medium · Act reading

The river had been the town's livelihood for as long as anyone could remember, turning the mill wheels and carrying timber to the markets downstream. But after the new dam was finished, the current slowed to a glassy stillness, and the mill wheels hung motionless above water that no longer pushed them. The old millers spoke of the change as though a friend had grown quiet and distant, while the younger residents, who had never known the river's roar, saw only a calm and convenient pond. To the elders, the silence was a kind of loss; to the young, it was simply the way the river had always been. The passage most strongly suggests that the difference between the elders and the younger residents stems primarily from:

1. a disagreement about whether the dam was worth the cost of building.
2. their differing memories of what the river was like before the dam.
3. the younger residents' refusal to listen to the millers' stories.
4. a shortage of work caused by the mill wheels falling still.

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