Neal was so excited. His high school was having a bake-off, and the owners of a local cupcake shop were going to judge. Neal had always had a knack for cooking and baking, and he was pretty sure he could win this contest. He'd perfected his classic vanilla cupcake recipe. On the way to biology class, he asked his friend Liza what she was baking for the contest. "I'm going to make my grandmother's red velvet cupcakes, topped with cream cheese frosting and cinnamon," Liza replied. Neal groaned. Liza's cupcakes sounded so much more creative. Suddenly, his simple vanilla cupcakes seemed lame. Determined to impress the judges, Neal changed his cupcake recipe. He added a marshmallow filling to each cupcake. To liven up his buttercream frosting, he added purple food dye, lavender oil, and licorice extract. The cupcakes still looked boring, so he garnished them with gold dust, rice paper birds, and edible flower petals. In spite of all these adventurous touches, his cupcakes turned out lopsided and goopy, and the frosting tasted strongly like licorice. But he was sure the cupcake judges would look highly on how fancy his cupcakes were. Neal could hardly wait for the contest results to be posted after school. But when he saw the list on the wall, his mouth fell open. He didn't win any prizes, not even as a runner- up. And first place had gone to one of his classmates, Drew Feldman. The description by Drew's cupcakes read, "Classic Vanilla." Which of the following best describes the main theme or lesson of the story?

A. Even when you work hard at something, you might fail a number of times before you succeed.

B. It's often better to do a good job on something simple than attempt too many things at once.​

in the short story the slip-over sweater by jesse stuart, the main character and narrator shan is friends with grace, an intelligent girl he has known since childhood and with whom he used to be in love.

at the beginning of the story, shan believes he’s no longer in love with grace, but loves jo-anne instead. in order to buy a slip-over sweater and have jo-anne wear it so that the other students would know she loved him too, shan takes a loan at the bank.

while jo-anne is wearing shan’s sweater, his friend grace starts to wear another popular boy’s one, roy’s sweater. because of that, the other students begin to pay attention to grace and compliment her perseverance and effort. they admire her for walking 5 miles to school every day, despite the weather, and still getting the best grades. shan, who knows all of that for a fact, says, as the narrator, ‘and i knew she had the durability and the toughness of a storm-battered mountain oak.’ he compares his friend’s strength – not only physical, but also of character – to an oak tree, whose wood is known for being sturdy.

as the story goes on, shan changes his behavior out of concern for the debt he has to pay at the bank. his new girlfriend jo-anne never asks him what is wrong nor offers any sort of . instead, she breaks up with shan for not being as fun as she thought he was supposed to be. grace, however, not only asks about shan’s problem, but him make the money he needs. shan can’t but notice how different the girls are and what a wonderful person grace is.   even though he used to find jo-anne prettier at the beginning of the story, he now says, ‘grace was as beautiful as our mountain was in april, prettier than a blossom of wild phlox or a mountain daisy.’ his comparing grace to a mountain or something that exists on a mountain (such as a mountain oak or daisy) certainly has important meaning since shan loves the mountain and everything about it and he knows the mountain thoroughly. shan also loves and knows grace as completely as he does the mountain.

after i had a fight with my girlfriend, ben advised me to apologise.

explanation: