1) in "to a poor old woman," how does the image of ripe plums "seeming to fill the air" affect the poem?

it makes clear to readers that the woman knows that she is being observed by the speaker as she eats.
it works to suggest the sound made by the woman eating the plums, which the speaker can hear from afar.
it stress the idea that the woman, though poor and old, is greatly soothed by the simple pleasure of eating the plums.
it indicates that the speaker is not really observing a woman eating plums, but is actually imagining the entire scene.

2)in "to a poor old woman," how does the woman herself serve as a symbol?

she represents the beauty of nature in comparison to the ugliness of technology, which stresses the poem's sullen mood.
she represents the indifference of society towards its most vulnerable members, which creates the poem's dour mood.
she represents the true happiness that can be experienced by partaking in life's simple pleasures, which give the poem its optimistic mood.
she represents the basic decency and generosity that people exhibit towards one another every day, which conveys the poem's joyous mood.

3)in “goodbye to all that,” how does joan didion’s comparing her feelings for new york to the love one feels in a romantic relationship affect the tone of the narrative?

it works to better convey the narrative's self-deprecating tone.
it develops the narrative's clear-eyed, honest tone.
it subtly stresses the narrative's comic tone.
it create the narrative's sentimental, wistful tone.
4) in "goodbye to all that," joan didion writes that the days before she "knew the names of all the bridges were happier than the ones that came later."

which evidence from the text best supports the idea that her first years in new york were better than her last years in the city?

"everything that was said to me i seemed to have heard before, and i could no longer listen. i could no longer sit in little bars near grand central and listen to someone complaining of his wife’s inability to cope with the while he missed another train to connecticut."
" we walked to a spanish restaurant and drank bloody marys and gazpacho until we felt better. i was not then guilt-ridden about spending afternoons that way, because i still had all the afternoons in the world."
"and even that late in the game i still liked going to parties, all parties, bad parties, saturday-afternoon parties given by recently married couples who lived in stuyvesant town, west side parties given by unpublished or failed writers who served cheap red wine and talked about going to "
"now when new york comes back to me it comes in hallucinatory flashes, so clinically detailed that i sometimes wish that memory would effect the distortion with which it is commonly credited."

5) how does the allusion to the garden of eden in paragraph 2 affect this passage?

it suggests that the grounds are beautiful and comfortable.
it suggests that it is a place where snakes pose great danger.

it suggests that the family will be forced to leave their home soon.
it suggests that the neighborhood is private and highly religious.