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BUSINESS
Government intervention into economics is most easily seen in a command economy. In a command economy, most of the nation’s economic system is controlled by the government. In a command economy, it…
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THE LEAP
The narrator is relating the convoluted story of how she came into the world. Her mother, Anna Avalon, was a famous acrobat, part of a circus act with her husband, Harold. Together, the “Flying…
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SOCIAL SCIENCES
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THE TEMPEST
The violent sea storm—the tempest of the title—is the catalyst for what happens in the play. It’s the storm that brings the royal party to Prospero’s island, where all the action takes place….
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ON HIS BLINDNESS
There are several different rhyme patterns for sonnets. All sonnets have fourteen lines, but the division of these lines can vary. The two major rhyme schemes for sonnet poetry, however, are the…
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THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
As Watson approaches the Devonshire setting of Baskerville Hall, Doyle’s imagery–which is description using the five senses–helps set the scene and the mood. The description using the five senses…
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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The “seven lost years” refer to two important periods in Shakespeare’s life about which we know very little. The first period lasted from 1578—the year that Shakespeare left grammar…
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CAGED BIRD
Both Angelou’s poem and her book play on the same metaphor of a caged bird, a wild thing trapped, representing the plight of oppressed peoples, specifically black Americans. Nature in this poem,…
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OLD MAN AT THE BRIDGE
The old man’s hometown is a place called San Carlos. He was forced to leave there on the orders of a captain, who told him to go on account of an artillery bombardment. The town was simply no…
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WILFRED OWEN
A “casual tramp” in this poem stands staring hard at the women who rush to bid farewell to a group of soldiers going off to the front. The tramp appears interested in the soldiers and the poet…
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RABINDRANATH TAGORE
I believe you’re referring to the short story “A Wrong Man in Worker’s Paradise” by Rabindranath Tagore. In the story, a man who’s lived his whole life pursuing no useful work and impulsively…
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LIFE OF PI
Pi and his family, along with a large menagerie from the family zoo, are aboard the good ship Tsimtsum bound for Canada. Initially, all seems plain sailing, both literally and figuratively. But…
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SCIENCE
A plastid is not necessarily a specific cell organelle in the way that a mitochondrion is. A plastid is a category of organelle. A chloroplast would be a specific type of plastid, but not all…
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ONE CRAZY SUMMER
It’s Pa who wants his three girls to go visit their mother Cecile in Oakland. The girls haven’t seen their mother since the youngest sister was born seven years ago, and so Pa thinks it’s high time…
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THE SECOND SEX
Beauvoir uses the Hegelian concept of master-slave dialectic to reduce femininity to an Other that is mastered, much as any slave in human culture must be dehumanized to justify enslavement….
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THE OTHER WES MOORE
Wes (the author) is a plebe, or first-year student, at a military school, and he is subjected to harsh discipline, including the need to obey his sergeant and get out of bed at 5:30 in the morning….
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LITERATURE
Digory Kirke—the protagonist in The Magician’s Nephew—is a very lonely young boy. He has no brothers and sisters, his mother’s sick, and his father’s away in India. So when he encounters Polly…
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LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING
This line appears twice in Wordsworth’s poem “Lines Written in Early Spring.” In this poem, Wordsworth is out in nature, enjoying the primrose, the periwinkle, the birds, and the spring breezes….
