Here are two fragments out of Hatcher's book (see http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/AT/AT.pdf for the full book).
Questions: (1) Does this mean we get a long exact sequence which has the form $$\dots \to\tilde{H}_n(A) \to \tilde{H}_n(X) \to H_n(X,A) \to \tilde{H}_{n-1}(A) \to \tilde{H}_{n-1} \to \dots$$
Or do I need to modify the $H_n(X,A)$ by $\tilde{H}_n(X,A)$ or something like that?
(2) Can someone explain the second paragraph in the picture in some detail? I was not able to understand what Hatcher was trying to explain.
Thanks in advance for any help.
