Read the excerpt from "A Quilt of a Country."
America is an improbable idea. A mongrel nation built of
ever-changing disparate parts, it is held together by a
notion, the notion that all men are created equal, though
everyone knows that most men consider themselves
better than someone. "Of all the nations in the world, the
United States was built in nobody's image," the historian
Daniel Boorstin wrote. That's because it was built of bits
and pieces that seem discordant, like the crazy quilts
that have been one of its great folk-art forms, velvet and
calico and checks and brocades. Out of many, one. That
is the ideal.
The reality is often quite different, a great national striving
consisting frequently of failure. Many of the oft-told
stories of the most pluralistic nation on earth are stories
not of tolerance, but of bigotry. Slavery and sweatshops,
the burning of crosses and the ostracism of the other.
Which statement best traces the development of a
central idea from one paragraph to the next?
O The first paragraph discusses the aspects of
American culture that unify Americans. The second
paragraph discusses the aspects of American culture
that tear Americans apart and cause friction.
O The first paragraph discusses the idea that
Americans are united as one despite their differences.
The second paragraph discusses the idea that acts of
intolerance make it difficult to believe that Americans
are united as one.
The first paragraph discusses possible benefits to
living in a society like America. The second paragraph
discusses the disadvantages of living in a society like
America.
The first paragraph discusses the diversity of
American society and its role in history. The second