ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by big words.

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Because little words don't have their driver's licenses yet.

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[ baby cries ]

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All right, you done skimming? Probably not.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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Now we're done skimming. Okay, in this passage,

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"fatuous" (lines 13 to 16)

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is best defined as what?

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And here are the potential answers.

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Fatuous. What a great word.

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So the first time the speaker uses the word, he basically implies

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that the question can't be taken seriously.

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When he uses the word again, he says the question is

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extra silly because, in fact, nobody knows what the question actually is.

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Wow. No such thing as a stupid question, huh?

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Well, we have to say that option A is looking the best to us right now.

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Silly and pointless go together like peanut butter and jelly.

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First, we'll nix choice B.

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"Indulgent" means self-serving,

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but the speaker isn't accusing the committee of being that way.

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We can eliminate choice D, as well.

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"Vacuous" means empty-headed or unintelligent.

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Even though the speaker is picking apart the committee's question,

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he recognizes that they understand where he's coming from with his critique.

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He might sound a little arrogant, but he's not standing there calling everyone a bunch of dumb-dumbs.

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Choice E doesn't work, either.

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"Trivial" refers to something that's small or unimportant.

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Even if the speaker thinks that the question is off the mark,

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we doubt he'd agree that the question of how to make

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the best of life itself isn't worth anybody's time.

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He goes on and on and on about it for the whole passage.

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The guy's obviously put some think time into it himself.

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And now we're down to choices C and A.

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Not gonna lie, option C is a close second to our top choice, A.

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But the point here is that the question doesn't have a point until

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it's clarified, not that it's unproductive.

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Option A takes home the prize.

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But until it figures out the meaning of life, will it know if it

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really won?

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[ squeak ]

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