ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos

AP English Literature and Composition 1.9 Passage Drill 1 252 Views

Share It!

Description:

AP English Literature and Composition 1.9 Passage Drill 1. Which of the following is offered as a possible explanation for the struldbrugs' absence from court?

Language:

English Language

Subjects:

Tags:

Common Core Standards:

Transcript

00:03
Here's your shmoop du jour...
00:07
You may not have missed this passage, but it missed you. Hit pause and spend a minute or two with it.
00:20
What can be inferred from the frequent use of the dash in this passage?
00:25
And here are the potential answers...
00:31
Looking back over the passage, it's certainly true... there are more dashes here than at the Olympic games.

00:38
So to answer this one, we really just have to fall back on our understanding of punctuation
00:42
and literary devices.
00:44
What's the author's reason for packing this passage chock full of dashes?
00:51
Does he think they're visually appealing? Is his "period" key broken? Did the "Dash
00:55
Mafia" get to him? Nah. Dashes don't imply censoring, abridgment,
01:00
or unknown information.
01:02
They are used for one thing and one thing only -- to indicate an abrupt halt or transition in speech.
01:16
Looking over our five answer choices, B is the only one that fits the bill.
01:20
The moral of this question? Don't cut people off mid-sentence...
01:26
...or the Dash Mafia will come for you...
Full Transcript