What characteristic distinguishes a ballad from other types of narrative poems?

the epic nature of the topic

the rhythm and rhyme pattern

lyrical imagery

a dramatic plot

Which phrase in this excerpt from james joyce's "araby is a participial phrase? north richmond street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the christian brothers' school set the boys free. an uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. the other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces the former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers. among these i found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: the abbot, by walter scott, the devout communicant and the memoirs of vidocq. i liked yellow. the wild garden behind the house contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes under one of which i found the late tenant's rusty bicycle-pump. he had been a very charitable priest, in his will he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister.

Plz asap read this sentence from paragraph 3 of the article. the boys and girls are merely asked to obtain the signatures of ten friends or relatives. how does the word "merely" affect the meaning of the sentence? a- it suggests that asking people to subscribe to the washington times is something negative. b- it implies that obtaining ten signatures is not a requirement for receiving a prize. c- it downplays the fact that to win the prize, children must ask people to subscribe to the washington times. d- it emphasizes that children receive the prize only if they obtain ten signatures.

Lines 47–56: determine the central idea of these lines