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Craft and Structure / Text Structure and Purpose Difficulty: Easy

The following text is from Ameen Rihani’s 1921 poem “The Wanderer.”

I wander among the hills of alien lands

Where Nature her prerogative resigns

To Man; where Comfort in her shack reclines

And all the arts and sciences commands.

But in my soul

The eastern billows roll—

I hear the voices of my native strands.

Which choice best describes the function of the underlined lines in the text as a whole?

It establishes that the speaker’s enthusiasm about current travels conflicts with the growing urge to return home.

It illustrates the speaker’s uncertainty about maintaining strong links with relatives in distant places.

It conveys the speaker’s sense of feeling a pull toward home while traveling in an unfamiliar place.

It reveals that upon returning after an extended absence, the speaker longs for the way a location once felt.

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Explanation

Choice C is the best answer because it most accurately describes the function of the underlined lines in the text as a whole. In the opening line of the text, the speaker describes wandering in "alien lands," which establishes that the speaker is traveling in unfamiliar territory. In the underlined lines, the speaker describes "billows" (large waves) rolling in the soul, which suggests that the speaker feels inner turmoil. The underlined lines go on to associate these rolling billows with voices calling to the speaker from the speaker’s "native strands," or homeland, indicating that thoughts of home are prompting the emotional experience these lines describe. Taken together, the imagery in the underlined lines thus implies that the speaker feels a deep emotional connection to, or pull toward, home while traveling in an unfamiliar place.

Choice A is incorrect. While the text’s first line states that the speaker is traveling and the underlined lines indicate that the speaker experiences an emotional pull toward home, neither the underlined lines nor the text as a whole establishes an enthusiasm about the current travels that conflicts with a growing urge to return home. The text’s description of the lands the speaker is traveling in focuses on their artificial quality, stating, "Nature her prerogative resigns / To Man," which doesn’t suggest enthusiasm but rather a sense of detachment or even critique. Choice B is incorrect because the underlined lines don’t address uncertainty about maintaining links with relatives in distant places. In the underlined lines, the speaker expresses a sense of connection to the speaker’s homeland ("native strands") but doesn’t refer to any family members the speaker may have there or to concerns about maintaining any familial ties. Choice D is incorrect because the poem doesn’t indicate that the speaker has returned home after an absence. Rather, the speaker explicitly states, "I wander among the hills of alien lands," establishing that the current setting is a foreign place. Moreover, the underlined lines express a sense of connection with, or pull toward, a distant homeland, not a sense of longing for how that homeland or any other location once felt.