19. What does derision mean in this passage: "They were making a mockery on of my horror! this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than
this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision!"
1:ridicule
2:murder
3;agony
4: madness

1: ridicule

Explanation:

Using context clues, the narrator is saying that people are mocking them, ie making fun of him for being scared. They are clearly not happy about being made fun of, saying anything would we better than the pain they feel of being ridiculed. Even though they are feeling agony, that cannot be the answer because it was already written in the passage. Ridicule is the better answer. Ridicule is a synonym for mockery, and ridicule is also the dictionary definition of derision.

an old person

explanation:

quite an interesting way to teach topic sentences, because the answer to this question is the best definition of a topic sentence that one can present, it is as if answering the questions taught you how to do it, this is some real teaching, it is terribly well-done.

the topic sentence in this paragraph is:

topic sentences writers stay on track and keep a paragraph from becoming an aimless collection of sentences about an idea.

which incidentally tells you what a topic sentence should be.