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Information and IdeasVery hardQuotation illustrating a subtle claim about a narrator

Information and Ideas practice question

A critic argues that the memoir's narrator presents her family's decline as a matter of luck while the details she supplies point to choices.

Which quotation from the memoir most effectively illustrates the critic's claim?

  1. A. "We were unlucky: the shop failed the year my father took up racing, and the house went the winter he stopped opening the post."Correct
  2. B. "We were unlucky: the flood took the shop and the fire took the house."
  3. C. "My father's choices ruined us, and I have never pretended otherwise."
  4. D. "We were a happy family, and the house was full of music."

Answer: A. "We were unlucky: the shop failed the year my father took up racing, and the house went the winter he stopped opening the post."

'Unlucky', and then racing and unopened post: choices, called luck.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. "We were unlucky: the flood took the shop and the fire took the house."
Luck, with details that are genuinely luck.
C. "My father's choices ruined us, and I have never pretended otherwise."
The narrator names the choices; the claim is that she doesn't.
D. "We were a happy family, and the house was full of music."
No decline.

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