Compare the words darkness and darkest. how are they alike? how are they different?

The words "darkness" and "darkest" are alike because they share the same root. However, they are also different because they have different suffixes and they represent two different word classes.

Explanation: The words "darkness" and "darkest" are alike because they share the same root word: "dark". However, they have different suffixes. While "darkness" ends in the suffix "-ness", "darkest" ends in the suffix "-est". Moreover, these two suffixes indicate that "darkness" is a noun, while "darkest" is a superlative adjective. Therefore, "darkness" and "darkest" are similar but also different.  

the passage can be best described as: "the british legislature extended an unwarranted jurisdiction".

we can say that because the text clearly states how the people of the colonies warned the british about their excessive desire to rule over them, without taking into consideration the difficulties their brothers had experienced in america: they struggled to establish the colonies, to adapt to new types of weather, fight with the natives, etc., and how they now see (or then saw) the only way out was to cut all ties with the british, since they ignored the people's petitions.