This question asks you to find the best textual evidence in the passage to support the given claim that the narrator and his shipmates have been at sea for a long time.

Since the potential evidence is given to us as examples, let's start by checking out all of our options.

Firstly, the passage does, indeed, use archaic diction (archaic diction means old-fashioned language), but does archaic diction alone suggest that the seamen have been out a long time? Not really, within the fictional world of the poem old-fashioned language does nothing to suggest the amount of time that has passed for the characters.

The relative position of the sun in the sky is, indeed, a way to tell if time is passing, but there's not suggestion of the sun's relative position, meaning we don't see it start in one spot and move, which is how you tell time using the sun. Not to mention, the sun is obscured by the end of the passage.

So, having eliminated these options we're left with either "none of these" or "the repetition of 'weary'" as our options. Well, the very word "weary" suggests that enough time has passed for the sailors to have become extremely tired. The specific repletion of this word, which carries the implication of time passing, certainly acts as solid evidence to support the claim that a great deal of time has passed for the sailors at sea.

This is an evidence question; it starts with an assertion about the text's tone and then asks you to select, from the given options, the textual element that BEST supports the claim. The claim given in the answer choices, which you are being asked to support, its that the author's tone is "insistent." So, the first thing you need to establish is a clear understanding of what an "insistent tone" would actually entail. To "insist" on something is to ask for something repeatedly and forcefully. An insistent tone is one that presses a point.

So, looking at our options, the use of the second person and repeated rhetorical questions could all, in theory, signal an insistent tone in a text. The use of classical references (referring to Ancient Greek and Roman mythology and culture) has little to do with a tone of this kind. This poem is quite sincere, as opposed to ironic, and in either case irony has little to do with insistence.

Now, let's turn our attention to the actual passage: are repetition, rhetorical questions, and the second person all in use? "Thou" stands for "you," so there is direct address at play, and we see many, many rhetorical questions. The repetition of the question structure, and the density with which those questions are delivered in the first stanza of the text clearly form the best evidence of an insistent tone.