Read the excerpt from chapter 8 of The Travels of Marco Polo. This province produces great quantities of excellent white incense
, and also dates in great abundance. No grain is grown here except rice, and not much of that; but it is imported from abroad at a big profit. Fish is plentiful, notably tunnies of large size, which are so abundant that two of them can be bought for a Venetian groat. The staple diet consists of rice, meat, and fish. . . . As for the incense of which I have spoken, which grows here in such profusion, the lord buys it for 10 gold bezants a cantar and then sells it to foreign merchants and others for 40 bezants a cantar. The lord of Shihr does this on behalf of the sultan of the province of Aden. For the sultan of Aden has incense bought up throughout his dominions at the price of 10 bezants and afterwards sold at 40 from which he derives an immense profit. Which detail best indicates the author's opinion of the incense that this province produces
The author's purpose in the excerpt above is to give informative text
To inform the reader about the products and foods that a region offers
<h3>What is informative text ?</h3>
An informative text is one that provides knowledge on a specific subject. The author writes such a text with the intent of educating the audience about certain things which they may not have been previously aware of.
In the text above, the author simply informs the reader of certain foods that are available in a particular province. He does not attempt to convince the readers of why they should eat such foods.
He simply tells them which food is abundant and the types of foods that can be found in the province.
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In literary criticism, close reading is the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of a text. A close reading emphasizes the single and the particular over the general, effected by close attention to individual words, the syntax, the order in which the sentences unfold ideas, as well as formal structures.
