The county cleared this path and paved it with packed gravel, so they would have a peaceful place to hike and bike. Which of the following alternatives to the underlined portion would NOT be acceptable?

A. path, paving
B. path and then paved
C. path before paving
D. path paved
To find the unacceptable alternative, let’s first figure out the meaning of the original sentence. Two things happened: first the county cleared the path, and then the county paved it. So any answer choices that express this sequence of events would fit the sentence, and thus not be the "wrong" answer that we are looking for here. Answers A, B, and C all express the same idea in slightly different ways, creating perfectly

“The county cleared this path paved it with packed gravel…”

Read this excerpt from the exposition in "the monkey's paw." father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire. what is one piece of information you can infer about the story from this sentence? a. the father in the story is possessed, so he probably says insane things a lot. b. the woman in the story is knitting, so the characters probably don't have good clothes to wear. c. the father is playing chess with the son, but the son is not old enough to know the rules. d. since the father likes taking risks in a game, he might like taking risks in life as well.