ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by polar bears. The kind that won't hesitate

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to eat you, not the kind that'll offer you a Coke.

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By calling the image of the polar bear "propaganda" (line 50), the author of Passage 2 implies

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that... what?

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The word "propaganda" refers to any kind of material intended to sway people's beliefs,

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usually with an extra-generous helping of manipulation on top.

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And while propaganda isn't necessarily full of lies, it might use some...shall we way...creative

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truth-bending to get the point across.

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Choice (D) is the most obviously incorrect answer. While propaganda may not be outright

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lying, nobody would call it "accurate." (E) is also easy to eliminate as it doesn't

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reference bending the truth in any way.

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While the author would definitely agree that polar bears are bad poster boys...well...poster

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bears...for climate change...

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Choice (B) doesn't mention anything about misleading information, so we can cross it off the list.

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(C) is on the right track because it does say that the picture is "misleading."

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However, the author never says that these photographs have been altered, making (C)

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a bad choice.

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Since the author is primarily concerned about the portrayal of the polar bears as sad and

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pathetic—which, according to Passage 2, isn't even true—(A) is the correct answer.

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This time the polar bears were available for comments, but we couldn't translate their

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angry growls into any known human language.

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