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Question

Difficulty: MediumMeeting Specific Rhetorical Goals

Passage Excerpt:

In 1696, Henry Winstanley began constructing the first Eddystone Lighthouse on a notorious reef off the coast of Plymouth, England. The lighthouse was a wooden structure, highly ornate and adorned with carvings and a grand drawing room. [1] Winstanley was so confident in his design that he famously wished to be inside the lighthouse during "the greatest storm that ever was."

Which choice most effectively emphasizes the extreme vulnerability of the lighthouse's design and location to the harsh elements of the sea?

  1. The wooden tower was anchored to a low-lying reef that was entirely submerged at high tide, leaving the structure exposed to the open ocean's brutal waves.Answer
  2. B
    The lighthouse featured a massive glass lantern room at the top, which housed sixty tallow candles to guide passing ships.
  3. C
    The structure was located fourteen miles off the coast, it took over three years to complete because of the difficult conditions.
  4. D
    Winstanley funded the construction himself using the profits from his popular exhibitions of mechanical inventions in London.

Answer

The option describing the wooden tower anchored to a low-lying reef submerged at high tide, leaving the structure exposed to the open ocean's brutal waves.
The choice detailing the wooden tower anchored to a low-lying reef submerged at high tide is correct because it directly fulfills the rhetorical goal of highlighting the lighthouse's vulnerability due to its material (wood), location (submerged reef), and environmental forces (brutal waves).

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the prompt's rhetorical goal.
The goal is to find the choice that highlights the vulnerability of the lighthouse's design/material (wooden) and location (reef) to the sea's forces.
This establishes the criteria for evaluating the choices.
2
Evaluate the choices against the rhetorical goal.
Only the option mentioning the wooden tower and the submerged reef directly addresses both physical vulnerability and environmental elements. The other choices discuss candles, construction duration, or Winstanley's finances.
This identifies the option that fulfills the rhetorical requirements.
3
Check the chosen option for grammatical correctness.
The correct option is grammatically sound, whereas the option mentioning the distance off the coast contains a comma splice.
ACT English questions require the correct choice to be both rhetorically appropriate and grammatically correct.

Key Concept

Meeting Specific Rhetorical Goals
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Meeting Specific Rhetorical Goals

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