ShmoopTube

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We speak student!

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Cold War.

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We better bring a jacket for this one.

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Check out the following passage.

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[ mumbles ]

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Okay, well, the main purpose of this passage is to... what?

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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All right, in Soviet Russia, paragraph summarizes you.

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Yeah. [ mumbles ]

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Unfortunately, we're not in Soviet Russia, so we've gotta do the work here.

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This passage gives us a lot of specific information about

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a point in time in which the U.S. and Russia, well,

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nearly blew ourselves up. Yep.

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We almost did.

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As for our answer choices, they mainly discuss things that the passage is not about.

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We can begin by getting rid of option D.

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The passage is not specifically about the Kennedy administration.

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He was president during the incident, but that's not the important point here.

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Notice how there's no mention of the rest of Kennedy's legacy?

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Like, uh, say his vow to put a man on the moon? Yeah.

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[ singing ] If you believe. [ normal voice ] Yeah, like that.

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Option C can go, too.

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The passage isn't a subjective criticism of

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the Soviet Union's nuclear program.

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In fact, the tone of the passage is pretty objective in laying out the facts.

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It implies that the policies of both the Soviets and the Americans

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pushed the world to the brink of war and everyone was pointing fingers at each other.

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Option B is a bit trickier because, obviously, the passage is about the Cold War.

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However, it's not a general history of the Cold War. It's about a single specific event.

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Talking about a young Elvis doesn't mean we're talking about his entire career, right?

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Which leaves us with option A.

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The event in question is right in the first sentence of the passage -

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the Cuban Missile Crisis.

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Now if only solving a crisis was as easy as solving this question.

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We typically enjoy sequels, but, uh,

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we think we'll pass on Cold War II: The Revenge.

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[ siren ]

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