ShmoopTube

00:01

We speak student!

00:04

[ musical flourish ]

00:07

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by teaching, [a teacher in a class asking everybody to settle down]

00:10

one of the most difficult jobs out there and for the lowest pay.

00:13

Well, next to maybe the gravedigger.

00:15

Different.

00:16

All right, check out the following sentence:

00:18

The new instructor was tentative [narrator reading a question]

00:20

in her decisions to discipline her students.

00:24

Hmm. The word tentative most nearly means... what?

00:27

And here are the potential answers.

00:28

Strict, unyielding, uncertain, confident. [a teacher writing her name on the board]

00:32

Ah, life for a new teacher can be tough. [chuckles]

00:35

Yeah, we've been there.

00:36

And most new teachers don't quite have that swagger yet.

00:40

Most of these answers have very similar meanings, [a boy blowing a bubble from his chewing gum]

00:43

but which one's the correct one?

00:45

A new teacher who's strict in discipline

00:47

enforces every arbitrary rule.

00:50

No gum. Seriously. Spit it out. We'll wait.

00:53

These strict teachers are often unyielding [a teacher yelling in a classroom]

00:55

in their punishments and confident through and through.

00:59

Like, "Look at how great I look in this new shirt"

01:02

kind of confident.

01:03

But does this square with our image of new teachers

01:06

who usually have a little adjusting to do? [a page from a dictionary highlighting the words tentative,hesitant and uncertain]

01:08

More likely, they'd be a little hesitant

01:10

and not-so-comfortable dishing out punishment.

01:13

So option C - uncertain is the correct answer. [someone circling the word uncertain]

01:16

But one thing's for certain:

01:17

we got this question right. Thanks to our strict

01:20

studying schedule, we're fairly confident in our skills.

01:23

[ gong ]

Full Transcript