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18 votes
18 votes
Read the two passages and answer the question.

Passage 1

[1]Nothing that comes from the desert expresses its extremes better than the unhappy growth of the
tree yuccas.Tormented, thin forests of it stalk drearily in the high mesas, particularly in that
triangular slip that fans out eastward from the meeting of the Sierras and coastwise hills. The
yucca bristles with bayonet-pointed leaves, dull green, growing shaggy with age like an old
[5] man's tangled gray beard, tipped with panicles of foul, greenish blooms. After its death, which is
slow, the ghostly hollow network of its woody skeleton, with hardly power to rot, makes even
the moonlight fearful. But it isn't always this way. Before the yucca has come to flower, while
yet its bloom is a luxurious, creamy, cone-shaped bud of the size of a small cabbage, full of
sugary sap, the Indians twist it deftly out of its fence of daggers and roast the prize for their
[10] own delectation.

Passage 2

[1]I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
[5]Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
[10]Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
[15]A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
[20]In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Both passages describe a plant. The yucca tree "bristles with bayonet-pointed leaves" and a "fence of daggers" while the daffodils "toss their heads in sprightly dance." What does this word choice reveal about how the two passages view nature?

Passage 1 views nature as harsh while Passage 2 views nature as delightful.
Passage 1 views nature as serious while Passage 2 views nature as foolish.
Passage 1 views nature as stimulating while Passage 2 views natures as fun.
Passage 1 views nature as violent while Passage 2 views nature as gruesome.

User Robert Childan
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1 Answer

14 votes
14 votes

Answer: A (Passage 1 views nature as harsh while Passage 2 views nature as delightful.)

Explanation:

User Auramo
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