Read the excerpt from "Wherefore Art Thou Romeo?” But I didn’t sleep. I thought about how utterly miserable it would feel to mes
s up on stage, plus get a vile grade in English class, plus watch Allison gloat. I got up before my alarm went off, arrived at school early, and slogged through the day like a sleepwalker. Finally the last bell chimed. "Ready?” Shondra asked, when we were alone again in the spare classroom. We had two hours until we had to meet our teacher backstage. Which statement best describes how the pacing of events heightens tension? The slow pace highlights how exhausted the narrator was on her big day. The slow pace gives the narrator time to carefully plot out her next move. The fast pace intensifies the conflict between the narrator and Allison. The fast pace increases the narrator’s urgency in learning her lines.
The fast pace intensifies the conflict between the narrator and Allison.
Explanation:
The pace of a text refers to how quickly an author moves from one event to the next. In this passage, we can see that the pace is fast because the author describes the protagonist's night and most of the day in very few words. However, the protagonist tells us that she does not want to see Allison gloat. This indicates that there is some conflict between the speaker and Allison. Therefore, we can conclude that the fast pace is intended to intensify the conflict between the narrator and Allison.
