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AP English Language and Composition: Passage Drill 2, Problem 3. The subject of the passage can best be described as what?
Take a look at this shmoopy AP English Language and Composition question and see if you can figure out which answer best describes the development...
AP English Language and Composition 3.7 Passage Drill 541 Views
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Description:
Which answer best describes the theme of the following passage? And if you say "fission chips," we'll give you half credit. The AP test graders might not, but that's neither here nor there.
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:03
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by scientists.
- 00:07
What's a physicist's favorite food?
- 00:09
Fission chips.
- 00:11
Haha.
Full Transcript
- 00:12
That's a Manhattan Project joke. They really, uh...
- 00:15
laughed about it back then as they were building the atom bomb.
- 00:20
Okay, we done skimming?
- 00:21
Royal Commission...
- 00:22
Fish and chips.
- 00:24
British thing. Yeah.
- 00:25
Gotta put it a little bit of salt on it.
- 00:27
[ mumbles ]
- 00:31
All right. Which of the following best describes the theme of the passage?
- 00:35
Theme.
- 00:36
And here are the potential answers.
- 00:37
All right, do we see a theme in there?
- 00:41
All right, well,
- 00:42
when we're trying to figure out the main theme of any passage,
- 00:45
we've gotta take everything into account. We ask ourselves,
- 00:48
"What's the big picture here?"
- 00:49
If we stare too hard at the details, we'll miss the point.
- 00:52
And, well, we'll also strain our eyes.
- 00:55
Option A doesn't cut it.
- 00:57
Our author doesn't say anything about a well-rounded education being important.
- 01:01
As far as we can tell, he's an all science all the time kind of guy.
- 01:05
Hate to see his grades in history. [ clears throat ]
- 01:07
Choice B thinks the author is trying to show us
- 01:09
the poetry in scientific research.
- 01:12
Well, the part about seeing the reflection of the stars in mud
- 01:15
puddles and all that? That might be poetic.
- 01:17
But to the author, science is about more than poetry.
- 01:21
Answer C tries to convince us that the author's main point
- 01:24
is that the scientists are mainly philosophers.
- 01:27
Well, we can see where this option is coming from.
- 01:29
Some of the quotes do sound philosophical.
- 01:31
But all in all, this article is about science for science's sake.
- 01:35
The author isn't using it as a launchpad to hurtle us
- 01:38
into new dimensions of thought.
- 01:39
And we're glad. We just ate, and all that hurtling
- 01:42
into new dimensions makes us queasy.
- 01:44
Choice D is getting warmer, but the passage
- 01:46
doesn't specifically connect science with any other subject.
- 01:50
Option E is the one that finally gets it right.
- 01:53
The author isn't focused on how science helps us
- 01:55
with other subjects. He's zeroed in on how the subject of
- 01:59
science helps us win at the game of life.
- 02:01
Right. We'd love more cheats.
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