Question

read the excerpt from ronald reagan’s tear down this wall speech.
where four decades ago there was rubble, today in west berlin there is the greatest industrial output of any city in germany—busy office blocks, fine homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of park land. where a city’s culture seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless theaters, and museums. where there was want, today there’s abundance.
which statement best explains the use of rhetoric in this paragraph?
○ reagan uses repetition to focus attention on history.
○ reagan uses hasty generalizations to encourage hope.
○ reagan uses parallelism to compare the past to the present.
○ reagan uses hyperbole to emphasize changes that have taken place.

Explanation:

The paragraph uses parallel structure ("Where there was rubble, today..."; "Where a city’s culture seemed to have been destroyed, today..."; "Where there was want, today...") to contrast West Berlin’s past (rubble, destroyed culture, want) with its present (industrial output, universities, abundance). This is parallelism, which aligns with the option describing comparison of past to present via parallel structure.

Answer:

Reagan uses parallelism to compare the past to the present.