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AP English Language and Composition 4.4 Passage Drill. In this passage, "fatuous" is best defined as what?
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AP English Language and Composition 4.4 Passage Drill 203 Views
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AP English Language and Composition 4.4 Passage Drill. In this passage, "fatuous" is best defined as what?
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:04
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by big words.
- 00:07
Because little words don't have their driver's licenses yet.
- 00:10
[ baby cries ]
- 00:12
All right, you done skimming? Probably not.
Full Transcript
- 00:14
[ mumbles ]
- 00:18
[ mumbling continues ]
- 00:24
Now we're done skimming. Okay, in this passage,
- 00:27
"fatuous" (lines 13 to 16)
- 00:30
is best defined as what?
- 00:32
And here are the potential answers.
- 00:35
Fatuous. What a great word.
- 00:39
So the first time the speaker uses the word, he basically implies
- 00:42
that the question can't be taken seriously.
- 00:45
When he uses the word again, he says the question is
- 00:48
extra silly because, in fact, nobody knows what the question actually is.
- 00:52
Wow. No such thing as a stupid question, huh?
- 00:55
Well, we have to say that option A is looking the best to us right now.
- 00:59
Silly and pointless go together like peanut butter and jelly.
- 01:03
First, we'll nix choice B.
- 01:05
"Indulgent" means self-serving,
- 01:08
but the speaker isn't accusing the committee of being that way.
- 01:11
We can eliminate choice D, as well.
- 01:13
"Vacuous" means empty-headed or unintelligent.
- 01:16
Even though the speaker is picking apart the committee's question,
- 01:18
he recognizes that they understand where he's coming from with his critique.
- 01:22
He might sound a little arrogant, but he's not standing there calling everyone a bunch of dumb-dumbs.
- 01:27
Choice E doesn't work, either.
- 01:29
"Trivial" refers to something that's small or unimportant.
- 01:32
Even if the speaker thinks that the question is off the mark,
- 01:35
we doubt he'd agree that the question of how to make
- 01:38
the best of life itself isn't worth anybody's time.
- 01:41
He goes on and on and on about it for the whole passage.
- 01:44
The guy's obviously put some think time into it himself.
- 01:48
And now we're down to choices C and A.
- 01:50
Not gonna lie, option C is a close second to our top choice, A.
- 01:54
But the point here is that the question doesn't have a point until
- 01:57
it's clarified, not that it's unproductive.
- 01:59
Option A takes home the prize.
- 02:01
But until it figures out the meaning of life, will it know if it
- 02:04
really won?
- 02:07
[ squeak ]
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