<p>@person asking about writing, Can u pose your question in a relevant thread, please?</p>
<p>
There is evidence of every correct answer in the passage. It may be difficult to find, and the test-makers might use words with multiple meanings so your gut isn’t always right, but inferences like people are attempting to make here do not lead to the right answer. That is the principle of consistently doing well on CR (Silverturtle cites it in his guide): if an answer is not supported specifically by the passage, it isn’t right.</p>
<p>Cortona, I understand your reasoning, but I think that’s too much, even for CB standards. Every single person I asked put vehement. Even the 5 or 6 people that get 800s every time.</p>
<p>It could also be a trap answer because it’s a near-synonym for emphatic, which is another answer for tone.</p>
<p>I am willing to consider the vehemence of the paragraph if someone tells me what specific diction implies forcefulness or passion in that paragraph.</p>
<p>Well forcefulness is very comparable to “severe critical” </p>
<p>Maybe CB will accept both or simply toss the question. In the May 2011 SAT, a writing question was tossed.</p>
<p>@notanengineer</p>
<p>The entire paragraph, maybe? </p>
<p>“On top of that”, “Believe it or not”, “100 times more radioactive material than an equivalent nuclear reactor - right into the air, too, not into some carefully guarded storage site”…</p>
<p>Read that out loud and ask anyone how you sound. It’s subtle, which is probably leading you to avoid “vehement” as the answer, but forceful, or vehement, is the sense I get reading the entire passage.</p>
<p>“The consequences aren’t pretty.” - this is not vehement</p>
<p>“Burning coal and other fossil fuels is driving climate change, which is blamed for everything from western forest fires and Florida hurricanes to melting polar ice sheets and flooded Himalayan hamlets.” - nor is this. He even says “is blamed for” rather than “caused,” so he isn’t even asserting that, just saying that some people think that.</p>
<p>“On top of that, coal-burning electric power plants have fouled the air with enough heavy metals and other noxious pollutants to cause 15,000 premature deaths annually in the US alone, according to a Harvard School of Public Health study.” - so passionate he cites an academic study</p>
<p>“Believe it or not, a coal-fired plant releases 100 times more radioactive material than an equivalent nuclear reactor - right into the air, too, not into some carefully guarded storage site.” - yep, also not vehement. Cites facts and there is a hint of sarcasm at the end.</p>
<p>And we agree that the Chinese weren’t on there.</p>
<p>EDIT: the irony here is that you are referring to parts that are ironic/sarcastic, not vehement.</p>
<p>I will wager 5 internet monies on caustic.</p>
<p>Do any of you dare take this bet?</p>
<p>I will delete my account if it’s vehement.</p>
<p>Stop betting, guys. We really can’t settle this one until the QAS arrives and we see the EXACT quote.</p>
<p>1) So just because he cites an academic study, he isn’t forceful?
2) “The consequences aren’t pretty” may not be forceful, but it’s quietly foreshadowing a series of facts and statements that invokes a sense of passion.
3) Your analysis of “blamed for” is the epitome of overanalysis
4) “right into the air, too, not into some carefully guarded storage site” is not sarcastic at all. You get the sense that he is fired up by the fact that the wastes aren’t being stored properly.</p>
<p>EDIT: the irony here is that you are referring to parts that are vehement, not ironic/sarcastic.</p>
<p>People who are advocating “caustic” are using a vague, imprecise definition of “sarcasm” to prove their point.</p>
<p>Sarcasm, fundamentally, is a mocking remark. It’s not the use of understatements, light-hearted observations, etc. It has a pretty strong, almost negative, connotation.</p>
<p>@jd</p>
<p>Well, it was nice knowing you.</p>
<p>The argument for caustic could work for vehement as well, since one definition of vehement is “characterized by rancor” ie involving malice, hatred, bitterness. This is from dictionary.com</p>
<p>@Subsidize The argument for caustic does not involve malice, hatred, bitterness (except, perhaps, veiled bitterness). It’s because 1). there is absolutely nothing in the passage that actually suggests vehemence other than the assumption that it’s forceful, 2). the passage is “severely critical” in that he levels factual criticisms against coal, and 3). there are traces of irony and sarcasm.</p>
<p>@NewYorkMets
These are all far more sarcastic and witty than vehement. “not into some carefully guarded storage site” is ironic because it is saying that, contrary to popular opinion, nuclear power is safer than coal - that’s what irony/sarcasm do. They juxtapose reality with an opinion.</p>
<p>Here is the issue: you don’t know what vehement, caustic, or sarcastic mean.</p>
<p>@notanengineer that’s where you are wrong, Caustic originally means bitter and involves malice. The most frequently used definition is that its acidic</p>
<p>I’m almost 100% sure the answer is vehement. Caustic implies scathing, sarcastic, burning… able to corrode tissue… Vehement, on the other hand, implies passionate and intense, and that’s CLEARLY in the passage. You can’t just bend the passage however you like to make it seem like one answer is the right answer. Every SAT question has ONLY ONE RIGHT ANSWER! And, in this case, there’s not enough stuff in either passage that qualifies as caustic. </p>
<h1>mytwocents</h1>
<p>As, I said, veiled bitterness - “The consequences aren’t pretty.” He isn’t openly hateful, but he is bitter about coal. There is bitterness in the paragraph; just not as strongly as everyone expects caustic to imply. And the passage matches the second definition of caustic perfectly. People assumed one definition of caustic and chose an answer that is not supported by the passage (unless you use the “characterized by rancor” definition of vehemence, which is loose and still would make caustic the “best” answer).</p>
<p>
Go to the passage, right now, and find me the specifically passionate and intense phrases. Don’t come back with stuff like “On top of that” or “Believe it or not” or “not into some carefully guarded storage container” like NewYorkMets attempted to because those are either not vehement at all or more so caustic than vehement.</p>
<p>
I agree, which is why people should accept that they don’t know the full definition of caustic and so picked vehement, an answer unsupported by the passage, so that they come back to CC and say things like, “I’m almost 100% sure the answer is vehement.”</p>
<p>I’m up for an argument, but let’s try to keep the petty insults out of this thread. We’re all intelligent people that have a decent grasp of the words at hand. There’s definitely some nuance involved which makes this a tricky question, and I think the answer could be either vehement or caustic.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Don’t post or make arguments and assertions if you’re not going to back it up with quotes and specific lines. </p>
<p>Caustic ALSO implies “severely critical,” which is what the author was of coal. “The consequences aren’t pretty.” - this is not vehement. In your words, don’t assume the definition of a word is the definition of the word in the context of the paragraph simply because it makes the answer wrong.</p>
<p>“Burning coal and other fossil fuels is driving climate change, which is blamed for everything from western forest fires and Florida hurricanes to melting polar ice sheets and flooded Himalayan hamlets.” - nor is this. He even says “is blamed for” rather than “caused,” so he isn’t even asserting that, just saying that some people think that.</p>
<p>“On top of that, coal-burning electric power plants have fouled the air with enough heavy metals and other noxious pollutants to cause 15,000 premature deaths annually in the US alone, according to a Harvard School of Public Health study.” - so passionate he cites an academic study</p>
<p>“Believe it or not, a coal-fired plant releases 100 times more radioactive material than an equivalent nuclear reactor - right into the air, too, not into some carefully guarded storage site.” - yep, also not vehement. Cites facts and there is a hint of sarcasm at the end.</p>