We, as a people, are becoming idle, living in luxury and ease, and in the gratification of artificial wants. Some indulge in unwholesome fast food and think more of gratifying a morbid appetite than of supplying the body with proper nourishment. Others devote unnecessary attention to expensive clothes, yielding themselves completely to the sway of fashion. Such gluttony in diet and dress manifests itself in the general appearance of a person, and exposes his folly to the world with tobacco-tainted breath, a beer-bloated body, a rum reddened nose, and other manifestations. They pamper themselves instead of practicing self-denial, and appear to think that the chief end of life is gratification, rather than useful endeavor. The word "gluttony" in the context of the paragraph most likely means:

a. IRRESPONSIBILITY
b. WISDOM
c. DEVOTION
d. VIOLENCE

Read this passage: i think of you daily, my darling, especially when it’s dark and the other men in the foxhole become silent. i like to pretend that the gunfire is a fireworks display and that you are here with me to enjoy it. who is the intended audience for this passage? a. the writers girlfriend at home b. the writers fellow soldiers c. the writers mother and father d. the writers commanding officer

Read the passage, then answer the question that follows. no one could have seen it at the time, but the invention of beet sugar was not just a challenge to cane. it was a hint—just a glimpse, like a twist that comes about two thirds of the way through a movie—that the end of the age of sugar was in sight. for beet sugar showed that in order to create that perfect sweetness you did not need slaves, you did not need plantations, in fact you did not even need cane. beet sugar was a foreshadowing of what we have today: the age of science, in which sweetness is a product of chemistry, not whips. in 1854 only 11 percent of world sugar production came from beets. by 1899 the percentage had risen to about 65 percent. and beet sugar was just the first challenge to cane. by 1879 chemists discovered saccharine—a laboratory-created substance that is several hundred times sweeter than natural sugar. today the sweeteners used in the foods you eat may come from corn (high-fructose corn syrup), from fruit (fructose), or directly from the lab (for example, aspartame, invented in 1965, or sucralose—splenda—created in 1976). brazil is the land that imported more africans than any other to work on sugar plantations, and in brazil the soil is still perfect for sugar. cane grows in brazil today, but not always for sugar. instead, cane is often used to create ethanol, much as corn farmers in america now convert their harvest into fuel. –sugar changed the world, marc aronson and marina budhos how does this passage support the claim that sugar was tied to the struggle for freedom? it shows that the invention of beet sugar created competition for cane sugar. it shows that technology had a role in changing how we sweeten our foods. it shows that the beet sugar trade provided jobs for formerly enslaved workers. it shows that sweeteners did not need to be the product of sugar plantations and slavery.

Which persuasive technique is used in the passage below? after seeing ads for greasy french fries, sugary soft drinks, and salty chips, you head to the kitchen to fix yourself an enormous (and unhealthy) snack. with the tv blaring in the background, you then waste hours on the web.