ShmoopTube

00:03

Here's your Shmoop du jour...

00:05

Not only did European settlement blank Native American lands, it brought devastating plagues

00:10

of never-before-seen diseases that blank the indigenous populations of North America.

00:15

And here are the potential answers...

00:19

In this sentence, "not only" signals that the missing verb in the first blank needs

00:23

to go hand in hand with the act of bringing devastating plagues.

00:27

So we can get rid of (A) right away, because thriving and plagues don't exactly go together...unless you're a disease.

00:34

(B) is easy to get rid of too, because "suffer under" just doesn't make any sense in this context.

00:39

"Secede" means to withdraw formerly from an organization or alliance, like when the

00:44

Southern states seceded, causing the Civil War.

00:48

It didn't work out too well then, and the word doesn't work out too well here either.

00:52

The Europeans were taking over Native lands, not breaking away from them.

00:59

(C) might look a little tempting since Europeans did at one point "stumble upon" the Americas...

01:04

...but "stumble upon" doesn't go hand in hand with plagues either.

01:10

"Encroach" means to move increasingly into someone else's space, and "decimated" means

01:15

to destroy huge numbers of something.

01:17

So (E) is the best answer...

01:19

Although it doesn't necessarily describe the best way to start a country.

Full Transcript