Question

read the excerpt from ronald reagan’s “tear down this wall” speech. where four decades ago there was rubble, today in west berlin there is the greatest industrial output of any city in germany—busy office blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of park land. where a city’s culture seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless theaters, and museums. where there was want, today there’s abundance. which statement best explains the use of rhetoric in this paragraph? reagan uses repetition to focus attention on history. reagan uses hasty generalizations to encourage hope. reagan uses parallelism to compare the past to the present. reagan uses hyperbole to emphasize changes that have taken place.

Explanation:

Parallelism involves contrasting related ideas using similar grammatical structures. Reagan's text contrasts the past ("where four decades ago there was rubble... where a city's culture seemed to have been destroyed") with the present ("today in West Berlin there is... today there are two great universities...") using repeated "where... today" structure to draw a clear comparison between the past state and current state of West Berlin. The other options are incorrect: there is no repetition of key phrases for historical focus, no hasty generalizations, and no exaggerated hyperbole—only direct, structured contrast of past and present.

Answer:

Reagan uses parallelism to compare the past to the present.