SAT #14 Reading (Question 32 & 33)

Question

In Passage 1, Douglas implies that legislators’ consideration of the bill he has proposed has been clouded by the [...]?

Answer 1

Answer Choices C and D are the correct answers because Lines 33-36 say, “If it is wrong, let it be repudiated. Let all this quibbling about the Missouri Compromise, about the territory acquired from France about the act of 1820, be cast behind you [...],” which provides the clearest instance of an address towards the legislators and what he feels about their consideration of the bill he has proposed. The Lines show Douglas minimizing some of the discussion surrounding the issue, calling it “quibbling,” and telling them to put those questions behind them to focus on the central question. This most closely matches Answer Choice C, which says that Douglas thinks his fellow legislators’ consideration of the bill has been clouded by the “discussion of issues that are fundamentally beside the point.” 

For Question 33, Answer Choice A is incorrect because it doesn’t provide a clear instance of Douglas’s thoughts on the legislators’ consideration of his proposal. Answer Choice B is incorrect because it only gives Douglas’s opinion of the bill, and not of his fellow legislators. Answer Choice C is incorrect because it also only gives Douglas’s opinion of his bill, and not of the other legislators. For Question 32, Answer Choice A is incorrect because nowhere in the Passage or Texts does Douglas make the point that the legislators have been clouded in their judgment by the “moral dillemmas inherent in the issue of slavery.” Answer Choice B is incorrect is incorrect because in neither the Texts nor the Passage does Douglas talk about the distracting nature of the “emphatic language that characterizes the text of the bill.” Answer Choice D is incorrect because nowhere does Douglas talk about preexisting loyalties or rivalries among the legislators.

How to solve this? Question 32 asks, “In Passage 1, Douglas implies that legislators’ consideration of the bill he has proposed has been clouded by the [...]?” Because this is a Paired Question, to solve it we should go through the answer choices for Question 33, looking for ant texts that tell us something about how Douglas thinks of the “legislators’ consideration of the bill he has proposed.” [...]

1. The influence of implication here.
2. Answer Choice D says, “If it is wrong, let it be repudiated. Let all this quibbling about the Missouri Compromise, about the territory acquired from France about the act of 1820, be cast behind you [...].” Although subtle, this Text most clearly tells us an opinion on the legislators’ consideration of his proposed bill, advising them to cast aside “all this quibbling” and consider the importance of the question at hand.