Read this excerpt from the great fire. as the rest of the city went about its business, fireman dorsey was racing through the streets to the closest signal box, which happened to be at goll's drugstore. he opened the small door on the box and used his thumb to pull down the lever. dorsey then headed back to the scene of the fire, not realizing that he'd made a mistake — he had forgotten to pull down the lever four times, a special signal that would have made it a true second alarm. at the courthouse, schaffer and brown would hear dorsey's alarm, but, assuming it was simply another signal telling them about the original fire, they failed to call out more engines. how does this excerpt support the main idea of the passage? a) it illustrates how many mistakes firefighter dorsey made during the course of the fire. b) it demonstrates how the city’s fire alarm system and signal boxes worked. c) it describes one of the key mistakes that prevented the fire from being extinguished sooner. d) it highlights the fact that bruno goll was responsible for the fire and stopped it from being put out.

C) It describes one of the key mistakes that prevented the fire from being extinguished sooner.

Explanation:

"The Great Fire" by Jim Murphy is a children's story about the great fire that ravaged Chicago in 1871. The story describes how the fire started and how it couldn't be extinguished sooner.

The fire had started from the O' Leary's barn which then spread to the neighbors. This fire lasted for about thirty hours. Dorsey was a fireman who had went to the drugstore owned by Bruno Goll. His mistake of not pulling the lever down for four times had changed the condition of the alarm. If the lever had been pulled down four times, then the fire station would have understood immediately that that was a true second alarm. But by forgetting to do it, he had denied the possibility of more fire engines to the place. Thus enabling the fire to continue longer and destroying more places.

21 balloons is the story of professor william sherman's travels.

in 1883, he set off from san francisco for a balloon ride over the pacific and was found a month later floating with 21 balloons in the atlantic ocean. this seemed an astounding feat and everyone wanted to know what had happened.    

professor sherman was loyal, however, and said he would tell his tale first to the western american explorers club in san francisco, of which he was a member. this built up suspense for several chapters before he began to tell of the wonders of his adventures and the amazing island of krakatoa, an island which had just been blown up by a volcano.  

the residents of krakatoa are all millionaires who live under a "gourmet government" of their own devising. we get to see all the incredible adventures that creative people with unlimited resources would create according to the author.

the sentences are -

it was all just as it was in the law courts. the doctor put on just the same air towards him as he himself put on towards an accused person.