Question

question 8 of 10
read the following passage from the grapes of wrath.

the little farmers watched debt creep up on them like the
tide. they sprayed the trees and sold no crop, they pruned
and grafted and could not pick the crop.

which statement best describes the syntax of this passage?

a. the author feels frustrated for the farmers.

b. the author uses repetition and parallelism.

c. the author shows how the farmers’ work was done in vain.

d. the author describes the farmers with action verbs.

Explanation:

Syntax refers to the arrangement of words and sentence structure. Option A is about tone/empathy, not syntax. Option C is about the passage's thematic meaning, not structure. Option D mentions action verbs, but the defining syntactic feature here is the parallel structure of "they sprayed... sold no crop, they pruned and grafted and could not pick the crop" and the repetitive subject-verb pattern, which is parallelism and repetition.

Answer:

B. The author uses repetition and parallelism.