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SAT Reading Videos 211 videos

SAT Reading: Classifying the Relationship Between Two Passages
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How was the Beanie Baby era parallel to the Tulip Bubble? Similar events, only the TulipMania almost bankrupted Holland. Bean Babies only bankrupte...

SAT Reading: Citing Evidence to Identify a Theme in Walden
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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?
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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...

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SAT Reading 3.2 Sentence Completion 700 Views


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Description:

SAT Reading Sentence Completion Drill 3, Problem 2

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour...

00:05

Which word could fill in the blank so that the sentence below makes sense?

00:08

John's friends were surprised by how little his breakup with Lisa seemed to affect him:

00:13

Despite the tumultuous nature of their relationship, he appeared almost blank after the split.

00:23

And here are the potential answers...

00:33

Yeah, so we're dealing with a relatively overstuffed sentence here.

00:36

But only one context clue truly matters: the fact that the breakup didn't affect John as

00:41

much as his friends probably worried it would. Since this sentence indicates that John didn't

00:47

spend his days spewing tears and making scenes in public places....

00:52

...we can break-up with most of these answers without too many tears of our own.

00:56

(A) doesn't work at all. If John didn't care about the break-up, he definitely wouldn't

00:59

be intense about it. (B) doesn't work either, because John wouldn't

01:03

be anxious about something he didn't care about.

01:06

"Burdensome" makes zero sense in this context, because it means something that's

01:10

heavy or worrisome in some way. "Attentive" means to pay special extra attention

01:17

to something, so it definitely doesn't work either.

01:19

Looks like "nonchalant" wins the day.

01:21

It totally makes sense, because the word means to be casual and uncaring about something.

01:30

So the answer is (C).

01:31

As in, "Could he care any less?"

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