Read the excerpt below from “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and answer the question that follows. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

What is the purpose of paragraph 4?
A.
to provide a stark contrast to paragraph 5
B.
to develop the main character
C.
to illustrate the complexity of the ideas
D.
to enhance the irony of the passage
E.
to reveal the author’s attitude about spring

Select the correct text in the passage. which sentence in this excerpt from abraham lincoln's second inaugural address conveys that he wanted the us civil war to end as soon as possible? neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. both read the same bible and pray to the same god, and each invokes his aid against the other. it may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just inging their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. the prayers of both could not be answered. that of neither has been answered fully. the almighty has his own purposes. "woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh" if we shall suppose that american slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of god, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both north and south this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living god always ascribe to him? fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. yet, if god wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether." reset next