ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by a grimy mixture of clay and sand.

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They say it's exfoliating, but we think it amuses them

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to watch us rub dirt on our faces and then pay them for the privilege.

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[ mumbles ]

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All right, well, we're skimming, we're skimming. And we're just gonna jump in.

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All right, the last line of the first paragraph - right here -

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can best be described as... what?

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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All right, well, this text might sound highfalutin,

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but it's not so hard to understand when we break it down.

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Throughout the first paragraph, the author talks about how dirt

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can be turned into precious things, like

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porcelain, opals, and diamonds.

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Wish we could figure out how to do that with the dirt in our backyard.

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The author ends the paragraph by pointing out

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that when we look at a mud puddle,

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we can either focus on the mud at the bottom of the puddle,

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or the stars reflected in the water.

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If you ask us, this idea is

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pretty similar to what the passage has been talking about the whole time.

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Commonplace, earthy things can lead to

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fabulous, beautiful things.

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Since we know the author isn't taking any major detours on the final sentence,

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we can eliminate choices B and D.

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B says that a shift in point-of-view is happening,

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and D claims that some new theme is rearing its head.

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But, as we just said, neither of these things are true.

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The author is just finding creative ways to repeat himself.

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Choice E doesn't come close to being right.

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The paragraph doesn't mention any historical events

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and the last sentence doesn't mention anything all that modern.

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Let's face it, mud puddles are about as old school as it gets.

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Option C tries to impress us with the fancy word "microcosm." Ooh.

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Basically, a microcosm is a small thing that

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can represent a bigger thing.

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If a sports commentator were criticizing a bad

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game, he might say,

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"That game was bad. It was a microcosm for what's

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been happenin' with this team all season."

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That is, if sportscasters used words like "microcosm."

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And they tried that with Dennis Miller on Monday night football,

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and, uh, that didn't last.

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Anyway, even though it's fun to use big words, we can't get along with choice C.

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Noticing stars reflected in a puddle is a similar idea to

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the others expressed in the paragraph.

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It's not a mini-version that somehow represents a greater whole.

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So this leaves us with choice A.

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The last sentence is a parallel scenario which

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just means the author is sticking to the same old, same old.

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This guy should learn to live a little.

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