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Information and IdeasHardQuotation supporting a claim about a character's motive

Information and Ideas practice question

A critic claims that the narrator of the novel returns to her home town not out of affection but out of guilt.

Which quotation from the novel best supports the critic's claim?

  1. A. "I told myself I was going back for the sea air, but every mile of the road was a mile I owed my mother, who had asked me to come for ten years and been refused."Correct
  2. B. "The town looked exactly as I had left it, down to the crooked sign over the bakery."
  3. C. "My mother met me at the station with a flask of tea."
  4. D. "I had always loved the smell of the harbour."

Answer: A. "I told myself I was going back for the sea air, but every mile of the road was a mile I owed my mother, who had asked me to come for ten years and been refused."

A debt owed and refusals remembered: guilt, not affection.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. "The town looked exactly as I had left it, down to the crooked sign over the bakery."
Description.
C. "My mother met me at the station with a flask of tea."
An event, no motive.
D. "I had always loved the smell of the harbour."
Affection, the opposite of the claim.

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