D. scatter means to displace on a low level so I assume you can destroy something by scattering it
Answer:
The prevalence and suffocating nature of negative emotions is the main conflict that drives the primary characters in The Secret Garden.
I think that the dependent variable would be the academic performance because she hypothesizes that the performance depends on how many hours of sleep you get. And the amount of sleep would be the independent variable. I am not exactly sure, but I hope you could find this somewhat helpful!