ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by ancient temples.

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They're beautiful, but beware of the runaway boulders.

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All right, check out the following passage.

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Which of the following best describes the main idea of this passage?

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Here are the potential answers.

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Angkor Wat?

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Well, Angkor Wat

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is a large religious building whose architecture

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slightly resembles a bunch of pinecones.

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But that's a decision for later, as the architecture

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of Angkor Wat is not a focal point in this passage,

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so option D is the first to go.

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Yes, the temple does have a moat, but there's no mention of its

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use as a military stronghold.

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So it's safe to assume that isn't the passage's main idea.

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Looks like people will just have to store their military hardware elsewhere.

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Movin' on.

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Given that Hindus and Buddhists both used the temple as a place of worship,

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it may be true that they share some religious beliefs,

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but the paragraph's about Angkor Wat, not the people who worshipped there.

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So A is out. And the temple did have friezes,

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and it was built in the 12th century,

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so it probably had some 12th-century friezes,

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but this statement's way too specific

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to be the passage's main idea, so sorry, C.

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We'd have to look somewhere else if we want boatloads of info

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on ancient decorative art. And, yeah, we'll try Grandma.

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What the passage does do is give us a lot of information on Angkor Wat,

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including its size, age, and historical importance.

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What does all this mean? Well, it means that our answer here is B.

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Now let's recruit a hotshot band of archeologists,

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break through Angkor Wat's defenses,

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and steal its secret treasures.

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Ooh, that stuff doesn't really exist?

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Well, then, uh, maybe we'll just look at the tapestries. Where's my camera?

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[ high-pitched voice ] Angkor Wat?

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