Critical Reading Question

<p>Hi, I cannot reason the answer of this question.</p>

<p>It chanced that she came, at length, to be governess in a large family that had Gibbs for its name and Notting Hill for its background. Edward, the eldest son, was a clerk in the city, who spent his evenings in the practice of amateur conjuring. ** He was a freckled youth, with hair that bristled in places where it should have lain smooth, and he fell in love with Zuleika duly, at first sight, during high-tea.** In the course of the evening, he sought to win her admiration by a display of all his tricks. These were familiar to this household, and the children had been sent to bed, the mother was dozing, long before the seance was at an end. But Miss Dobson, unaccustomed to any gaieties, sat fascinated by the young man’s sleight of hand, marvelling that a top-hat could hold so many goldfish, and a handkerchief turn so swiftly into a silver florin. All that night, she lay wide awake, haunted by the miracles he had wrought. Next evening, when she asked him to repeat them, “Nay,” he whispered, “I cannot bear to deceive the girl I love. Permit me to explain the tricks.” So he explained them. His eyes sought hers across the bowl of gold-fish, his fingers trembled as he taught her to manipulate the magic canister. One by one, she mastered the paltry secrets. Her respect for him waned with every revelation. He complimented her on her skill. “I could not do it more neatly myself!” he said. “Oh, dear Miss Dobson, will you but accept my hand, all these things shall be yours–the cards, the canister, the goldfish, the demon egg-cup–all yours!” Zuleika, with ravishing coyness, answered that if he would give her them now, she would “think it over.” The swain consented, and at bed-time she retired with the gift under her arm. In the light of her bedroom candle Marguerite hung not in greater ecstasy over the jewel-casket than hung Zuleika over the box of tricks. She clasped her hands over the tremendous possibilities it held for her–manumission from her bondage, wealth, fame, power. Stealthily, so soon as the house slumbered, she packed her small outfit, embedding therein the precious gift. Noiselessly, she shut the lid of her trunk, corded it, shouldered it, stole down the stairs with it. Outside–how that chain had grated! and her shoulder, how it was aching!–she soon found a cab. She took a night’s sanctuary in some railway-hotel. Next day, she moved into a small room in a lodging- house off the Edgware Road, and there for a whole week she was sedulous in the practice of her tricks. Then she inscribed her name on the books of a “Juvenile Party Entertainments Agency.”</p>

<p>The description in lines 23-25 (“He was…high tea”) is intended primarily to suggest that
(A) Edward has fallen in love with previous governesses
(B) Edward has been misled by Zuleika
(C) Edward is discourages about his prospects for the future
(D) Edward and Zuleika are about to become romantically involved
(E) Edward is responding to Zuleika just as other young men have</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

<p>That’s got to be D. no doubt. I’ll try to explain more later.</p>

<p>Sorry, is that right?</p>

<p>No, sorry. That is actually the answer I chose. The real answer is E, but I just cannot rationalize it.</p>

<p>Did this question come from a real SAT? Which test?</p>

<p>Note the word “duly”.
“…he fell in love with Zuleika duly.”</p>

<p>Duly: What might be expected or predicted.</p>

<p>So, with that in mind, A and E make the most sense, but A is entirely unrelated, so E must be the right answer</p>

<p>I hate those questions… because here you have to know what the word “duly” means first…
Not infer from the rest of the passage… ONLY in this lines, the author suggests that the protagonist “duly” (or as expected) fell in love with the girl… This is a pretty tough one…
ughh… I HATE CR… One word makes aaall the difference, and since we are no encyclopedias, this is bad :-/</p>

<p>Did u ever find out which test it was?</p>

<p>yeah it looks really familiar but I cannot recall which test it was.</p>

<p>2009 May Sunday test. “Duly” is the clue. Vocab matters.</p>

<p>It is actually a LOT simpler than that … as long as one remembers that the answer is given and that additional inferences are NOT a good idea. The process of elimination works well in this case. </p>

<p>The above post is correct. While knowing the word DULY (and hardly a difficult word for a high schooler) might suggest “something” the real clue is something else. </p>

<p>The sentence could have been “He fell in love with Zuleika, at first sight, during high-tea” and it would not have changed the process of finding the right answer.</p>

<p>(A) Edward has fallen in love with previous governesses - no mention of governesses
(B) Edward has been misled by Zuleika - no mention of actions by Zuleika
(C) Edward is discourages about his prospects for the future - no mention of discouragement
(D) Edward and Zuleika are about to become romantically involved - no mention of any action or predisposition by the girl. The text is purely about how Edward felt. Also note that the full passage offers no indication they were romantically involved. Hence it is a wrong answer.
(E) Edward is responding to Zuleika just as other young men have – although there is no statement of other men, it is the only suggestion that describes how Edward felt at the sight of Zuleika. </p>

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<p>Not true at all. </p>

<p>^I agree that knowing the definition of “duly” is not relevant to answering this question. However, it still seems like a tough question to me because the second half of answer (E) is not suggested in the passage at all and thus could easily lead one to eliminate that choice. You may come back to it eventually as the least wrong of many wrong answers, but it just doesn’t seem to “primarily suggest” anything about other young men.</p>

<p>I think it’s a bad question. I was expecting a choice along the lines of, “Edward was an impressionable and romantic young man.” I agree that E is the best answer, but I’ll bet that many students answer A, even if they know what “duly” means, on the theory that perhaps Edward always falls in love with the new governess. There is nothing in the passage to suggest why a young man would fall in love with Zuleika in particular.</p>

<p>I must concur that it is a bad question meant to trip up people. Here is how I thought about it:</p>

<p>(A) nothing would suggest to this, as the passage mentioned nothing of this sort at all
(B) again, while the word “Zuleika” was mentioned, it suggests nothing to the effect that he was mislead in the duty
© Nothing of his future prospects were mentioned
(D) Now we are getting warmer. Part of what this answer suggests does become true, but it was revealed in the sentences AFTERWARDS. He like her… but about to be romantically involved suggests a certainty which isn’t the case.
(E) Nothing of other young men was suggested in this piece at all. However, the words “duly, at first sight” was meant to showcase that his behavior was “automatic”, and not altogether “unexpected”. Therefore, while D seems correct, E is the correct answer.</p>

<p>Again, this is a terrible question in the sense that you could just imagine the malice in the question writer’s eyes as they wrote the potential answers, with the sole objective to trip up students. It is one thing to use a passage written in the Victorian style, but another all together to let you choose from the “least worst” answer. </p>