They could have a fear of thunder
I assume that the context is story-telling and the high point refers to the high point of the story, or the one moment in which the decision is made that will influence the rest of the story: this is called climax (answer a).
The conflict might happen before the climax, and lead to it.
<span>To draw cause and effect conclusions, one needs to conduct a formal experiment, sometimes called a control experiment. The independent variable in this type of experiment is the only thing that is allowed to changed so the experimenter is able to conclude that the it is the independent variable which affected the dependent variable. In other words the independent variable effects the dependent variable, and it is the only thing that can effect the dependent variable.
This is not true in correlational experiments. Remember the oft repeated phrase that correlation does not mean causation. In other words, a lot of people carry umbrellas on a rainy day (there is a correlation between rainy days and people carrying umbrellas) but the umbrella carrying people did not cause the rain.</span>