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read this excerpt from "are dogs dumb? " by karen hopkin.
and how come we think dogs are so smart? sure a dog might be clever enough to fetch his leash when he wants to go out. but the same mutt might also bark at a vacuum cleaner and spend a whole hour chasing his own tail. is rover really any brighter than a hamster, a chicken, or that kid who's always eating play-doh? how can you measure an animal's brain power?
what is the author's purpose in this paragraph?
to persuade readers that smaller animals aren't necessarily dumb
to give readers information about animal intelligence
to explain what dogs can and cannot do
to entertain readers with a joke about humans eating play-doh

in the short story the slip-over sweater by jesse stuart, the main character and narrator shan is friends with grace, an intelligent girl he has known since childhood and with whom he used to be in love.

at the beginning of the story, shan believes he’s no longer in love with grace, but loves jo-anne instead. in order to buy a slip-over sweater and have jo-anne wear it so that the other students would know she loved him too, shan takes a loan at the bank.

while jo-anne is wearing shan’s sweater, his friend grace starts to wear another popular boy’s one, roy’s sweater. because of that, the other students begin to pay attention to grace and compliment her perseverance and effort. they admire her for walking 5 miles to school every day, despite the weather, and still getting the best grades. shan, who knows all of that for a fact, says, as the narrator, ‘and i knew she had the durability and the toughness of a storm-battered mountain oak.’ he compares his friend’s strength – not only physical, but also of character – to an oak tree, whose wood is known for being sturdy.

as the story goes on, shan changes his behavior out of concern for the debt he has to pay at the bank. his new girlfriend jo-anne never asks him what is wrong nor offers any sort of . instead, she breaks up with shan for not being as fun as she thought he was supposed to be. grace, however, not only asks about shan’s problem, but him make the money he needs. shan can’t but notice how different the girls are and what a wonderful person grace is.   even though he used to find jo-anne prettier at the beginning of the story, he now says, ‘grace was as beautiful as our mountain was in april, prettier than a blossom of wild phlox or a mountain daisy.’ his comparing grace to a mountain or something that exists on a mountain (such as a mountain oak or daisy) certainly has important meaning since shan loves the mountain and everything about it and he knows the mountain thoroughly. shan also loves and knows grace as completely as he does the mountain.

it depends on the natural disaster. a good one you can choose are hurricanes. water vapor is the "gas" and warm fronts are the "spark". because of the global warming that humans have caused with green house gases, hurricanes have become more frequent and stronger, making them more dangerous.