Question

select the correct text in the passage
during his boyhood, the main character in john updikes \the brown chest\ believes that the present is more powerful than the past. which part of the excerpt supports this statement?
the entire front of the house had this neglected quality, with its guest bedroom where guests hardly ever stayed ; it held a gray - painted bed with silver moons on the headboard and corner posts shaped at the top like mushrooms, and a little desk by the window where his mother sometimes, but not often, wrote letters and confided sentences to her diary in her tiny backslanting hand. if she had never done this, the room would have become haunted, even though it looked out on the busy street with its telephone wires and daytime swish of cars but the occasional scratch of her pen exerted just enough pressure to keep away the frightening shadows, the sad spirits from long ago, locked into events that couldnt change.

Explanation:

To support the statement that the present is more powerful than the past, we look for text showing present actions countering past influences. The phrase "the occasional scratch of her pen exerted just enough pressure to keep away the frightening shadows, the sad spirits from long ago, locked into events that couldn’t change" shows the mother's present (occasional writing) warding off past "sad spirits" and "frightening shadows", implying present actions have power over past.

Answer:

"the occasional scratch of her pen exerted just enough pressure to keep away the frightening shadows, the sad spirits from long ago, locked into events that couldn’t change"