ShmoopTube

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Feel better, live longer--with vitamin Shmoop.

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Go ahead and press pause to take one last

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look at this passage. Or... take a picture. It'll last longer.

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The narrator's tone in the passage as a whole is best described as...what?

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And here are the potential answers...

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Too bad we can't hack into the narrator's

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therapist's files. There we'd have a shortcut to figuring out the narrator's mood.

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As it is, we'll just have to do it the old fashioned way and think back to what we've read.

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So, does the narrator ever seem particularly

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emotional or worried about the situation?

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There's some deep emotions going on for sure, but he doesn't seem worried exactly.

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We're going to have to nix choice (A).

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Disdainful describes the idea of looking down on somebody or something.

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Throughout, the narrator doesn't pull any punches in describing how bad his aunt looks,

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but seems to have too much sympathy for her to be described as downright snobby.

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As if we weren't already sure this one is wrong, it's laughable to say that the narrator

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is not interested in what's going on.

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Why would he bother to talk so much if that was the case?

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(C) is easy it to cut from the list. Does he seem earnest, or sincere? Is he confused

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at all?

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"Earnest" gets a "yeah, kinda" from us. He's got a lot of very real emotions

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bubbling up inside him.

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However, the reflections in this passage are articulated way too precisely to say he's

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confused about it all.

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Choice (D) can be cut for sure. "Rapturous" describes somebody who's

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being extremely enthusiastic, while "verbose" means to be extra talkative.

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Knowing these definitions, we ask ourselves if it seems like the narrator is getting super

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excited and going on and on about his aunt's visit.

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We've got to say no to this one as well.

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The guy seems calm and precise in his reflections, making (E) incorrect.

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Answer (B)'s the one... because it points to the narrator's attitude of calm reflection.

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He chooses his words carefully and ponders the significance of things that happen around him.

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We take back that thing we said before about how talking to his therapist might be helpful...

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