Question

Read the passage from Gulliver's Travels. The method is this: in an acre of ground you bury, at six inches distance and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other mast or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest; then you drive six hundred or more of them into the field, where, in a few days, they will root up the whole ground in search of their food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same time manuring it with their dung: it is true, upon experiment, they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop. However it is not doubted, that this invention may be capable of great improvement. Which excerpt from the passage is the best example of understatement? in an acre of ground you bury, at six inches distance and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts then you drive six hundred or more of them into the field, where, in a few days, they will root up the whole ground they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop it is not doubted, that this invention may be capable of great improvement.

Answer 1

In my opinion, the correct answer is C. they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop. This passage from Gulliver's Travels tells us about a weird and absurd innovation of "plowing" by spreading mast all over the field and letting pigs run for it and dig it out from the soil. This venture is obviously a disastrous one, and it is clearly an understatement to say that it brought great trouble and little results. The truth was probably that it brought no results at all, while being expensive, futile and foolish.

Answer 2

The excerpt describes the invention of sowing process. The author writes that animals will be useful for the sowing, at the same time farmers will left without a crop. Understatement shows how an expectation becomes upside down. The last option is not correct because it recalls a positive outcome. However, the lines they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop is an understatement because it shows that what the farmers expected is changed vice-versa.