Read the excerpt from "bluesman on the move.”

that long road behind me has
curved through trouble and joy—

throughout the poem, the "long road” symbolizes the bluesman’s

personal growth and life journey.
fear of interacting with strangers.
love of singing and music.
feelings of pain and alienation.

personal growth and life journey.

In the excerpt the "long road" symbolizes the bluesman's personal growth and life journey. He talks about how the road "has curved through trouble and joy." These curves are the different emotions and events that the bluesman has experience in his life. Since the excerpt talks about both trouble and joy, any option can be eliminated that speaks to only one of those emotions...this eliminates all the others. It can also be noted that a road is a common symbol for the path a person's life takes. Frost talks about a road that splits in one of his poems to show that the road less traveled is better than the one everyone takes. We also see this in popular songs and movies as well.

the answer:

in the first part of the story running is all that matters to squeaky. running gives her confidence and defines who she is. at the beginning of the story she says that other kids call her mercury because she runs very fast. in the text she refers to herself as "miss quicksilver".

the line that provides the best evidence that squeaky has self-confidence is

" and i continue with my breathing exercise, strolling down broadway toward the ice cream man on 145th with not a care in the world cause i am miss quicksilver herself".

themselves

an intensive pronoun is a pronoun that ends in self or selves, such as himself, herself, themselves, yourself, ourselves. since band members is a third person plural, the correct intensive pronoun would be themselves. if the band was talked about as a collective noun, itself would be the appropriate intensive pronoun. intensive pronouns are used to add emphasis to the noun it's modifying which is why it directly follows it.