Base your answers to question 7 on the passage below and on your knowledge of social studies.
"It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as
matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of
machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and
ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with illsmelling dye....
- Charles Dickens, Hard Times
7. Which problem is the subject of this passage?
A. economic inequality
B. urban pollution
C. lack of child labor laws
D. poor transportation systems