{"id":79,"date":"2013-06-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yule-tide.generalsemiotics.net\/index.php\/2013\/06\/03\/zpost-72-stumped-by-johns-gre-prep-or-when-learning-vocabulary-from-the-bible-doesnt-pay-off\/"},"modified":"2013-06-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T00:00:00","slug":"zpost-72-stumped-by-johns-gre-prep-or-when-learning-vocabulary-from-the-bible-doesnt-pay-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/2013\/06\/03\/zpost-72-stumped-by-johns-gre-prep-or-when-learning-vocabulary-from-the-bible-doesnt-pay-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-72: Stumped by “John’s GRE Prep” (Or, When Learning Vocabulary from the Bible Doesn’t Pay Off)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n“She is most frugal in matters of business, but in her private life she reveals a streak of ___________.”<\/em><\/strong><\/font>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (A) antipathy
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (B) misanthropy
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (C) virtuosity
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (D) equanimity
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (E) prodigality<\/p>\n

This question appeared recently in the English-education insert that typically accompanies the Korea Herald<\/em> newspaper. It is from a semi-daily section called “John’s GRE<\/a> Prep”.<\/div>\n

<\/span>\"Picture\"<\/a>Newspaper of “John’s GRE Prep” [Click to enlarge]<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

I’ve done dozens of “John’s” GRE practice questions, and I’ve gotten every one of them right, until this one.<\/p>\n

I rejected choices (A) and (B) immediately, but none of the other three seemed like knockouts. I was doing this on the subway, so I may have been unable to properly concentrate. But the real reason I think I got it wrong was that I was led astray by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John (no relation to the John of John’s GRE Prep), whichever one of them recounted the Prodigal Son parable. <\/p>\n

My knowledge of the famous Prodigal Son parable has led me to believe, from a young age, that “prodigal” means “rebellious”. “Rebellious” is not really a good candidate to be an opposite of “frugal”, I thought, so I gave that one a low-mental-ranking. I wavered. No choices seemed right. My final choice was (D). That was wrong. The correct answer is (E).<\/p>\n

“Prodigality”, it turns out, has the following definitions (according to this<\/a>): 1. <\/strong> Extravagant wastefulness. 2. <\/strong> Profuse generosity. 3. <\/strong> Extreme abundance; lavishness. \/ Not “rebelliousness” at all. Since age 9 or so, I’ve inferred that the word was tied-in with the theology of that particular parable, which is more about the rebelliousness of the son, turning away from the father, and not about the son’s “lavish wastefulness”.<\/div>\n

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“She is most frugal in matters of business, but in her private life she reveals a streak of ___________.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (A) antipathy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (B) misanthropy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (C) virtuosity\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (D) equanimity\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (E) prodigality This question appeared recently in the English-education insert that typically accompanies the Korea Herald newspaper. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yule-tide.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}