Question

Read the following list of scenes from a story, and think about the story’s narrative structure.

Scene 1: An old woman waits at a bus stop. She wears a special dress and make-up.
Scene 2: The woman’s daughter shows up. She had to track down her mother, who did not tell her where she was going.
Scene 3: The daughter scolds the mother for coming to the bus stop.
Scene 4: The mother tunes out the daughter. She remembers scenes from a romance she had more than fifty years ago.
Scene 5: The mother tells her daughter that some people never leave your heart.
Scene 6: The bus pulls up, and the two stand up to greet an elderly man as he disembarks.

Which of the following BEST describes the narrative structure of this story?
Group of answer choices

The story starts out with a scene from the future to help explain the conflict and then introduces the characters.

The story begins with an unexplained conflict, next uses a flashback to explain the conflict, and then resolves the conflict.

The story begins with background information on the characters, next introduces their conflict, and then resolves the conflict.

The story starts out with a conflict and then presents events in chronological order to build to a climax.

Answer 1

The second choice.

The story opens with an unexplained conflict (mother waiting in a special dress at the bus stop and the daughter’s anger), then uses a flashback (the mother's memories of a romance from fifty years ago) to explain the motive, and finally resolves the conflict when the elderly man arrives.