ShmoopTube

00:03

Alright, so if you're over 18, put this question in your pipe and shmoop it...

00:08

Which words could fill in the blanks so that the sentence below makes sense?

00:12

From the moment the United States was founded as a free and independent republic, dedicated

00:16

to the blank that "all men are created equal," slavery represented a fundamental blank to

00:21

the nation's most cherished values.

00:28

The phrase "all men are created equal" is one of the self-evident truths mentioned in

00:33

the Declaration of Independence. So whatever goes in the first blank has to refer to a

00:37

statement of equality as a belief.

00:39

(A), (B), and (C) all might work...

00:42

But (D) looks a little suspect to us.

00:44

"Foundation" sort of makes sense because it means the basis on which something stands.

00:48

Still, we have to get rid of it because it doesn't organically refer to a single idea

00:52

in the context of this sentence.

00:54

Now, we'll move on to the second blank to see which answers it can help us get rid of.

00:59

(A) can definitely be crossed off. Embellishment is the act of decorating something or making

01:04

it more beautiful, which doesn't exactly jibe with the idea of slavery.

01:07

(B) kind of makes sense, because deviation can mean to diverge from an established belief.

01:13

However, we can eliminate it because the prepositions don't line up. We'd say "deviation from"

01:19

not "deviation to."

01:20

Grammar police.

01:22

(E) evasion almost makes sense as well. An

01:25

evasion can happen when something is avoided. You know... like the evasion of fulfilling

01:30

one of the most fundamental beliefs on which a country is based.

01:34

We get into preposition trouble again here, though. We'd say "evasion of" not "evasion

01:39

to," so choice (E)...no good.

01:41

OK, we've eliminated everything but (C), so hopefully this one fits the bill.

01:46

Uh...this bill.

01:48

We gave "proposition" the go-ahead earlier, and "contradiction" works too.

01:53

No doubt slavery was a contradiction to the idea that all people are created equal.

01:57

(C) it is. C for "Couldn't we just get it right in the first place?"

Full Transcript