ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the laws of nature,

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the one set of laws that's impossible to break.

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At least on Earth. [woman holding a boy by his collar]

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All right, so we're skimming, we're skimming.

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And how many times have we skimmed this?

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[ mumbles ]

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Okay, let's just get to it.

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Which of the following devices does the passage

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not include? [sound of a baby laughing]

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We're not seeing an iPhone 6 here.

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[ mumbles ]

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Okay, let's get to it.

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All right, well, the only thing to do here is go down the list

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and root through the passage to see what we find. [Man in the farm, holding a plant root]

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Choice B says that the passage doesn't exaggerate.

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Huh. Well, the author might agree for the most part because he's just that hardcore about science. [Woman describing the size of a spider to a man]

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The bit about water crystallizing into stars is

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an exaggeration, though. Like our closest star, the sun,

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the other stars out there are fiery balls of exploding atoms.

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Like that.

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If the author isn't intentionally exaggerating here, well, then Like that.

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If the author isn't intentionally exaggerating here, well, then

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he doesn't know his science as well as he should.

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Option C claims that there aren't any analogies in the passage, [Man disgusted after seeing the spider]

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but we have to disagree.

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An analogy is a comparison of two things that are somehow similar.

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So how about when Professor Huxley equates the necessity of learning about science

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to the necessity of learning about chess?

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All in a world where our lives depend on winning a game of it. [A professor writing something on the blackboard]

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Yep, the Hux gives us a big, whopping analogy, so that makes

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C a no-go.

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And then we have answer D, which clearly misses the fact

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that the passage is chock-full of metaphors.

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Our favorite is when "our perturbed minds" are

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compared to "dark waters." [image of a brain, dark water and a tornado]

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But, maybe that's because we're a little bit twisted.

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Yeah, welcome to Shmoop.

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All right, choice E tries to convince us that the passage has

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no reiteration.

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Seriously, E?

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This passage is continually repeating itself.

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If we really wanted to boil it down, it'd read like this: [image of water boiling]

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"Science is awesome. Really awesome.

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Science is so, so, really awesome."

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All right, well, the best answer is A.

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A counterargument is an argument or set of ideas that

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opposes another argument or set of ideas.

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Using a counterargument in an essay can be a good thing.

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Pointing out where the other side may be right gives us a great

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chance to show exactly why we're more right [woman arguing with her husband while lying on a sunbed]

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than the other side.

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However, it seems like nobody ever told the author of this passage [Crackers bursting in the sky]

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about the joys of counterarguments.

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He never makes the case for why science might lead to bad things. [someone performing an experiment and it explodes]

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Guess he never read Frankenstein.

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