A student plans to write a literary analysis about “Saved by a Seal” by Theodore A. Cutting. The essay will focus on how the main character’s experience with Nab affected him. Which two sentences from the story give information that will help the student form a thesis statement for the essay?

A. The liveliest seal that father and I ever caught, and the only one that ever got away from us after we had housed it, was Nab.

B. It was my vain attempt to recapture him that terminated in the most exciting experience I ever had with a seal.

C. Our seal-shed, which stood at the edge of the rocks fifteen feet above the surf, held in Nab's day eight occupants, all nearly full-grown.

D. The circus seals, which are caught and trained while young, had all been sold; and these we expected to place in the zoological gardens at Philadelphia and Cincinnati.

E. He would eye a shad in my hand as closely as he had once watched the young salmon darting about in the waters of Monterey Bay