Tue Nov 20 11:00:34 PST 2018

GRE Words and Short Story #4

1. aggrandize-(v)-to increase in power, influence, and reputation


2. ardor-(n)-intense and passionate feeling


3. chauvinistic-(adj)-someone prejudiced in favor of a group to which he or she belongs to


4. diffident-(adj)-lacking self-confidence


5. eulogy-(n)-speech in praise of someone


6. garrulous-(adj)-tending to talk a lot


7. innocuous-(adj)-harmless


8. opprobrium-(n)-public disgrace


9. rhetoric-(n)-effective writing or speaking


10. satiate-(v)-to satisfy or overindulge


11. veracity-(n)-truthfulness and accuracy


12. insipid-(adj)-lacking interest or favor


13. glib-(adj)-marked by a lack of an intellectual depth

Story



I stood up, felling
diffident about the entire situation; it was my turn to rebuke the arguments presented by my opponent, and he had been good--too good. It was my school's debate championship final, so what did I expect? My competitor had shown an unprecedented
ardor when presenting his arguments; his speech had tastefully evolved from a mere set of facts to a memorable embodiment of
rhetoric. When he had finished, the room had exploded, the claps of the audience forming a wordless
eulogy for him, reverberating on the walls, and in the process,
aggrandizing the audience's favorable stance towards his views.



Now, everyone stood there,
insipid, with a blank stare on their face. My competitor had already
satiated their needs for rhetoric, and now there I was, the competition. No matter the
veracity of my own view points, and how well I would be able to deliver them, they would see me as just another
garrulous dude; they would boo with all their lung-strength, and I would end my high school career in utter
opprobrium.



So I decided to throw away my original plan. Instead of showing deference to my challenger's viewpoints, I would be cocky and
chauvinistic about the whole thing. At the end, this path would be
innocuous, my competitor had already won, so no matter how hard I tried, the outcome would be the same.



Thus, I began and ended by
glib response with a, "
Fuck you!"