ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the national budget.

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Much like the national diet, it's rich in pork.

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You know what pork is, right?

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All right, check out the following sentence.

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The disparate interests of our political parties

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prevent meaningful budget reform.

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All right. The word disparate most nearly means... what?

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ moo ]

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[ chuckles ] We've watched debates about the budget, and it's,

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well, not the most harmonious process, right?

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There are many negative adjectives that can describe

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why our political parties don't get along.

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And while many of them could apply, not all match the definition of disparate.

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A - avaricious means greedy.

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And, sure, many politicians have been accused of being greedy,

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but it's not really what we're looking for here.

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C - illogical means lacking logic.

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Well, certainly most politician's ideas are lacking that,

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but while this might work in context,

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again, it's not the definition we're looking for.

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And potable actually means something we can drink.

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And, well, we've never seen a political interest that

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we can drink, so we can rule out D

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on the basis that it simply doesn't make any sense.

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One of the reasons our parties can't agree on anything is

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because their ideas are so distinct.

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They're drastically different or divergent. Ever see the movie?

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So B is the correct answer.

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But even if they can't agree on a budget, well, at least they

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can agree on some things, like, uh,

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what color tie looks best or, uh, nevermind.

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It's rich in pork.

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