Read the excerpt from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s “Death by Black Hole.” All parts of your body are moving toward the same spot—the black hole’s center. So while you’re getting ripped apart head to toe, you will also extrude through the fabric of space and time, like toothpaste squeezed through a tube. Read the excerpt from Billy Collins’s “Man Listening to Disc.” This is not bad— ambling along 44th Street with Sonny Rollins for company, his music flowing through the soft calipers of these earphones, Which of the following ideas is presented in both excerpts?
Answer
A
individuals finding and accepting their place in the world
B
one individual becoming the center of a vast universe
C
humanity as a small piece in a very large universe
D
the human body is being moved along by an outside force
Explanation
Both excerpts describe a person being carried or moved by something outside themselves. In Tyson’s excerpt, the black hole’s gravity pulls the person toward its center. In Collins’s excerpt, the speaker is “ambling along” while Sonny Rollins’s music accompanies him. The idea that humanity is a small piece of a vast universe appears in Tyson’s excerpt, but not in Collins’s.
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