They show that the worst part of the train ride may be over. ... In this excerpt, the author shows how terrible conditions can cause people to be unsympathetic to the pain of others.
You can find other articles to see if they have the same information. Do your research on the topic at hand, in other words.
Answer: A) Criticism.
Explanation: The connotation of a word is the meaning given by the context or even by the readers (or listeners) based on their emotions or personal experiences. In the given excerpt from John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, we can see the use of the word "invective" and we can also see that it has a negative connotation, because Kennedy said that they need to prevent it, so from the given options the one that also has a negative connotation is criticism, so the correct answer is option A.