A. Gautam
After a busy day of skipping breakfast, little lunch and a very light dinner, Darla was exhausted. She was a little hazy when her dog appeared by her bedside and she asked, “Ralph, why the long face?” Darla didn’t even laugh at her own joke.
Just then, her phone buzzed with a text from her best friend Lori.
“Still on at 3?”
Darla was about to reply with a question mark when she realized that Lori had added her to a group text on accident. Texts started flooding in like an overflowing river in April. Darla quickly understood that her three best friends were planning a celebration for her early acceptance into Yale. At 12, Darla was going to college, which was a big deal indeed. But Darla loved attention as much as she loved eating rotten food. How can I stop this? Darla asked herself as she walked into the kitchen for a late-night snack. After all, her stomach was a hollow pit. The light was on, and she saw her mother fixing a sandwich.
“Mom, why are you eating after 10?” Darla asked her mother who was supposedly on a diet. She saw her mother hide a chocolate bar in the drawer quicker than Flash.
“Kid, why are you still up? Hush. I don’t think I'm allergic to wheat. I miss bread too much,” Laney explained. Her doctor had asked her to keep a close watch on her diet to rule out the allergen that was hard to test.
“I need your help. Lori and others are throwing a party for me. Help me get out of it. She accidentally sent a text to me with the details,” Darla blurted it out.
“Wait a minute, maybe she did it on purpose. That’s just to throw you off. Maybe the real party is a secret,” Laney said. She always considered Lori her second kid and knew her well.
“Could it be?” Darla argued. “I am going 200 miles away. She can’t let me go just like that. What is the plan then?”
“Don’t sweat too much. Anything Lori plans will be pain free for you. Trust me. Go read something boring to sleep. Maybe a dictionary will make your life more meaningful,” Laney said, laughing.
“Wow. Yeah. I will go now,” Darla said, shaking her head at her mother’s jokes that always sent her running. I wonder if I make such corny jokes, she asked herself.
Question
How does the phrase corny jokes in paragraph 11 affect the reader’s point of view of the jokes?
Responses
A The phrase highlights that the jokes are tiresomely simple The phrase highlights that the jokes are tiresomely simple
B The phrase characterizes the jokes as too terrible to be said aloud The phrase characterizes the jokes as too terrible to be said aloud
C The phrase illustrates the timelessness of the jokes The phrase illustrates the timelessness of the jokes
D The phrase shows that the mother has a terrible taste in wordsThe phrase shows that the mother has a terrible taste in words
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The correct response is A: The phrase highlights that the jokes are tiresomely simple.
The use of "corny jokes" implies that the jokes are not sophisticated or clever, but rather simplistic and perhaps predictable, which could be tiresome to the listener. This gives the reader the impression that Darla finds her mother's humor somewhat annoying or unimpressive.
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