ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


SAT Reading Videos 211 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...

What Does the Author Mean by "Front" in this Context?
26 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...

See All

SAT Reading 3.2 Sentence Completion 700 Views


Share It!


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?"

Related Videos

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...

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?
58 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?
26 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...