ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by child nations,

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where finger painting is a national pasttime.

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All right, check out the following passage. It's a long one.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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Yeah, all right. A little vague, but let's roll.

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The principal rhetorical function of paragraphs one to three

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is to... what?

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And here are the potential answers.

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Read 'em... And pause, and think.

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And let's go. All right. Rhetorical function?

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Hmm. Sounds intimidating, but it's not as fancy as it seems.

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All this question is asking is how the paragraphs help the speaker make his argument.

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So, lucky for us, the author shoots straight from the hip.

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The structure of the essay is pretty straightforward.

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The speaker starts by giving us a scenario:

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kids instinctively making art,

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then having to give it up when responsibility rears its ugly head.

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The speaker then states the primary argument:

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nations are like children.

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After that, he sets up parallel scenarios that

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show how nations follow a similar developmental path

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to children. Interesting idea.

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Options C and E are both way off base.

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The scenarios are examples that support the argument,

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not contradictions or misconceptions.

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Choice B doesn't make the cut, either.

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The author doesn't bust out any solutions in the passage.

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He's just telling us how he thinks the world works,

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and, wow, what a know-it-all.

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All right, D also doesn't work.

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Sure, the idea of art-loving babies is cute,

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until we have to clean up after them. But the speaker has something bigger on his mind.

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The correct answer is A. The opening paragraph's most important

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function is to connect the development of children to the development

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of Western civilization as a whole.

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And if you ask us, western civ is sort of just a big baby.

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[ child noises ] [ splat ]

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