Why did it surprise him so much?

• A. You never saw mosquitos in the survival shows.
• B. He expected mosquitoes to be common.
• C. The survival shows warned of mosquitoes.
• D. Mosquitoes were loud at night.

Answer: (A)

The surprise comes from how his expectations were shaped by media. He’d watched survival shows that almost never featured mosquitoes, so he didn’t anticipate encountering them in the real wilderness. When reality included these biting insects, it stood in stark contrast to what those shows suggested, making the moment feel unexpected. This demonstrates how media representations can set up false or incomplete ideas of what the environment is like, leading to reactions when real conditions don’t match those depictions.

The other ideas don’t fit as well because they would imply that he expected mosquitoes to be a normal, non-surprising part of the scene, or that the shows themselves warned about them, or that the noise alone was the source of his reaction. But the core reason his reaction was so strong is the mismatch between the absence of mosquitoes in the survival shows and their real presence in the wilderness.