Complete the sentence.
Since the homecoming king and queen candidates had only a minute for speeches and their peers wanted to hear something meaningful, the student government advisor warned candidates that they had better keep their speeches _______ or face the wrath of an alienated crowd that finds the speeches irrelevant.

Your key clues are the fact that the students “wanted to hear something meaningful” and that the worst situation would be to have an alienated crowd. How do you alienate a crowd? Say something meaningless that is irrelevant. The speech better not be long, especially sophisticated or wordy. The speech should be to the point and relevant, or germane. Although the speech may be some of these other qualities, the text supports the choice "germane" the most. This is one of the questions where you may just need to know what the right answer is and what the definition of “germane” is, but the process of elimination will help and the test providers sometimes will have questions where exact definitions are your lifesaver.