<p>So, anyone with thoughts? </p>
<p>I thought it was pretty hard. Almost ran out of time.</p>
<p>Here’s some of the passages on the test:</p>
<p>1) Prologue to Aurung-Zebe by Dryden
Our author, by experience, finds it true,
'Tis much more hard to please himself than you;
And out of no feign’d modesty, this day
Damns his laborious trifle of a play;
Not that it’s worse than what before he writ,
But he has now another taste of wit;
And, to confess a truth, though out of time,
Grows weary of his long-loved mistress, Rhyme.
Passion’s too fierce to be in fetters bound,
And nature flies him like enchanted ground:
What verse can do, he has perform’d in this,
Which he presumes the most correct of his;
But spite of all his pride, a secret shame
Invades his breast at Shakspeare’s sacred name:
Awed when he hears his godlike Romans rage,
He, in a just despair, would quit the stage;
And to an age less polish’d, more unskill’d,
Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield.
As with the greater dead he dares not strive,
He would not match his verse with those who live:
Let him retire, betwixt two ages cast,
The first of this, and hindmost of the last.
A losing gamester, let him sneak away;
He bears no ready money from the play.</p>
<p>2) Pygmalion to Galatea by Graves
Galatea, whom his furious chisel
From Parian stone had by greed enchanted
Fulfilled, so they say, Pygmalion’s longings:
Stepped from the pedestal o which she stood,
Bare in his bed laid her down, lubricious.
Wit low responses to his drunken raptures,
Enroyalled his body with her demon blood.</p>
<p>Alas, Pygmalion had so well plotted
The articulations of his woman monster
That schools of eager connoisseurs beset
Her single person with perennial suit;
Whom she (a judgement on the jealous artist)
Admitted rankly to a comprehension
Of themes that crowned her own, not his repute.</p>
<p>3)Solo on the Dumms by Ann Petry
[Harlem’s</a> glory: Black women writing … - Lorraine Elena Roses - Google Books](<a href=“Harlem's Glory: Black Women Writing, 1900-1950 - Google Books”>Harlem's Glory: Black Women Writing, 1900-1950 - Google Books)</p>
<p>4) Ch3 of Little Dorritt by Dickens
It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale.
Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and
flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar
echoes hideous. Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot,
steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look at them
out of windows, in dire despondency. In every thoroughfare, up
almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some doleful
bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the
city and the dead-carts were going round. Everything was bolted
and barred that could by possibility furnish relief to an
overworked people. No pictures, no unfamiliar animals, no rare
plants or flowers, no natural or artificial wonders of the ancient
world–all TABOO with that enlightened strictness, that the ugly
South Sea gods in the British Museum might have supposed themselves
at home again. Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets.
Nothing to breathe but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to
change the brooding mind, or raise it up. Nothing for the spent
toiler to do, but to compare the monotony of his seventh day with
the monotony of his six days, think what a weary life he led, and
make the best of it–or the worst, according to the probabilities.</p>
<p>I thought it was hard. On my official collegeboard test and I got a 730 with 10 minutes to spare. On the exam today, I had like 20 questions left and I only had 10 minutes. The passages were harder and required more time. The London one and the Shakespeare/playwright one was hard for me.</p>
<p>What did you guys get for what the rain meant in the Kid Jones passage?</p>
<p>I think I put piano player as the exception.</p>
<p>@sm: I was pretty bummed by the end of the exam. I really did not like the playwright question and even though the mabel chiltern passage wasnt hard, the questions made it so annoying. Oscar Wilde should go to hell.</p>
<p>what did you guys get for the pygmalion question that asks for the “rankly” thing meant?</p>
<p>sorry i deleted some stuff because of copyright crap.</p>
<p>for the “rankly” question i believe that answer was inconsiderate/immodest</p>
<p>crap i put capricious and something else.</p>
<p>what about the first question? was is unexpected responses or unconventional gesture?</p>
<p>Yeah i got stuck on that one too which was annoying since it was the first question. I put unexpected response.</p>
<p>Yeah, I also said unexpected responses.
Also for the rain question I said it reflected his mood.</p>
<p>I put it reflected his mood as well. And I think i put except piano for one of them but I’m not sure, what were the other options for that question</p>
<p>I put unconventional gestures… :(</p>
<p>How about the playwright passage? Anyone got “author reading to audience”?</p>
<p>I think one of the options for the except piano question was something like sadness over knowing he cannot get his girlfriend back, which is what I put. I don’t remember what the other options were.</p>
<p>I put author reading to audience! <em>Phew</em> I was a little nervous about that one.</p>
<p>and for the london one, was it “attack on social values”?</p>
<p>yeah i put attack on the “values of society”</p>
<p>And what was the “ugly South Sea gods” supposed to be?</p>
<p>Not sure about the values question, what were the other options?</p>