Question

Read the passage. (1) Edgar Allan Poe wrote the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart.” (2) Poe wrote the story in 1843. (3) In the story, a man is haunted by an old man’s eye. (4) He thinks it looks like the eye of a vulture. (5) We soon learn that the haunted man has a mysterious disease. (6) The disease has made the man insane. (7) He does not know it. (8) For seven nights, he sneaks into the old man’s room. (9) He watches the sleeping man. (10) I will not tell you what happens next because I do not want to spoil the story for you. Which is the most effective way to combine sentences (8) and (9)? For seven nights, he sneaks into the old man’s room and watches the sleeping man. Watching the sleeping man for seven nights, he sneaks into the old man’s room. For seven nights, which he sneaks into the old man’s room, he watches the sleeping man. For seven nights, watching the sleeping man and sneaking, into the old man’s room.

Answer 1

Answer:

For seven nights he sneaks into the old man's room and watches the sleeping man.

Explanation:

The narrator himself gives the reason why he only killed the old man on the eighth night. He had been visiting his room at midnight for seven nights in a row expecting to see the old man's wasted eye open.

Answer 2

The best answer is the first option: 
For seven nights, he sneaks into the old man’s room and watches the sleeping man.

A good  way to select the right answer is to read all of the options out loud. Which combination of the sentences sounds the most fluid and logical when you read it, and best preserves the meaning of the sentence? The first option does this best.