Question

read the following paragraph from the article.
but he couldn’t quite decipher the shape of the sound. was is scattered, as if it hit foliage or chain link? was it a clean pulse ricocheting off a stucco wall? was it hitting multiple objects and coming back in fragments, milliseconds apart?
which of the following excerpts from the article helps explain the word \decipher\ as used in the above sentence?
(a)
ryo hirosawa pushed the tip of his tongue hard to his palate, and made a sharp click.
(b)
they stepped into the yard to find out whether he was right.
(c)
hirosawa kept clicking, and edges in the acoustic landscape gradually began to emerge as a faint picture.
(d)
the space before the blind man was a riddle he needed to solve.

Explanation:

The word "decipher" in the original paragraph means to interpret or make sense of the unclear, fragmented sound. Option C shows Hirosawa using clicks to gradually interpret (decipher) the acoustic environment into a mental picture, which mirrors the act of interpreting unclear sensory information. The other options do not demonstrate the act of interpreting/decoding ambiguous input: A is just making a click, B is checking a guess, D describes a space as a riddle but not the act of decoding it.

Answer:

C. Hirosawa kept clicking, and edges in the acoustic landscape gradually began to emerge as a faint picture.