This is due in 10

read this excerpt from an essay. what is the author’s main purpose?

my first day of high school was a total nightmare. i will never forget that day. i was a skinny, freckled, 14-year-old nobody. i just wanted to blend in, but i somehow spent the entire day being noticed for the wrong reasons. i messed everything up. i forgot my books. i went to the wrong classes. so when i went to the wrong lunch session and ended up in a room full of seniors, i wasn’t surprised. luckily, someone came to my rescue. sensing my anxiety, one girl pointed out that i was lucky to be lost in that room because it was the meeting place of the school’s new community service council. she volunteered to take me to the food court and told me to ask her if i ever needed . beneath the red, white, and blue school banners, i watched her skip away to another boy who had dropped his tray. apparently, i wasn’t the only one having a bad day. the community service council ended up having a huge effect on my high school life. i just wish i could have found it in a less embarrassing way.

Which detail belongs in paragraph 5 to support the main idea of the paragraph? a) places to receive acupuncture are increasingly easy to find all across the united states. b) not everyone is necessarily fond of acupuncture; some patients prefer other methods of physical therapy. c) even though acupuncture is a popular chinese treatment, it has grown popular around the world. d) most of the adverse effects of acupuncture that have been reported do not derive from the procedure itself but from improper application.

Which two passages in this excerpt from the death of ivan illych does leo tolstoy use to suggest that ivan ilych feels like his life is slipping away from him? "what's the use? it makes no difference," he said to himself, staring with wide-open eyes into the darkness. "death. yes, death. and none of them knows or wishes to know it, and they have no pity for me. now they are playing." (he heard through the door the distant sound of a song and its accompaniment.) "it's all the same to them, but they will die too! fools! i first, and they later, but it will be the same for them. and now they are merry . . the beasts! " anger choked him and he was agonizingly, unbearably miserable. "it is impossible that all men have been doomed to suffer this awful horror! " he raised himself. "something must be wrong. i must calm myself—must think it all over from the beginning." and he again began thinking. "yes, the beginning of my illness: i knocked my side, but i was still quite well that day and the next. it hurt a little, then rather more. i saw the doctors, then followed despondency and anguish, more doctors, and i drew nearer to the abyss. my strength grew less and i kept coming nearer and nearer, and now i have wasted away and there is no light in my eyes.

In “we wear the mask,” which message is conveyed by dunbar’s repetition of the phrase “we wear the mask”?