Question

read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers. (this passage is excerpted from an essay published in the 20th century.) every child has to learn the language he is born to, is certain that he will make mistakes in the process, especially as he is not taught it by any wise system, but blunders into what usage he can grasp from day to day. now, if an adult foreigner were learning our language, and we greeted his efforts with yells of laughter, we should think ourselves grossly rude. and what should we think of ourselves if we further misled him by setting absurd words and phrases before him, encouraging him to further blunders, that we might laugh the more; and then, if we had visitors, inciting him to make these blunders over again to entertain the company? yet this is common household sport, so long as there is a little child to act as \zany\ for the amusement of his elders. the errors of a child are not legitimate grounds of humour, even to those coarse enough to laugh at them, any more than a toddling baby’s falls have the same elements of the incongruous as the overthrow of a stout old gentleman who sits down astonished in the snow. the primary purpose of the passage is to a detail a solution to a problem b critique a common practice c point out a discrepancy in a theory d describe the origin of a movement

Explanation:

The passage first notes children make language mistakes as part of learning, then draws a parallel to how adults mock foreign language learners' errors. It argues this behavior is rude and that such mockery (treating a child's blunders as amusement) is not legitimate humor, criticizing this common, unkind practice.

Answer:

B. critique a common practice