Read this excerpt from "a visit from the goon squad."

whatever the reason, a swell of approval palpable as rain lifted from the center of the crowd and rolled out toward its edges, where it crashed against buildings and water wall and rolled back at scotty with redoubled force, lifting him off his stool, onto his feet (the roadies quickly adjusting the microphones), exploding the quavering husk scotty had appeared to be just moments before and unleashing something strong, charismatic, and fierce. anyone who was there that day will tell you the concert really started when scotty stood up.
how does the author portray scotty in this excerpt?

a. his confidence is transformed by the crowd’s response.
b. his musical ability is improving as he performs.
c. his anger is unleashed by the chaos of the crowd.
d. his excitement is shown by his moves on stage.

A) His confidence is transformed by the crowd’s response.

Explanation: In the given excerpt from "A Visit from the Goon Squad" we can see that Scotty is described as a "quavering husk" expressing that he was really nervous just before going on stage. But after the crowd showed a lot of excitement and started to demonstrate their approval, Scotty's confidence is transformed ("...unleashing something strong, charismatic, and fierce") so the correct answer is option A.

themselves

an intensive pronoun is a pronoun that ends in self or selves, such as himself, herself, themselves, yourself, ourselves. since band members is a third person plural, the correct intensive pronoun would be themselves. if the band was talked about as a collective noun, itself would be the appropriate intensive pronoun. intensive pronouns are used to add emphasis to the noun it's modifying which is why it directly follows it.