Question

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England. For the vast majority of yeomen in the country, it is vitally important to store hard fruit through the whole year. To do this, select faultless apples and pears without a bruise or other mark, and leave a length of stalk on them. Place them carefully in your fruit house or "hoard house” on clean dry straw, make sure they are not touching each other, and turn them very carefully every month to avoid their collecting moisture. And, most important, keep the door to the fruit house shut, "lest children make havoc there.” Which detail from the text best supports the inference that one bad apple can spoil all the others?
1) . . . it is vitally important to store hard fruit through the whole year.
2) Place them carefully in your fruit house or “hoard house” on clean dry straw . . .
3) . . . make sure they are not touching each other . . .
4) . . . turn them very carefully every month to avoid their collecting moisture.

Answer 1

Answer:

. . . make sure they are not touching each other . . .

Explanation:

Answer 2

The detail "...make sure they are not touching each other..." best supports the inference that one bad apple can spoil all the others. As stated in the text, the fruits are stored in the hoard house for future consumption. It is important that one does not contain a bruise since this will also affect the others around it.