The following text is from Jerome K. Jerome’s 1889 novel Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog). The narrator and two friends are taking a boat down the River Thames in England.
In a boat, I have always noticed that it is the fixed idea of each member of the crew that he is doing everything. Harris’s notion was, that it was he alone who had been working, and that both George and I had been imposing upon him. George, on the other hand, ridiculed the idea of Harris’s having done anything more than eat and sleep, and had a cast-iron opinion that it was he—George himself—who had done all the labour worth speaking of.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
Explanation
Context: The narrator observes that in a boat every crew member is fixed on the idea that he is doing all the work. The task is the function of the underlined sentence about Harris's notion that he alone had been working.
Answer: B) It offers Harris’s belief as a specific example of a trend the narrator has observed while boating.
Why? The general observation comes first and Harris follows as its first instance, with George supplied as a second, certain that he did "all the labour worth speaking of." The sentence places a named case under the rule just stated.
Traps:
- A) No obstacle is described; Harris's concern is credit for work already done, not a problem the crew is solving.
- C) Harris never responds to the narrator's generalization -- he is unaware of it and simply exemplifies it.
- D) Harris is not confused but firmly convinced, however self-flattering the conviction is.