Two passage questions

<p>These both come from the same passage which appeared in the January 2007 SAT. I took it Saturday and these were the only two CR questions I got wrong (first 800, yay me), and I can't seem to figure them out.</p>

<p>Except 1:
The dam at Aintry has already been started, and when it's finished next spring the river will back up fast. This whole valley will be under water. But right now it's wild. And I mean wild; it looks like something up in Alaska. We really ought to go up there before the real estate people get hold of it and make it over into one of their heavens.</p>

<p>Question: "Alaska" serves as an example of some place a) Distant b) Immense c) Scenic d) Cold e) Undeveloped</p>

<p>Excerpt 2:
"They tell me that this is the kind of thing [canoe tips] that gets hold of middle-class householders every once in a while," Bobby said. "But most of them just lie down till the feeling passes."</p>

<p>Question: Bobby's remarks are best characterized as a) Explicit Criticism b) Veiled Malice c) Dry Humor d) Frank Confession e) Factual Observation</p>

<p>Answers: (bottom of page)</p>

<p>1: e -- I put c
2: c -- I put b (this one especially was, IMO, stupid. I don't see how any kind of intellect--aside from knowledge about how Mid-Western middle aged men made jokes in the 1960s--is being tested here. And to anyone who gets this, it is a sex joke? "Lie down till the feeling passes?" Yes? No?</p>

<p>For 1, it's finished next spring alludes to it being not finished yet.
Or underdeveloped. I think this is a tough question. If I didn't see the answer, I would have also picked Scenic because of the "underwater" and "wild"</p>

<p>
[quote]
before the real estate people get hold of it and make it over into one of their heavens.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's the clue. The author is clearly stating that there is no developed property there for the real estate guys ... so it's undeveloped.</p>

<p>For the second one, I would have guessed Factual Observation. If it is C, then I believe there must have been something else in the passage to hint this. Maybe if you typed the entire passage, we would be able to explain it better?</p>

<p>i thought #1 was relatively easy~
it says that it's "wild", they gotta go there before the real estate people "develop" those places into something the real estate people want. so in a way we can infer that it's undeveloped.</p>

<h1>2 i didn't get it either,i did it last saturday, i went over it, and i still couldn't understand why~ then i moved on, like whatever~ lol</h1>

<p>but hey i thought the jan 07 cr was really easy,i got 680 on it =D</p>

<p>edit: actually there were some descriptions about Bobby, so yeah type it out ;)</p>

<p>In the paragraph above it describes Bobby as "pleasantly cynical," which does hint at "dry humor," however I didn't want to base my answer on that alone. </p>

<p>And as for the Alaska one, it's weird to refer to a place that's not inhabited as undeveloped, except in the case of real estate and construction, which I guess this was about.</p>