These are the verbs in the text:
consists (of)
extends (from)
passes (through)
are
is
say
have taken
The correct answer would be:
b. The mandate to marry within one's tribe
In the passage line : "If it had occurred to him that never in the history of his people had a man married a woman who spoke a different tongue, he might have been less optimistic. " It clearly shows how it has never happened that someone in the tribe marries someone form the outside, cause culturally in his tribe the mandate is to marry people from the inside.
When a word has a negative connotation, that means that is suggests something bad. For instance, exploit suggests something bad while employ suggests something good.
Infamous: Negative
Infamous means popular from a bad deed.
Astute: Positive
Astute means smart or good at understanding people
Secure: Positive
Secure means safe. We normally pair "safe" with a sense of comfort.
Difficult: Negative
Difficult means hard, and most of the time people don't enjoy doing hard things.
Freedom: Positive
Freedom is the ability to do anything one desires without restraint.
Childish: Negative
To be childish is to be described as immature or to act lower than one's actual age.
Frivolous: Negative
Frivolous means to be useless. As humans, we always want to feel important or loved. The opposite would be to feel useless.
Reluctantly: Negative
To do something reluctantly is to do something not out of one's personal pleasure. This normally requires coaxing and typically does not promise rewards.
Answer: She runs as fast as a cheetah, is a simile, since is has 'as' in it. It means that 'she' is really fast.
The sun is a giant fried egg, is a metaphor because it is saying something is exactly something else. It means that the sun looks exactly like an egg.
It's raining cats ad dogs is a metaphor. It means that it is raining really hard outside.