<span>"crops withered, curled up, then died under the thirsty sun"
</span><span>"morning in July a hurricane came out of the east snapping their roots and tearing them out of the earth"
</span><span>"a voice that seemed to rumble out of the earth itself"</span>
It depends on which word is underlined.
If the underlined word is <em>boat, </em>then it is used as A. predicate nominative in this sentence.
A predicate nominative is a noun following a copulative/linking verb.
The linking verb in this sentence is <em>is, </em>and the noun following it is <em>boat. </em>
The correct answer is A. We practiced for the debate and many arguments were rehearsed.
As you can see in this sentence, in the first part the pronoun <em>we </em>is used, and in the latter part, that pronoun just disappears and the sentence suddenly becomes passive rather than active. The shift isn't done properly - it is rather awkward. The other options are consistent - they use only one voice rather than two (like in sentence A).
A loaded word is a word that not only informs but also caries some emotion with it, such as condemning, exciting, praising. In the statement above the loaded word is "crushing" - it makes a qualitative statement about the defeat: it was a very definite defeat.
