ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by kitty-bathing.

00:07

Sign our petition to make it the next Olympic sport.

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Which of the following choices is NOT a logical alternative to Spooked?

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To get this one right, we need to figure out the one word that can't stand in as a synonym for "spooked."

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When a person is spooked that means he or she is scared of something.

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Let's take a look at choice (A) first.

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Though "rattled" can be used as a verb, as in, "The spooky ghost rattled her chains"...

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it can also be used to describe the shaken-feeling someone has after experiencing a shock. The

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writer could definitely substitute this for "spooked," so we'll get rid of choice (A).

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Choice (B) suggests the word "startled," which can also be used as a synonym for "spooked."

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Thus, we can get choice (B) out of our lives forever.

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We can eliminate (C) too. "Upset" isn't a perfect synonym for "spooked" since

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it can include other emotions besides fear and surprise. But it's still closer than

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the final choice that looms before us.

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(D) is the correct answer because "angered" assumes a dimension of emotion that the essay

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doesn't support. The writer doesn't tell us that the cat was "angry" at the car

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for backfiring; the author is just saying that the cat was freaked out about it.

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