Question

read the following passage carefully before you choose your answers. (the passage below is excerpted from an essay published in the early twentieth 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 analogies presented in paragraph 7 (\like a machine-lop\ and \as the cat plays with her kitten\) serve to a make a distinction between the kinds of games that children play and those that adults play b exemplify a difference between how people typically treat children and how they should strive to treat children c set up a paradox to cause readers to question what they know about interacting with children d illustrate the unintended consequences of a particular approach to child rearing zany: a buffoon or clown

Explanation:

The passage critiques how adults laugh at children's language blunders (treating them as entertainment) and draws a parallel to a cat playing with kittens (a playful, unguided interaction) vs. a machine-top (mechanical, unthinking). This sets up a contrast between the current, unkind way people treat children's learning and the more appropriate, supportive approach they should take. The analogies highlight this difference.

Answer:

B. exemplify a difference between how people typically treat children and how they should strive to treat children