Answer: The correct answer is <em>B</em><em>, "</em><em>It's difficult to </em><em><u>fathom</u></em><em> the outrageous lack of attention being paid to the plight of abused animals</em><em>".</em>
Explanation:
To fathom essentially means to <em>comprehend </em>or <em>understand</em>.
This word would only fit answer choice B. After all, it makes sense to have a hard time understanding why the unfortunate situation of animals being abused was being given little to no heed. You would think that such an awful and overall objectionable thing would be given a lot more attention.
The word for answer choice C should be famine (scarcity of food) hence the context clues (i.e., there's destroyed crops and the missing word is a result of such thing. Another result of the ruined crops is starvation, which goes hand and hand with famine.).
The word for answer choice D should be fatten. Ann is hoping to <em>fatten</em> her too skinny son to - well - make him not so skinny. She's not trying to "understand" him per say (how can you hope to understand your too skinny son by feeding him a lot of hearty foods?).
If we selected A as our answer (thus putting fathom as its missing word), it would basically read "Ariel worked hard to understand soil around her parents' farm". That doesn't fit well or make any sense.
