Tired from practice, AND Spending too much time preparing for a match
Participial phrases are verb phrases that act as adjectives to describe nouns. Putting these participial phrases into a sentence makes it easier to see how this works. Tired from practice, Justin decided to take a nap before doing his homework. In this sentence, "tired from practice" describes Justin. Spending too much time preparing for a match, Justin felt unprepared for his Calculus test. "Spending too much time preparing for a match" also describes Justin.
Just imagine, being crammed into a small, crowded area in silence for two years
I don't know exactly what the question is to "which best describes the effect of the narration" But I would assume we have to pick a certain line within the passage, and with that I would have to go with the opening paragraph since it gives such deep and thoughtful descriptions.
In this case, combative means that they disagree, or that they argue with what 'the candidate' has to say. Make sense?