Read this section from Hiroshima and consider the use of syntax in the passage to answer the follow-up questions. This was the first chance she had had to look at the ruins of Hiroshima; the last time she had been carried through the city’s streets, she had been hovering on the edge of unconsciousness. Even though the wreckage had been described to her, and though she was still in pain, the sight horrified and amazed her, and there was something she noticed about it that particularly gave her the creeps. Over everything—up through the wreckage of the city, in gutters, along the riverbanks, tangled among tiles and tin roofing, climbing on charred tree trunks—was a blanket of fresh, vivid, lush, optimistic green; the verdancy rose even from the foundations of ruined houses. Weeds already hid the ashes, and wild flowers were in bloom among the city’s bones. The bomb had not only left the underground organs of plants intact; it had stimulated them. Everywhere were bluets and Spanish bayonets, goosefoot, morning glories and day lilies, the hairy-fruited bean, purslane and clotbur and sesame and panic grass and feverfew. Especially in a circle at the center, sickle senna grew in extraordinary regeneration, not only standing among the charred remnants of the same plant but pushing up in new places, among bricks and through cracks in the asphalt. It actually seemed as if a load of sickle-senna seed had been dropped along with the bomb.

Part A
Which statement best expresses the effect of Hersey’s syntax in this passage?

The author provides a complex and detailed description of the bombed city overgrown with flowers and vegetation.

The author wants the reader to experience the horrifying ugliness and destruction of the city along with Miss Sasaki.

The author wants to provide a simple, objective, fact-based account of Miss Sasaki’s ride to the Red Cross hospital in Hiroshima.

The author intends to bring the reader inside Miss Sasaki’s perspective with a first-person account of her thoughts on seeing all of the plants growing in the city.

Part B
Which sentence or phrase from the passage provides the strongest example to support your answer?

This was the first chance she had had to look at the ruins of Hiroshima.

The last time she had been carried through the city’s streets, she had been hovering on the edge of unconsciousness.

Even though the wreckage had been described to her, and though she was still in pain.

Over everything—up through the wreckage of the city, in gutters, along the riverbanks, tangled among tiles and tin roofing, climbing on charred tree trunks—was a blanket of fresh, vivid, lush, optimistic green.