ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Holland. Aka the Netherlands. Where the

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people are called Dutch. Yeah, doesn't make sense to us either.

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According to the passage, which event precipitated Schumann's death?

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Looks like we've got a vocab word hiding out in this question.

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Even if we don't remember exactly what "precipitated" means, we probably remember that the prefix

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"pre" means "before."

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If we didn't remember what "pre" means, then... we'd be in serious trouble, because

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then we probably wouldn't remember what a "prefix" is at all, since "pre"

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is in the word "prefix" itself.

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Anyway, the prefix "pre" tips us off that "precipitated" describes an event that

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happens before another and causes it to happen, or at least affects it in some way.

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So we know we're looking for an event that happened not long before the death of Schumann.

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(A) is the first to catch our eye.

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Maybe because it's the first one or maybe because it has the feel of those tabloid headlines

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we pretend we don't read in the grocery store checkout line.

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As is often the case with tabloids, however, choice (A) isn't true. The passage says

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nothing about Clara having an affair with another musician, so we can cross out answer (A).

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Choice (B) isn't true either. The author

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doesn't tell us about how Frederick Wieck died.

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(B) is a definite no.

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(C) is tempting because Clara and Schumann did tour Holland not too long before Schumann's

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downward spiral into insanity.

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Maybe it was all those weird wooden shoes that freaked him out.

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However, Schumann threw himself into a river even after the Holland trip, making choice

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(D) the right answer.

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What if he wasn't crazy? Maybe he just... felt like going for a brisk swim...

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