1. part a: which word best describes the narrator's tone
toward dr. heidegger's visitors in the first paragraph?
a admiring
b sentimental
c compassionate
d disapproving

D. Disapproving.

Explanation:

Dr. Heidegger's Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of how a scientist used his four friends in an experiment about water from the fountain of youth. And in their greed to stay young, the 'subjects' fought which resulted in the vase being broken.

The first paragraph of the story introduces the characters or the guests for the experiment. The first is Mr. Medbourne, "now little better than a mendicant", Colonel Killigrew who "had wasted his best years, and his health and substance, in the pursuit of sinful pleasures, which had given birth to a brood of pains, such as the gout, and divers other torments of soul and body". Then there is Mr. Gascoigne, "a ruined politician, a man of evil fame" and "the withered gentlewoman, whose name was the Widow Wycherly".

The way the narrator describes these four guests is more of a condescending tone than a happy or agreeable tone. So, we can infer that his tone towards them is a disapproving one.