Literature Subject Test
69
ARCO
■ SAT II Subject Tests
www.petersons.com/arco
31. The correct answer is (E). In the heat of a quarrel, the mountain attempts to insult the squirrel by
calling him little. The rest of the poem elaborates the squirrel’s response to the mountain’s attempt to
insult him. The burden of the squirrel’s response is that the insult has been ineffective: Squirrels are
small because that is what they are intended to be. The larger conclusion aimed at by the squirrel is that
all things are what they are intended to be. Thus, the mountain is large because that is what it means to
be a mountain, and a squirrel cracks nuts because that is what it means to be a squirrel.
32. The correct answer is (A). A fable is a brief story with a moral that often uses animals as characters.
33. The correct answer is (C). As noted in the explanation for question 31, the mountain attempts to
insult the squirrel because he is small.
34. The correct answer is (E). In lines 15 and 16, the squirrel manages to invert the usual interpretation
of things. Ordinarily, we would think of the squirrel as living on the mountain. But the squirrel sug-
gests that the mountain was created to lie beneath a squirrel. This is somewhat like saying that a river
exists for the purpose of flowing beneath a bridge.
35. The correct answer is (D). The moral of the fable is that all things, great and small, have a purpose.
To understand why the poet takes the point of view of the squirrel, try to rewrite the fable (i.e., with
the squirrel insulting the mountain by saying “You’re too big”).
36. The correct answer is (A). To understand the point of line 6, you must look ahead to lines 8 and 9.
Year and sphere indicate time and space. Events occur in time, and things occupy space. Thus, in line
6, things taken together make up a sphere, and it is the weather, which of course changes, that repre-
sents occurrences or events.
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