Question

Through my binoculars, I viewed a group of wild animals in action. A pride of lions was sleeping when a small, yellow bus pulled up beside them. Tourists on a safari were packed into the bus like sardines in a can. Armed with cameras, they invaded the lions' territory, hoping to capture the perfect photograph. The crowd leaned out the windows, hooting and hollering, until the lions awoke. When the lions moved away, the bus rolled after them, relentlessly stalking the pride. One of the lions turned and roared to protect the young. This was greeted with cheers and a celebratory honk of the bus horn. The curious visitors observed the lions' routine for an hour before moving on. Leaving a cloud of dust, the bus headed away, taking the wild animals off to disturb someone else's home.
Review the following line from the text:

The crowd leaned out the windows, hooting and hollering, until the lions awoke.

To create a more negative connotation, the author could have replaced the word crowd with which of the following synonyms?

Assembly

Gathering

Group

Mob

Answer 1

In the text: Armed with cameras and cell phones, they were invading the lions' territory in hopes of capturing the perfect photograph.

The connotative tone of the verbs in this text implies that the photographers were a negative presence in the wild animal’s space. The way the author describes it is in a negative connotation.

Using the verbs arm, invade and capture to express that the actions of this tourists were annoying the lions.

Answer 2

I would go with D) Mob because if its a negative connotation than mob would be the right answer because an assembly is not negative, not a gathering, and not a group because those could be BOTH positive AND negative but we want to find ONLY negative so mob because mobs are big groups of violent crazy people causing chaos.