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AP English Language and Composition 1.3 Comprehension 234 Views
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Description:
AP English Language and Composition: Comprehension Drill 1, Problem 3. What can the "personality" that the speaker describes be characterized as?
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:03
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Roman empire.
- 00:06
It was kind of like the empire in Star Wars,
- 00:08
except Roman storm troopers wore skirts.
- 00:12
Yeah. They were kinda... funny-looking.
Full Transcript
- 00:14
Not all in white.
- 00:17
[ mumbles ]
- 00:20
You done reading?
- 00:21
[ mumbles ]
- 00:26
[ mumbling continues ]
- 00:45
And we're done. Okay.
- 00:46
The "personality" that the speaker describes can be characterized
- 00:50
as one - efficient, two - expressive,
- 00:53
three - adventurous.
- 00:55
And here are the potential answers.
- 00:57
Hmm. Which? Which? One, two, three?
- 01:00
Couple of 'em? All of 'em? None of 'em? What do you think?
- 01:02
All right, well, the speaker tells us that Romans distrusted
- 01:05
personality, so we know that the speaker is defining this
- 01:09
artistic temperament by everything he thinks Romans are not.
- 01:14
Yeah.
- 01:15
Options A and B claim that one - efficiency is
- 01:18
a characteristic of the personality the author is describing.
- 01:21
But we're gonna have to disagree with both choices.
- 01:24
Efficiency was something Romans thought was cool,
- 01:26
not something they thought was weird and suspect.
- 01:29
The speaker specifically tells us that the empire strove to have
- 01:32
efficient soldiers rather than poets and painters.
- 01:36
Guess pretty pictures weren't so helpful when trying to conquer the New World.
- 01:40
Now onto option D, which claims that the distrusted personality is
- 01:44
solely made up of three - adventurousness.
- 01:47
Well, we know it's at least partly right, because according to the speaker,
- 01:50
Romans didn't love adventures of the spirit.
- 01:52
Can we just point out that that statement is a little questionable? Hmm? Hmm?
- 01:56
Maybe they weren't artistically adventurous, but they did build one of the biggest
- 01:59
empires, like, ever.
- 02:02
That had to have taken a certain kind of adventurous spirit, you know?
- 02:04
Well, whatevs.
- 02:05
It's clear that this question is using "adventurous" in a slightly different context.
- 02:09
So D is just almost right.
- 02:12
The trouble with D, however, is that it leaves out two - expressive.
- 02:16
The speaker tells us that the Romans preferred practical forms
- 02:19
to expressive ones, choosing to borrow art instead of create it.
- 02:23
This tells us that C is the right answer.
- 02:25
According to the speaker, both expressiveness and adventurousness were
- 02:29
part of the artistic personality that Romans so mistrusted.
- 02:32
Anybody else get the feeling that this author is a Roman hater? Hmm? Hmm?
- 02:37
Not illegal?
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