothing would ever come close to Walden again? And when it said that it was referring to the new non-human-centered literature.</p>
<p>For the first one, I got that ideas are independent of human consciousness because the speaker went on to say basically EXACTLY THAT in the next couple sentences. </p>
<p>Vehement for the next one. Caustic is too strong. </p>
<p>Handling. I was debating between handling and management, but handling ultimately makes more sense.</p>
<p>As for Walden, I said it was fundamentally human-centered, because that’s what the author said in the final sentence, when he said the passage asked “how to live.”</p>
<p>I’ve received an 800 before on practice tests, but I so far have missed 1 or 2 based on the CC consensus. I got “independent of human consciousness”, caustic, and handling.</p>
<p>I am extremely confident that these are the answers. When you reach a high enough level on the CR, you can just tell what answers for certain questions are just right, and I can definitely tell that these are the right.</p>
<p>I normally score around high 700s on practice tests and I put
“independent of human consciousness”
“caustic”
“handling”</p>
<p>Despite the fact that many seem to disagree with me on the “caustic” problem, I still believe that’s the correct answer. Vehement just doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s not like caustic is much stronger of a word, anyway.</p>
<p>@idksilly
Caustic is a much stronger word. I didn’t see anything that extremely bitter and critical in the passage. Vehement can just be passionate and resolute, which is what I saw.</p>
<p>@mada34: I saw passion when it came to the use of nuclear power, but the section was talking about the burning of coal. To me, he seemed very critical about the usage of coal. And hey, it doesn’t have to be bitter! It’s very critical /or/ sarcastic haha.</p>
<p>CrazyPluto, I barely remember that question. You’d have to give me more info. </p>
<p>Walden was hard. If I didn’t have time at the end to review, I would have missed both of those questions (short passages always get me. There is less information to use to draw conclusions). But when I went back, I realized that Walden was NOT like the current nature writings, which had become bi-centric. It was one of the originals, and thus still people-centric. Key words in the last sentence were “youthful” and “enlivened.” Plus, they said that new nature writers had forgotten the point of Walden—How to live. “How to live” is about people, not nature.</p>
<p>It was definitely a very tough question, if I had been rushing for an answer I definitely would’ve put dry/boring or long/exhaustive. </p>
<p>I had crossed out people-centric first, but then I realized not only were the others projecting your own ideas onto the passage but that “youthful” and “enlivened” suggested that it was all about humanity. From there it was an easy choice, you just had to think deeper than “science lit is boring”</p>
It was definitely not “dull and dry” – that’s for sure. </p>