Question

You are asked to write an essay about why so many residents failed to evacuate from a wildfire before their neighborhood began to burn, using a newspaper article as one of your sources.

Which part of the article would provide the best support for your thesis that the city’s outdated landline warning system was to blame?


A description of the psychology of the fight or flight response from a medical study of recent deadly disasters


A map showing which households did/did not have landlines and which did/did not evacuate in time


The transcript of the city manager’s press conference describing when telephone warnings were issued


Quotes from angry residents claiming they were not warned

Answer 1

A map showing which households did/did not have landlines and which did/did not evacuate in time.

Reason: that visual provides direct, empirical evidence linking lack of landlines to failure to receive warnings/evacuate, supporting the claim the landline-based system was at fault. The other options are anecdotal, indirect, or about human psychology rather than the warning system itself.