Answer:
The best answer is c. She's confident that her daughter's attitude is the only reason she's not a genius.
Explanation:
Suyuan is the narrator's mother in Amy Tan's short story "Two Kinds". She is a Chinese woman who decides to make a child prodigy out of her daughter Jing-mei, sort of a Chinese Shirley Temple. She quizzes her on several subjects, changes her hair to make it curly and then short, and finally makes her take piano lessons. At first, Jing-mei is excited about the idea of being a prodigy. She likes to picture all the attention she'll receive, and believes problems won't exist if she is famous. She is not, however, willing to work hard to accomplish things. She chooses to be lazy and, since her mother is constantly nagging her, she chooses to fail. She even says she had the right to be a disappointment. She succeeds in letting her mother down at her piano recital, where she plays terribly. Suyuan is not fooled by her daughter's performance. She knows Jing-mei could have done better if she had been willing to apply herself. Years later, when Jing-mei is already grown up, Suyuan gives her the piano as a present and remarks precisely that:
"Well, I probably can't play anymore," I said. "It's been years." "You pick up fast," my mother said, as if she knew this was certain. “You have natural talent. You could be a genius if you want to." "No, I couldn't." "You just not trying," my mother said. And she was neither angry nor sad. She said it as if announcing a fact that could never be disproved. "Take it," she said.
Answer:
The horse's breath made puffs of steam as she trotted along the road to the cadence of tinkling bells.
Explanation:
It emphasizes tension
In the passage, Death was personified to show how the old
man seems to have perceived his impending death despite not having seen nor
heard the presence of the murderer in the room. Death had the characteristics
of having the ability to stalk, to have a shadow and to envelop its victim. All
of which are humanistic attributes that death in its real sense could not
possibly enact. It creates the tension on the murder that is about to happen
and the thoughts of the murderer on his victim.
