Read this excerpt from The People Could Fly.

But for now, he [Jim] was a slave. Not far from the big house of the slaveowner was a pond. Jim liked to sit beside it and think. Someone had told him that animals used to talk. And Jim dreamed that someday some animal would talk to him and tell him how to get his freedom. . . .

. . . And he thought one day that if he let his owner meet the cooter, he might get his freedom that way. After all, a talkin cooter was a wonderful thing to hear.

Which statement best describes Jim’s viewpoint in the story?

a. He is doubtful that he will ever live as a free man.
b. He believes that his owner is a fair and honest person.
c. He thinks that the cooter is trying to deceive him.
d. He is hopeful that he will eventually escape slavery.

Isaw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which ! had escaped. another step before my fall, and the world had seen me no more and the death just avoided was of that very character which i had regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the inquisition. to the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors. i had been reserved for the latter. by long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until i trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which awaited me. which torture does the passage above reference? a. being eaten alive by rats b.being sliced open by a giant blade c.being killed by falling into a hole d. being burned alive