Which passage below has the most critical tone?
a
on the train, the man slowly clipped his fingernails. he focused on the task,
beginning with his pinky finger and finishing with his thumb.
b
on the train, the tired, old man began clipping his fingernails. he was trying to
distract himself from his loneliness by focusing on this one small task, moving
from pinky to thumb.
c
the man-right in the middle of the crowded train-began to clip his long, yellow
fingernails. he did it slowly, as if he didn't even care that a dozen other people
could see and hear him.
d
the man on the train clipped his fingernails. it took him 2 minutes and 8 seconds.
he started on his pinky and finished with his thumb. when he was finished, he put
the clippers back into his jacket pocket.

c is the answer : )

explanation:

1. read the following excerpt from franklin d. roosevelt's "fireside chat 19":

on the other side of the picture, we must learn also to know that guerilla warfare against the germans in, let us say serbia or norway, us; that a successful russian offensive against the germans us; and that british successes on land or sea in any part of the world strengthen our hands.

remember always that germany and italy, regardless of any formal declaration of war, consider themselves at war with the united states at this moment just as much as they consider themselves at war with britain or russia. and germany puts all the other republics of the americas into the same category of enemies. the people of our sister republics of this hemisphere can be honored by that fact.  

the true goal we seek is far above and beyond the ugly field of battle. when we resort to force, as now we must, we are determined that this force shall be directed toward ultimate good as well as against immediate evil. we americans are not destroyers — we are builders.

analyze the effectiveness of this excerpt. how does it function within the speech as a whole? how does the structure of the excerpt to convey the speech's purpose and key points? support your argument with evidence from the speech. (10 points)

quite an interesting way to teach topic sentences, because the answer to this question is the best definition of a topic sentence that one can present, it is as if answering the questions taught you how to do it, this is some real teaching, it is terribly well-done.

the topic sentence in this paragraph is:

topic sentences writers stay on track and keep a paragraph from becoming an aimless collection of sentences about an idea.

which incidentally tells you what a topic sentence should be.

i think there should be answer choices