Reading questions!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Among the films shown were Laura;
10 The Maltese Falcon; Murder, My Sweet;
Double Indemnity; and The Woman in the
Window. Those five films shared enough
traits that critic Nino Frank gave them a
new classification: film noir, or literally,
15 “black film.” The traits they shared were
both stylistic and thematic. They were
dark in both look and mood. Their
primary action took place at night on rainswept
city streets, in narrow ash-can
20 alleys, in claustrophobic diners, and in
dingy, shadowy hotel rooms with neon
signs flashing outside the windows, rooms
in which, as hard-boiled author Nelson
Algren once put it, “every bed you rent
25 makes you an accessory to somebody
else’s shady past.” The characters in
these films were bookies, con men, killers,
cigarette girls, crooked cops, down-andout
boxers, and calculating, scheming,
30 and very deadly women. The well-lit,
singing and tap-dancing, happy-ending
world of the 1930’s had in ten short years
become a hostile, orderless place in which
alienation, obsession, and paranoia ruled.
35 The universe seemed to conspire to defeat
and entrap the inhabitants who wandered
blindly through it. They were victims of
fate, their own worst enemies who,
looking for a score, ended by defeating
40 themselves.</p>

<p>It can be inferred that the films listed in lines 9 through
12 were similar in each of the following ways
EXCEPT:
(A) visual appearance
(B) emotional effect
(C) characters
(D) theme
(E) music</p>

<p>I narrowed to A, B & E. Why is E the answer?</p>

<p>The author of Passage 1 uses the quotation in lines 24-
26 primarily in order to
(A) critique a writer
(B) recount an incident
(C) evoke a place
(D) describe a character
(E) summarize a plot</p>

<p>I could not understand the function of the quotation in context. Can anyone help?</p>

2

<p>Bump!</p>

<p>10 char</p>

3

<p>For the first question, E is the answer because music is the only aspect not mentioned as a similarity among the five different films. The paragraph states, “The traits they shared were both stylistic and thematic. They were dark in both look and mood.” Those count as visual appearance (“stylistic”, “look”), theme (“thematic”), and emotional effect (“mood”). It is also mentioned that “the characters in these films were bookies, con men, killers, cigarette girls, crooked cops, down-andout boxers, and calculating, scheming, 30 and very deadly women”. The only option that is not talked about is music.</p>

4

<p>For the other question, if this is the quotation from Algren you’re referring to, then I think the answer is (C) to evoke a place. Notice that the sentence is describing the location at which the primary action takes place (ash-can alley, claustrophobic diners, etc). The quotation adds to the depiction of the location as shady and dark in look and in mood.</p>

5

<p>Thanks xrCalico23 I got it!</p>