Read the excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as an hart.”

Which statement best describes why this excerpt contains an example of deductive reasoning?
a) It contains specific details that support a variety of different ideas.
b) It begins with broad statements and ends with more specific ones.
c) It uses clear examples that are easily understood by all readers.
d) It starts with a very simple idea and builds to a much grander idea.

Read the passage. excerpt from "why equal pay is worth fighting for" by senator elizabeth warren, april 17, 2014 i honestly can't believe that we're still arguing over equal pay in 2014. when i started teaching elementary school after college, the public school district didn't hide the fact that it had two pay scales: one for men and one for women. women have made incredible strides since then. but 40 years later, we're still debating equal pay for equal work. women today still earn only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, and they're taking a hit in nearly every occupation. bloomberg analyzed census data and found that median earnings for women were lower than those for men in 264 of 265 major occupation categories. in 99.6 percent of occupations, men get paid more than women. that's not an accident; that's discrimination. the effects of this discrimination are real, and they are long lasting. today, more young women go to college than men, but unequal pay makes it harder for them to pay back student loans. pay inequality also means a tougher retirement for women. . for middle-class families today, it usually takes two incomes to get by, and many families depend as much on mom's salary as they do on dad's, if not more. women are the main breadwinners, or joint breadwinners, in two-thirds of the families across the country, and pay discrimination makes it that much harder for these families to stay afloat. women are ready to fight back against pay discrimination, but it's not easy. today, a woman can get fired for asking the guy across the hall how much money he makes. here in the senate, sen. barbara mikulski (d-md.) introduced the paycheck fairness act to give women the tools to combat wage discrimination. it would ensure that salary differences have something to do with the actual job that they are doing, and not just because they are women. senator warren states that the effects of pay discrimination are long-lasting. is this a valid argument supported by accurate evidence? no; warren weakens her point by claiming that the paycheck fairness act would "give women the tools to combat wage discrimination." yes; warren supports her point by noting, "for middle-class families today, it usually takes two incomes to get by." yes; warren supports her point by noting, "pay inequality also means a tougher retirement for women." no; warren weakens her point by noting, "today, a woman can get fired for asking the guy across the hall how much money he makes."

Read the excerpt from the war of the worlds, in which the first martian exits the spacecraft.a sudden chill came over me. there was a loud shriek from a woman behind. i half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge of the pit. i saw astonishment giving place to horror on the faces of the people about me. i looked again at the cylinder, and ungovernable terror gripped me. i stood petrified and staring.what option accurately analyzes the impact of the narrator's thoughts and actions on the tone of the excerpt? the war of the worldsa disdainful tone is created as the narrator ponders the ugliness of the tentacles and turns to the shrieking woman.a melancholy tone is created by the narrator's thoughts of fear and refusal to avert his eyes.a tone of determination is created when the narrator thinks of escape and backs away from the edge of the pit.a fearful tone is created through the narrator's thoughts of horror and his glance at the cylinder.

Which three elements of gothic literature clearly mirror the situation of women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? strange characters and settings an overall atmosphere of mystery and suspense unexplained or supernatural events characters’ inability to control their fates high emotions experienced by characters suffering from a sense of doom women threatened by powerful males