ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

SAT Reading 4.1 Sentence Completion 174 Views


Share It!


Description:

SAT Reading Sentence Completion Drill 4, Problem 1

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:02

As we live and Shmoop -- another question... Which words could fill in the blank so that

00:08

the sentence below makes sense?

00:08

According to John Lennon, the song "I Am the Walrus" came from several sources: The

00:13

blank drew inspiration from a police siren, a corn flake, and Lewis Carroll, among others.

00:20

And here are the potential answers...

00:25

Some of these choices are too nonsensical, even for a sentence about a song that... famously

00:29

doesn't make sense at all.

00:31

Take "mammal" for instance.

00:33

John Lennon was a mammal. Walruses are mammals.

00:37

But that's not exactly what we're going for here, so we can eliminate (E).

00:41

We can cross out (B), since "menagerie" is a fancy way of referring to a zoo.

00:47

We have to dig a little deeper to eliminate the remaining choices, since they're kind

00:50

of in the same ballpark.

00:52

The sentence makes a point of emphasizing the fact that Lennon could find inspiration

00:56

in basically anything.

00:57

So we're looking for a word that hints at the sheer randomness of the song.

01:02

"Culmination" describes a climactic point of something, so its connotations are just

01:06

too organized to fit here.

01:08

You could have a "collection" of random things, but it'd be weird to call a song

01:11

a collection.

01:12

"Pastiche" refers to a confusing mix of things, both in art and in life, so (D) is the best

01:18

answer to this question.

01:19

D for "Don't worry, not even Lennon knew what "Coo coo ca choo" meant."

Up Next

SAT Reading: Classifying the Relationship Between Two Passages
179 Views

How was the Beanie Baby era parallel to the Tulip Bubble? Similar events, only the TulipMania almost bankrupted Holland. Bean Babies only bankrupte...

Related Videos

SAT Reading: Citing Evidence to Identify a Theme in Walden
35 Views

Contemplating one's life is key to fulfilled happiness. Thoreau's theme revolves around the simple life well lived. He clearly never tried virtual...

SAT Reading: Why Does Thoreau Use the Phrase "Mechanical Aids" in this Passage?
57 Views

Thoreau was all about simplicity; anything that took away from his vision was the enemy. Mechanical aids were one of them. Guess he had to train a...

What Does the Author Mean by "Front" in this Context?
25 Views

Thoreau uses "front" to mean "face". He wants to face The Facts of Life without shying away from our natural tendencies, roots, and the simply way...

SAT Reading: Using Context to Define a Word
12 Views

What does "frittered away" mean in this context? Wasted. Wasted by the way. Thoreau claims we fritter away our lives praying to modern complex dist...