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CAHSEE Reading Videos 100 videos

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CAHSEE ELA 5.5 Main Idea and Sources 252 Views


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Description:

CAHSEE ELA 5.5 Main Idea and Sources. What was the author's purpose in writing this passage?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your shmoop du jour... Hit pause and read this passage. You may experience

00:08

a bit of déjà vu...

00:21

What was the author's purpose in writing this passage?

00:24

And here are the potential answers...

00:30

So... what is this question asking? Well, it's asking us to peer inside the

00:34

author's head and see if we can get at their reason for writing this little historical nugget.

00:39

Was it A... to entertain? Meh. There isn't a lot of plot development,

00:44

and there are no thrilling chase sequences... probably not.

00:48

What about B... to inform? Certainly sounds plausible. There's a lot

00:52

of information here... meaning that we're being informed...

00:54

How about C... to persuade? There are certain things the author is trying

00:59

to persuade us of... ...such as the idea that the railroad helped

01:03

bring people together, or made travel more efficient...

01:05

...but it still seems more like the purpose was to inform us than to sway our beliefs.

01:11

And D? To argue? Not much argumentation here. Besides, "arguing"

01:15

is pretty close to "persuading"... Nope... answer B is our best bet.

01:20

As in, "Brain privacy."

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