Praxis Practice

I love reading and writing tests. Well, at least I love practicing for them. The time pressure makes the test itself stressful. When I was studying for the LSAT, I loved the reading comprehension passages and the accompanying questions. It's a good thing I don't assume that my students share my penchant. 

Here are my two practice mini essays, 15 minutes each, on passages that were on the practice test. 

Passage one: Literature analysis

The idiosyncrasy of this town is smoke. It rolls sullenly in slow folds from the great chimneys of the iron- foundries, and settles down in black, slimy pools on the muddy streets. Smoke on the wharves, smoke
on the dingy boats, on the yellow river—clinging in a coating of greasy soot to the house-front, the two faded poplars, the faces of the passers-by. The long train of mules, dragging masses of pig-iron through the narrow street, have a foul vapor hanging to their reeking sides. Here, inside, is a little broken figure of an angel pointing upward from the mantel-shelf; but even its wings are covered with smoke, clotted and black. Smoke everywhere! A dirty canary chirps desolately in a cage beside me. Its dream of green fields and sunshine is a very old dream—almost worn out, I think.
                                                                                        Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron-Mills (1861) 

My response: 


Smoke in Rebecca Harding Davis' "Life in the Iron Mills" is a relentless and ever-present aspect of life in a town whose pre-industrial state of happiness has been shrouded by the factory work which is as lifeless and invasive as the smoke. Harding Davis describes the smoke "roll[ing] sullenly in slow folds," emanating from the factories and spilling in "slimy, black pools" on the town's streets. The image is not only visual: the "foul vapor" clings to the animals who pull the factory's products through the streets. Like smells, the smoke is pervasive. Even an image as celestial and immaculate as an "angel pointing upward" is overtaken: "its wings are covered with smoke, clotted and black". Harding Davis repeats the word smoke several times, lastly in a simple lament "Smoke everywhere!" At the end of the passage, a canary seems to sound the alarm, as if from the mine shaft: the dream of life and happiness is "almost worn out". 

Passage two: analysis of rhetoric

Essay excerpt by George Orwell: 

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a “party line.” Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, White Papers, and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases—bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder—one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy; a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them
into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. 

My response: 

In this essay excerpt, George Orwell criticizes political writing for being “bad writing”. He blames “orthodoxy” for inspiring a “lifeless, imitative” style in its adherents. He seems to implicitly suggest that dull political writing does not the humanity of the people whose lives and liberties it discusses. Orwell makes this point using language which is aggressive, vivid, and casual, and by contrasting it with the interesting writing of rebels.

Orwell chooses diction which leaves his reader in no doubt of his disdain for establishment politicians. The writing is “lifeless,” just like the “tired hack on the platform” who “mechanically repeat[s]” canned phrases. Orwell compares this figure to a dummy, or worse, some sort of machine with discs for eyes, presumably controlled by some higher up. His evident disgust for politicians suggests disillusionment with the political process, which appears here populated with “dummies” who have nothing “fresh” or “homemade” to say.

A notable exception to dull political writing, Orwell notes, is the writing of rebels, who argue against the “party line” and whose writing has voice and significance. By creating this contrast Orwell strengthens the feeling that politicians are not inferior to the rebels and others who think for themselves and write in their own voice. 

Orwell himself makes sure throughout that he fits into the latter category, of people who speak only in “vivid” terms and use “home-made” turns of speech. His casual and critical tone make his own writing conversational and individual. This tone is conveyed through his lack of reverence for these ostensibly powerful figures, and his unconcerned deployment of all the politicians’ high impact phrases: “bestial atrocities, iron heel,” et cetera. Without openly saying so, Orwell paints himself as one of the good writers in politics, that is, “some kind of rebel”.