<p>Hey I don't normally have any issue with these, but I'm finding this one to be extremely tough. Explanation for an answer?</p>
<p>In his protest sonnets, Claude McKay yoked _____ with _____ by using a traditional verse form to convey powerful challenges to contemporary social standards.</p>
<p>a)politics...partisanship
b)convention...dissent
c)piety...ingenuity
d)novelty...aspiration
e)custom...conservatism</p>
<p>NOTE: this is from a real, released test</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I’m not going to use a dictionary, and here’s how I attacked this question:</p>
<p>1) “Yoked” seems to mean something along the lines of “mixed.”</p>
<p>2) D is a possibility, although “novelty” doesn’t quite fit. </p>
<p>3) E - flat out no. </p>
<p>4) C - I’m leaning towards no. </p>
<p>5) B - Hm …</p>
<p>6) A - No. </p>
<p>7) Come back to B … that sounds about right. </p>
<p>Is the answer B? “Convention” matches up with “traditional” and “dissent” matches up with “challenges to contemporary social standards.”</p>
<p>i know yoked means link or connect but the choice is tricky!!</p>
<p>The answer is C, and I still have no idea why. I picked B also.</p>
<p>Ingenuity: cleverness or skillfulness of conception or design
Piety: the quality or state of being pious. In a broader sense, it just means reverence, devotion, respect, etc. </p>
<p>I can see why the answer is C. McKay cleverly uses traditional verse and to admonish social standards. He reveres traditional verse and refuses to abandon it.</p>
<p>Cannot see c as the correct answer. Makes absolutely no sense.</p>
<p>This is indeed a very hard question.</p>
<p>I agree with IceQube’s analysis. But I “cheated” and read two of McKay’s poems, something that’s hardly possible or practical in a test setting.</p>
<p>The correct choice needs to be two aspects of McKay’s writng style. Yoke suggests that the styles are combined. The choice then is not about the “content” or sentiment of McKay’s poems, but about his art.</p>
<p>Piety, is not only about religinion. It can also refer to tradition. In McKay’s case it refers to his “simple” rhyming patterns.</p>
<p>And here ingenuity refers to how he uses words, and phrasing to create poetry that is not the typical sonnet.</p>
<p>Initially I also picked B, but even without the long winded explanation above the choice has to be about McKay’s writing style, and only C fits.</p>
<p>Piety is a bit of a better answer than convention. It is much more defined in “tradition” than “convention” is. “Ingenuity” is also the best word for the second blank. If he wanted to convey powerful social challenges to “contemporary social standards,” it would make the most sense to do it cleverly or with “ingenuity.”</p>
<p>i thought you weren’t allowed to tell others questions that were on the real test?</p>
<p>^It’s a released test</p>
<p>The answer is clearly B. It isn’t that hard.
</p>
<p>traditional = convention/custom, so B or E
challenging standards = dissent, so B</p>
<p>Option C doesn’t make any sense at all.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/574156-psat-reading-question.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/574156-psat-reading-question.html</a></p>
<p>Agree, C is a typo</p>