Will give 38 !
read the excerpt from the odyssey.
then i sent out two picked men and a runner
to learn what race of men that land sustained.
they fell in, soon enough, with lotus-eaters,
who showed no will to do us harm, only
offering the sweet lotus to our friends—
but those who ate this honeyed plant, the lotus,
never cared to report, nor to return:
they longed to stay forever, browsing on
that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland.
which central idea should be included in a paraphrase of this excerpt?
a. the men sent by odysseus to investigate the land they had landed upon became forgetful after eating lotus plants.
b. the lotus-eaters meant no harm and simply offered the lotus plant to odysseus’s men as a gesture of kindness.
c. the lotus was a sweet plant that made men forget everything except the idea of obtaining and eating more lotus plants.
d. the men sent ashore by odysseus were swayed by the hospitality of the lotus-eaters and abandoned the idea of returning home.

The correct answer is A. The men sent by Odysseus to investigate the land they had landed upon became forgetful after eating Lotus plants.

Explanation:

The term paraphrasing refers to the process of expressing the ideas in a text using one's own words, this means when you paraphrase a text or excerpt you do not change the information, content  or organization of it, but use different words to convey the same message, this is commonly used to make texts clearer or easier to understand. This also implies if you paraphrase the excerpt from "The Odyssey" the same ideas expressed by the author should be included.

In this case, the main ideas in the excerpt is that the main character Odysseus sent some of his men to explored the land "to learn what race of men that land sustained" and while doing this the men encounter some Lotus-Eaters that offer them some Lotus to eat and due to this, the men who ate the Lotus never returned to the ship but stay forever in the land "never cared to report, nor to return: they longed to stay forever". Thus, the central idea that should be included in a paraphrase of the excerpt is "The men sent by Odysseus to investigate the land they had landed upon became forgetful after eating Lotus plant" because this idea expresses what was told during the excerpt but using clearer and simpler words which the objective of paraphrasing.

11-32. the main character in the parable, the forgiving father, whose character remains constant throughout the story, is a picture of god. in telling the story, jesus identifies himself with god in his loving attitude to the lost. the younger son symbolizes the lost (the tax collectors and sinners of that day, luke 15: 1), and the elder brother represents the self-righteous (the pharisees and teachers of the law of that day, luke 15: 2). the major theme of this parable seems not to be so much the conversion of the sinner, as in the previous two parables of luke 15, but rather the restoration of a believer into fellowship with the father. in the first two parables, the owner went out to look for what was lost (luke 15: 1-10), whereas in this story the father waits and watches eagerly for his son's return. we see a progression through the three parables from the relationship of one in a hundred (luke 15: 1-7), to one in ten (luke 15: 8-10), to one in one (luke 15: 11-32), demonstrating god’s love for each individual and his personal attentiveness towards all humanity. we see in this story the graciousness of the father overshadowing the sinfulness of the son, as it is the memory of the father’s goodness that brings the prodigal son to repentance (romans 2: 4).