Question

10 my characters were facile constructs, made by an american writer projecting convenient, usually virtuous, personalities onto chinese people. the cousin who teaches the american a thing or two about eating a balance of hot - and - cold - element foods for health was just a device for transmitting what i had found interesting about chinese
read the following digital dictionary entry for facile, which appears in line 10.
facile (fäs-əl) < french facile, easy < latin facilis, handy done, pleasant < latin facere, to do adj. 1 achieved with little difficulty; easy 2 acting with fluency and ease 3 presented without due effort or examination, superficial 4 pleasantly mild in manner
which pair of statements is true about the word facile as it is used in line 10? base your answer on the dictionary entry as well as context
a the word is used in line 10 to mean acting with ease. it came into english from a french word derived from latin
b the word is used in line 10 to mean acting with ease. it came into english from a latin word derived from french
c the word is used in line 10 to meansuperficial. it came into english from a french word derived from latin
d the word is used in line 10 to meansuperficial. it came into english from a latin word derived from french

Explanation:

Let’s analyze each option:

• Option A: The context in line 10 is about characters being “facile constructs”. “Acting with ease” doesn’t fit the context of describing constructs (characters).
• Option B: Similar to Option A, “acting with ease” is not relevant to the context of “facile constructs”.
• Option C: The origin part is wrong. The word came from French (not Latin first in the origin as per the dictionary entry for the path to English).
• Option D: In the context of “facile constructs” (where constructs might be seen as not deeply - thought - out, i.e., superficial), “superficial” makes sense. And from the dictionary entry “[< French facile, ‘easy’ < Latin facilis... ]”, it came into English from French (which was derived from Latin).

Answer:

D. The word is used in line 10 to mean “superficial”. It came into English from a French word derived from Latin.