5. Select the correct answer.
In the year 1820, the ship Essex, run by Captain Pollard of Nantucket, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of the whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the ship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so crushed her in, that in less than “ten minutes” she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving plank of her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of the crew reached the land in their boats. Being returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of another ship, but was shipwrecked again upon unknown rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since.

Which choice provides the best objective summary of the excerpt?

A.
Whaling ships sail at extreme risk. The Essex was lost at sea when it was viciously attacked by a whale. On another voyage, another ship ran into rocks and breakers.
B.
Captain Pollard seems to have had the worst time at sea. First, he loses a ship to a whale crushing it, then he loses his second ship when it hits rocks.
C.
The Essex, while sailing in the Pacific, encounters a very large whale that destroys it. The captain, on a second voyage, loses another ship on unseen rocks and decides to stop going on sea voyages.
D.
A large whale destroys the Essex in 1820. The captain survives and then is most unlucky when he also loses that ship on rocks.