Question

revolutionary road
read the passage(s) below and answer the questions based on what is stated or implied in the passage(s) and in any introductory material
that may be provided.
in this passage, a newly-formed acting group called \the players\ is preporing to put on its first show.
(1) the players, coming out of their various kitchen doors and hesitating for a minute to button their coats or pull on their gloves, would see
a landscape in which only a few very old, weathered houses seemed to belong. it made their own homes look as weightless and
unpermanent, as foolishly misplaced as a great many bright new tovs that had been left outdoors overnight and rained on. (2) their
automobiles didnt look right either - unnecescarily wide and gleaming in the colors of candy and ice cream, seeming to wince at each
vibration of rust, they crawled apologetically down the broken roads that led from all directions to the deep, level slab of route twelve. (3)
once there the cars seemed able to relax in an environment all their own, a long bright valley of colored plastic and plate glass and stainless
steel - king kone, mobilgas, shoporama, eat - but eventually they had to turn off, one by one, and make their way up the winding
country road that led to the central high school, they had to pull up and stop in the quiet parking lot outside the high school auditorium.
(4) then the players would shyly call to one another
(5) then
(6) then
(7) and theyd go reluctantly inside
(8) clumping their heavy galoshes around the stage, kidding at their mises with kleenex and frowning at the unsteady print of their scripts,
(9) they would disarm each other at last with peals of forgiving laughter, and they would agree, over and over, that there was plenty of time to
smooth the thing out. (10) but there wasnt plenty of time, and they all knew it, and a doubting and redoubling of their rehearsal schedules
seemed only to make matters worse. (11) long after dark, long after the time, had come for what the director called
eally getting this thing off the ground,
finally making it happen,\ a nervous, a static, hopeless, infuriatingly heavy weight: time and time again they read the promise of failure in
cach others eyes, in the acoustics: nods and smiles of their parting and the stupid, futile wish which they broke for their cars and drove
home to whatever stale, less explicit promises of failure might be wait for them there. (12) and next bright, with twenty-four hours to go,
they had somehow managed to bring it off. (13) cladly in the unfamiliar heat of make - up and costumes on the first worth evening of the year,
they had forgotten it for a while, they had felt the movement of the play come and carry them, and break like a wave, and engulf it sounded
pretty good even if it didnt but they had at just the results into that week. (14) could anyone ever ask for more than that?
from richard yates, revolutionary road, 01961 by rerard
verse, originally published in 1961.
the contrasts the narrator draws in sentences 1 and 2 between the players homes and the houses in the \landscape\ and between the players
automobiles and the
oads\ are most likely meant to suggest that the players homes and automobiles are
a. old and neglected
b. modern and strange
c. small but expensive
d. grand but unappreciated

Explanation:

The passage describes the Players' homes as looking "weightless and impermanent, as foolishly misplaced as a great many bright new toys that had been left outdoors overnight and rained on" and their automobiles as "unnecessarily wide and gleaming in the colors of candy and ice cream, seeming to wince at each splatter of mud". This contrast with the "very old, weathered houses" in the landscape and the "broken ruts" of the roads suggests that the Players' homes and automobiles are grand (like new toys, wide and gleaming) but out - of - place or unappreciated (weightless, misplaced, wincing at mud).

Answer:

D. grand but unappreciated