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SCIENCE
Questions of this kind typically require you to identify the type of reaction that could potentially occur, then use published reference material on that type of reaction to determine whether the…
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READY PLAYER ONE
The idea of traditional religion in the novel Ready Player One is somewhat ridiculous. While there are people who spend all of their time in OASIS churches listening to sermons, it is the OASIS…
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IN MEMORIAM
An elegiac poem tends to express feelings of great mourning. Therefore, an elegiac poem tends to be written about someone or something that has passed away and is gone forever. Tennyson’s In…
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LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
This quote from Mark Twain’s memoir Life on the Mississippi comes from the beginning of chapter 4: The Boys’ Ambition. Ambition is defined as a drive to achieve a higher goal for oneself. In…
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THE TEMPEST
Ariel is a character in The Tempest by William Shakespeare. He is not human but rather a magical being, a type of air spirit. His gender is actually somewhat ambiguous. Although in Shakespeare’s…
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HISTORY
When we examine any modern nation, it is at times necessary to borrow money in order to maintain or improve the functions of the government. The way the United States borrows money is different…
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THE INVISIBLE MAN: A GROTESQUE ROMANCE
Thomas Marvel in H. G. Wells’s The Invisible Man is the first accomplice to the Invisible Man, although a rather unwilling one at that. Although Marvel can be initially deemed “shady” by all…
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LITERATURE
Uncle Podger rises bright and early each morning, so no one could accuse him of being lazy. However, the problem is that he’s a careless old man who has an annoying habit of losing things. Right…
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LITERATURE
Ebenezer Scrooge is the primary character of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Jacob Marley was his business partner for many years; Scrooge was the executor of Marley’s estate, and Marley…
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REFERENCE
The answer to this question can be found in Act 1, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. The scene begins with Solarino and Solanio trying to offer reasons for why Antonio’s mood is down…
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THE MISFITS
About halfway through the book, Joe tells Skeezie and Bobby that he is gay—and he has a crush on Colin Briggs, the athletic popular boy whom Bobby originally selected to run for secretary on the…
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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Salvatore is a very loving, affectionate man. He cares deeply for his two younger brothers and takes his responsibilities toward them very seriously indeed. Love often involves sacrifice, and…
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SCIENCE
Animals that live in extreme climates have physical characteristics that help them survive in harsh environments. Their skin, as well as their fur or feathers, serves as an insulator and thus acts…
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PLATO
A neuron is a nerve cell that transmits impulses. Exactly how many neurons are in the human brain is a bit variable depending on the source. I have seen some sources stating that the human brain…
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BLUES AIN’T NO MOCKINGBIRD
There are many characters in “Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird,” but only some of them are central to the story’s conflict, while the rest are onlookers and observers. Granny and Granddaddy are…
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MY FINANCIAL CAREER
The narrator is asked to come out of the bank vault. In the story, the narrator is filled with anxiety about making financial transactions at the bank. He first approaches the manager, assuming…
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THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
Tom Sawyer considers several careers in chapter 8. After Becky rejects him, he wants to run off and start a life of adventure., that way he can return to St. Petersburg someday long in the future…
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ODE ON A GRECIAN URN
The narrator of the poem speaks directly to the Grecian urn, using a poetic device called apostrophe, which is when a speaker talks to something that is not alive and cannot respond or someone that…
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SCIENCE
Folic acid is a form of the water soluble B vitamin. It can be found in foods such as dried beans, oranges, peas, lentils, various whole wheat products (bread, pasta, etc.), beets, asparagus,…
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A CHRISTMAS CAROL
When Scrooge puts his key into the lock, the knocker on his front door eerily turns into the face of his old business partner Jacob Marley, who has been dead for several years. The knocker does not…
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LITERATURE
This line comes from the famous Edgar Allan Poe poem “Annabel Lee,” which was inspired by the poet’s young wife. The speaker describes the unrivaled love he shared with the titular woman, a love…
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THE MOUSETRAP
Another brutal murder has taken place at 24 Culver Street; Mrs. Boyle has been strangled. Already on the scene due to investigate the murder of Maureen Lyon, Sergeant Trotter questions all of the…
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PETER PAN
Peter Pan explains to Wendy that he ran away when he was a baby because he heard his parents talking about what he would be like when he was a man. This horrified the child because he had no desire…
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MOBY DICK
In chapter 36, “The Quarter Deck,” Ahab tries to convince Starbuck to share his quest for vengeance against Moby Dick. Starbuck is shown to be a model whaleman and a hard-headed practical…
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SCIENCE
Hemoglobin is a protein that carries oxygen throughout the body. The protein is found in red blood cells, and the amount of hemoglobin from person to person is variable. The amount of hemoglobin…
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UNCLE TOM’S CABIN
We know that Uncle Tom is looked up to and respected by all the other slaves on Mr. Shelby’s estate, first, because the narrator tells us this is the case. When, as readers, we are invited into…
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SCIENCE
You probably know that DNA contains the “instructions for life” and that our genes determine many of our characteristics. You may or may not know that the expression of inherited characteristics is…
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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Antonio’s dear friend Bassanio needs money to help him woo Portia, who Bassanio loves and wants to marry. Antonio is a wealthy merchant, but right now all his ships are at sea, bringing back the…
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SCIENCE
Accuracy and precision are two terms used often in science. Accuracy is the closeness of a measurement to the standard or true value. For example, if you measure the length of a 30 foot wall and…
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JULIUS CAESAR
Julius Caesar is killed in the Senate by the group of conspirators who had mutually decided that, for the good of Rome, they were obligated to get rid of him. According to the text, Casca is the…
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THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
Edward is saved from the street gang by Miles Hendon, who serves as a rather comical figure in the novel, even though he is very kind and his own story is quite tragic. From Twain’s very first…
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THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
Chapter XIX, which follows the chapter in which the newly deceased Judge Pyncheon is mocked mercilessly (though, admittedly, deservedly), is entitled “Alice’s Posies,” and therein lies the answer…