to get the readers' attention and make them interested in reading further
If an essay had a boring beginning, the reader wouldnt be interested in reading it and the point is to get someone to read it
They do this to grab your attention, to get you interested and thinking.
I would say it's D. "to provide questions to be answered in the rest of the essay." Sometimes, there are questions at the beginning of an essay/short story because it will help readers to focus on certain parts of the story. I'm not very good at explaining this, but think of it as giving readers something to think about as they read throughout the story. Hope this helped!
