Question

Which excerpt from Silent Spring best appeals to readers’ pathos?

So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns.

The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines.

The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them.

Yet every one of these disasters has actually happened somewhere, and many real communities have already suffered a substantial number of them. A grim specter has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know.

Answer 1

The section that states "this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we shall know" is the best line

Answer 2

Yet every one of these disasters has actually happened somewhere, and many real communities have already suffered a substantial number of them. A grim specter has crept upon us almost unnoticed, and this imagined tragedy may easily become a stark reality we all shall know.

Step-by-step explanation:

Pathos refers to an appeal to emotion. This is one of the three most common rhetorical appeals, the other ones being ethos and logos. In this case, the author uses pathos in the last sentence, as she uses extremely negative and hopeless words to describe the future. The use of words like "grim specter," "imagined tragedy" and "stark reality" is meant to appeal to the readers' emotions and in this way make the argument more persuasive.