Read the following sentence: The sun's rays caressed the plants that were drooping from the heavy rains. To change the tone of the sentence from peaceful to negative, which word most needs to be replaced? A. rays B. caressed C. drooping D. rains

B. caressed

Explanation:

Caress means to touch something gently in a peasant way. So the sun is not doing any harm to the plants, when the rays reach them they only get warm, nothing else happens. That creates the peaceful tone.

In order to create a negative tone the sun needs to harm the plants. The way to do it is by replacing caressed with a negative verb. An option could be the word blaze, which means to "burn fiercely or brightly".

The result would be:

The sun's rays blazed the plants that were drooping from the heavy rains

B, caressed. It's a very peaceful, gentle, calming word. "The sun's rays dried the plants that were drooping from the heavy rains." is a way you could rewrite it by only changing caress.