Does anyone have any tips for understanding passages, stories, articles, etc. quickly and accurately?

Read this excerpt from the exposition in "the monkey's paw." father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire. what is one piece of information you can infer about the story from this sentence? a. the father in the story is possessed, so he probably says insane things a lot. b. the woman in the story is knitting, so the characters probably don't have good clothes to wear. c. the father is playing chess with the son, but the son is not old enough to know the rules. d. since the father likes taking risks in a game, he might like taking risks in life as well.