Which statement best expresses the central idea of the
excerpt?
General Clinton, concerned about what General Howe
was planning and doing, made use of a mask to write a
secret message in a letter to General Burgoyne.
Before writing the letter, Clinton had placed an hourglass-
shaped mask on a piece of paper and then had formed
the secret message within that shape.
O Generals were able to send secret messages to each
other using a mask.
O General Howe failed to help the other generals defeat
the Americans.
• The British were better at using codes than the
Americans.
O False information in a letter could cause problems for
the Americans.
The unmasked letter had enough false information in it to
fool any American who happened to see it. But when
Burgoyne viewed the letter with the mask, he read
Clinton's view of the real situation: Howe has made a
bad move; I don't have enough men to do anything about
it