It’s worth thinking about the incentive a wrestler might have to throw a match. maybe he accepts a bribe (which would obviously not be recorded in the data). or perhaps some other arrangement is made between the two wrestlers. keep in mind that the pool of elite sumo wrestlers is extraordinarily tight-knit. each of the sixty-six elite wrestlers fights fifteen of the others in a tournament every two months. furthermore, each wrestler belongs to a stable that is typically managed by a former sumo champion, so even the rival stables have close ties.

which of the following claims is best supported by the evidence in this excerpt?
a. the offering of a bribe is a guaranteed enticement for a champion sumo wrestler to purposely lose a match in a tournament.
b. the close relationship between sumo wrestlers could be an incentive for an elite wrestler to throw a match he doesn’t need to win.
c. because sumo wrestlers have strong social ties, it is a dishonor to throw a match in a tournament.
d. there is great pressure for sumo wrestlers to cheat in order to beat wrestlers from rival stables.

The close relationship between sumo wrestlers could be an incentive for an elite wrestler to throw a match he doesn’t need to win.

In this excerpt, the author tells us that sumo wrestlers have extremely close relationships. The pool of elite sumo wrestlers is extraordinarily tight-knit. Moreover, each wrestler belongs to a stable, and stables often have rivalries between them. Therefore, the author argues that the close relationship between sumo wrestlers might be an incentive for a wrestler to throw a match he does not need to win.

with mrs. linde, nora reveals her insensitivity and lack of shame about the forgery she committed. she implies that mrs. linde has obviously aged since they last met 10 years earlier, which accounts for nora’s inability to recognize her old friend. although nora seems sympathetic to mrs. linde’s plight, she can’t seem to control herself from boasting about her three children, her husband’s recent promotion, and how good she feels to finally have some money to spend. in a way, she seems to be flaunting her good fortune in front of mrs. linde who, deprived of all these benefits, has come to ask nora for . it is also through her interactions with mrs. linde that we realize something deeper lies under nora’s seemingly childish exterior. she reveals the secret of her forgery to mrs. linde and seems to see herself as quite resourceful for having done it.

in the company of dr. rank, nora is freer than she is with her own husband. she openly laughs with joy at knowing that all the other bank employees will be under her husband’s control. she offers dr. rank a macaroon, apparently forgetting that he knows she is forbidden to eat them. she then quickly covers for herself by claiming that mrs. linde brought them. nora seems much more assertive and free with these other characters, as well as unabashedly willing to scheme, lie, and justify her transgressions as altruistic.  

krogstad provides an interesting parallel to nora. like nora, he too is guilty of committing forgery, for which torvald condemns him and decides to fire him. although krogstad is a man and nora a woman, their crimes of forgery unite them. in fact, krogstad might represent what nora would be like if she were a man and were not strictly scrupulous like her husband is. for example, she tells mrs. linde that "a barrister's profession is such an uncertain thing, especially if he won't undertake unsavoury cases; and naturally torvald has never been willing to do that." perhaps nora would have delved into the unsavory, given how opposite she is to her husband. krogstad's is also the only harsh voice of reality that nora is forced to hear, and that is because he blackmails her for her regaining his job at the bank. finally, torvald’s reaction to krogstad’s forgery seems to foreshadow his harsh and cold reaction to nora’s forgery.