ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Passage Drill Videos 153 videos
Wishing upon a star may help you pass your AP English Language and Composition test, but answering this question would be a safer bet.
AP English Language and Composition: Passage Drill Drill 1, Problem 2. What is the speaker's primary purpose in using onomatopoeia in line four?
Feel like shifting gears and answering a question about shifting tones? We've got you covered. Take a look at this question and see if you can foll...
AP English Language and Composition 1.2 Passage Drill 843 Views
Share It!
Description:
AP English Language and Composition: Passage Drill Drill 1, Problem 2. What is the speaker's primary purpose in using onomatopoeia in line four?
- English I EOC Assessment / Vocabulary
- English I EOC Assessment / Non-linear Plot Development
- Conventions / Apply knowledge of language to make effective choices for meaning or style
- Conventions / Apply knowledge of language to make effective choices for meaning or style
- Conventions / Apply knowledge of language to make effective choices for meaning or style
- Comprehension and Inference / Figurative Language, Idioms, and Phrases
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:03
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by goo-zum-goo,
- 00:07
baby talk on Earth, but the official language of Planet Gooz.
- 00:12
All right, we're skimming... We're skimming...
- 00:13
We're thinking... We're skimming... Now we're bored and we're done skimming.
Full Transcript
- 00:18
The speaker's primary purpose in using onomatopoeia in line four is to, uh, what?
- 00:23
And here are the potential answers.
- 00:25
And onomatopoeia is not a toilet joke. All right, you done?
- 00:29
Okay, well onomatopoeia is when a word imitates a sound.
- 00:32
Examples include words like
- 00:34
"splash," "cuckoo,"
- 00:36
the slightly sinister "goo-zum-goo-zum-goo,"
- 00:39
which the speaker thinks sounds like the innocent cooing of a baby.
- 00:44
For the record, if we ever heard a baby talk this way,
- 00:46
we'd run for our neighborhood exorcist.
- 00:48
But, uh, that's a different story.
- 00:49
Anyway, the point of this question is to figure out why the speaker is using onomatopoeia here.
- 00:54
Choice A claims the speaker is going for a laugh with this goo-zum-goo business,
- 00:58
but we have a feeling the speaker has a better reason in mind.
- 01:00
Which is good because "goo-zum-goo" wasn't all that funny in the first place.
- 01:04
D seems like a no, as well.
- 01:06
The author doesn't highlight the fact that babies all over the universe
- 01:09
spend their days saying "goo-zum-goo."
- 01:10
Although, on the Planet Gooz, even the adults go around
- 01:13
saying it all day. Like, smell you later.
- 01:16
All right, to option C we say, "Are you serious?"
- 01:19
"Goo-zum-goo" doesn't sound at all harmonious,
- 01:21
and the speaker doesn't say anything to support that idea.
- 01:24
As for B, if anyone has a vivid memory of their murmurs at two months,
- 01:28
well, that's a whole different kettle of fish.
- 01:30
The correct answer is E.
- 01:32
In the first paragraph, the speaker says
- 01:34
"To grown-ups, this humming means nothing... but to the baby
- 01:37
it is perfect music."
- 01:39
So he's definitely trying to emphasize the gap between what
- 01:41
newborns and adults would think was a chart topper.
- 01:44
Some say the same discrepancy exists
- 01:46
with Justin Bieber songs.
- 01:48
[ cuckoo clock sounds ]
Related Videos
Which answer best describes the theme of the following passage? And if you say "fission chips," we'll give you half credit. The AP test graders mig...
AP English Language and Composition 3.5 Passage Drill. How is "forcible" being used here?
Take a look at this shmoopy question and see if you can figure out which device the speaker employs the most.
He or she that answereth this question shall...answereth it. And hopefully feel kind of accomplished. Hit play and figure out the primary rhetorica...
We're not going to give you a speech about how answering this Shmoopy AP English Lit question will help you succeed in life, but if we did, we wond...