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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.

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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