Question

questions 1 and 2 refer to the following.read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers.how easy is it to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! but how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave without using any of those opprobrious terms! to spare the grossness of the names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face, and to make the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing. this is the mystery of that noble trade, which yet no master can teach to his apprentice; he may give the rules, but the scholar is never the nearer in his practice. neither is it true that this fineness of raillery is offensive. a witty man is tickled while he is hurt in this manner, and a fool feels it not. the occasion of an offense may possibly be given, but he cannot take it. if it be granted that in effect this way does more mischief, that a man is secretly wounded, and though he be not sensible himself, yet the malicious world will find it out for him; yet there is still a vast difference betwixt the slovenly butchering of a man, and the fineness of a stroke that separates the head from the body, and leaves it standing in its place. a man may be capable, as jack ketchs ¹ wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging; but to make a male-factor die sweetly was only belonging to her husband. i wish i could apply it to myself, if the reader would be kind enough to think it belongs to me.¹ a notorious public executioner2 mark for reviewthe sentence
either . . . offensive\ (sentence 5) does which of the following?a undercuts a point made previously.b contradicts the thesis of the passage.c answers a possible objection.d presents an authoritative example.

Explanation:

The passage first notes witty raillery can hurt a fool, then the sentence "Neither...offensive" clarifies this raillery is not actually offensive, pushing back against the prior implication that it causes harm. This undercuts the earlier suggested point about raillery's hurtful nature.

Answer:

A. Undercuts a point made previously.