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Description:

ACT Reading 2.10 Humanities Passage. According to the passage, which event precipitated Schumann's death?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Holland. Aka the Netherlands. Where the

00:08

people are called Dutch. Yeah, doesn't make sense to us either.

00:43

According to the passage, which event precipitated Schumann's death?

00:54

Looks like we've got a vocab word hiding out in this question.

00:58

Even if we don't remember exactly what "precipitated" means, we probably remember that the prefix

01:03

"pre" means "before."

01:05

If we didn't remember what "pre" means, then... we'd be in serious trouble, because

01:08

then we probably wouldn't remember what a "prefix" is at all, since "pre"

01:12

is in the word "prefix" itself.

01:15

Anyway, the prefix "pre" tips us off that "precipitated" describes an event that

01:20

happens before another and causes it to happen, or at least affects it in some way.

01:24

So we know we're looking for an event that happened not long before the death of Schumann.

01:29

(A) is the first to catch our eye.

01:31

Maybe because it's the first one or maybe because it has the feel of those tabloid headlines

01:35

we pretend we don't read in the grocery store checkout line.

01:38

As is often the case with tabloids, however, choice (A) isn't true. The passage says

01:42

nothing about Clara having an affair with another musician, so we can cross out answer (A).

01:48

Choice (B) isn't true either. The author

01:49

doesn't tell us about how Frederick Wieck died.

01:53

(B) is a definite no.

01:55

(C) is tempting because Clara and Schumann did tour Holland not too long before Schumann's

02:00

downward spiral into insanity.

02:02

Maybe it was all those weird wooden shoes that freaked him out.

02:08

However, Schumann threw himself into a river even after the Holland trip, making choice

02:13

(D) the right answer.

02:17

What if he wasn't crazy? Maybe he just... felt like going for a brisk swim...

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