50PNTS (warning, good chunk of reading involved)
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (excerpt)
Edmund smiled and shook his head. "By Jove! this won't do," cried Tom, throwing himself into a chair with a hearty laugh. "To be sure, my dear mother, your anxiety—I was unlucky there."
"What is the matter?" asked her ladyship, in the heavy tone of one half-roused; "I was not asleep."
"Oh dear, no, ma'am, nobody suspected you! Well, Edmund," he continued, returning to the former subject, posture, and voice, as soon as Lady Bertram began to nod again, "but this I will maintain, that we shall be doing no harm."
"I cannot agree with you; I am convinced that my father would totally disapprove it."
"And I am convinced to the contrary. Nobody is fonder of the exercise of talent in young people, or promotes it more, than my father, and for anything of the acting, spouting, reciting kind, I think he has always a decided taste. I am sure he encouraged it in us as boys. How many a time have we mourned over the dead body of Julius Caesar, and to be'd and not to be'd, in this very room, for his amusement? And I am sure, my name was Norval, every evening of my life through one Christmas holidays."
Hamlet by William Shakespeare (excerpt) To be, or not to be—that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep— No more—and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to.
Select the correct answer.
Read the two excerpts. The first excerpt makes a reference to the second excerpt. In the first excerpt, what does the character Tom mean when he makes a reference to the play Hamlet in the last paragraph?
A. Tom is implying that Shakespeare is his father’s favorite author.
B. Tom is explaining that his father considers Tom to be a poor actor.
C. Tom is saying that his father enjoys having his children act in plays.
D. Tom is showing that he can easily recite any of Shakespeare's plays.