<p>For me, this is by far the hardest and the most confusing short passage I've ever read!
I even read the explanations, and I don't even know how you would conclude the answers from the passage. Please help me understand this...</p>
<p>When we came home, Aunt Sylvie would certainly be
home, too, enjoying the evening, for so she described her
habit of sitting in the dark. Evening was her special time of
Line day. She gave the word three syllables, and indeed I think
5 she liked it so well for its tendency to smooth, to soften.
She seemed to dislike the disequilibrium of counterpoising
a roomful of light against a worldful of darkness. Sylvie in
a house was more or less like a mermaid in a ships cabin.
She preferred it sunk in the very element it was meant to
10 exclude. </p>
<p>9 The reference to Aunt Sylvies pronunciation in line 4 serves to</p>
<p>(A) capture a distinctive regional dialect<br>
(B) highlight a double meaning of a word<br>
(C) provide an ominous foreshadowing<br>
(D) underscore a particular misconception<br>
(E) give evidence of a contrary personality </p>
<p>Answer is B. I picked E</p>
<p>10 The last sentence of the passage suggests that Sylvie felt a house should be a</p>
<p>(A) shelter from darkness and danger<br>
(B) defense against unwelcome visitors<br>
(C) mysterious and adventurous place<br>
(D) reminder of the cabin of a ship<br>
(E) part of the world outdoors </p>
<p>Answre is E, I picked A. </p>
<p>Please explain to me how you got the answer so I can understand...</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Evening can mean the later hours of the day or making something even (that is, smoothing something out: “evening” out the differences between, say, CR and Math scores). The first meaning is given by “time of day” and the second meaning by “…its tendency to smooth, to soften.” This is evidence in support of B. The remaining answers have little or no evidence to support them.</p></li>
<li><p>Note that the passage says “She seemed to dislike the disequilibrium of counterpoising a roomful of light against a worldful of darkness. Sylvie in a house was more or less like a mermaid in a ship’s cabin. She preferred it sunk in the very element it was meant to exclude.”</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If the room/house is “counterpoised” against the darkness, it is meant to exclude that element. Thus, A is definitely wrong, since she wants the house to be “sunk” in darkness, not shelter one from the darkness. Since this is set in the night, the darkness would represent the outside world, leading us to the answer E. (Again, the other answers have little or no evidence.)</p>
<p>Just how are you supposed to conclude that from reading a short and confusing passage like this…?</p>
<p>What exactly does it mean when they say “disequilibrium of counterpoising a roomful of light”?</p>
<p>^What exactly do you mean by “that” in your first sentence?</p>
<p>Anyway, let’s break the sentence down. “She seemed to dislike the disequilibrium of counterpoising a roomful of light against a worldful of darkness.”</p>
<p>disequilibrium = out of equilibrium; unbalanced
counterpoise = to counteract or to oppose something (note the similarity to “poise”, which is more commonly encountered)</p>
<p>Given those definitions, we can more literally (and simply) state this sentence as</p>
<p>“She disliked the lack of balance caused by putting the light of a room against the darkness of the outside world.”</p>
<p>In answering 10, we can generalize from the room to a house, telling us that the light in the house is meant to keep away the darkness of the outside world.</p>
<ol>
<li>B</li>
</ol>
<p>It can’t be A because there is no mention of languages or particular dialects or vernaculars.
It can’t be C because nothing bad is happening.
It can’t be d because the passage mentions nor emphasizes some false notion.
It can’t be E because there’s nothing about a human or one’s personality.</p>
<p>It’s B because “its tendency to smooth, to soften” is another meaning of the word “evening.” Other than the fact that it is a time of a day, it is also a verb. I.E. “The iron did a good job in *evening the clothes.”</p>
<p>This time of question is literally an author’s claim. There is no inference or implication. It’s a pretty easy question.</p>
<hr>
<ol>
<li>E</li>
</ol>
<p>What is a house supposed to do? To keep one from outside, the world outdoors. </p>
<p>It can’t be A because the passage already mentioned she preferred it (the darkness) in the house.
It isn’t B, because she mentions nothing about other people, or “visitors.”
It isn’t C, because Aunt Sylvie mentions nothing about mystery or adventure.
It isn’t d, because she never said so either. The sentence before the last sentence was an analogy and figure of speech made by the author.</p>
<p>Refer to the analogy of the mermaid. Where are mermaids’ homes? In the water, the ocean. Those places are their homes, their houses. Anywhere else would be part of the outside world, places with air where mermaids can’t swim because of their tail. Aunt Sylvie preferred that the house was to be part of the thing it was meant to exclude, the outside world.</p>
<p>Truffliepuff basically got everything I was gonna say. Number 9 is a bit weird… without process of elimination I would have gotten it wrong (one answer didn’t really stick out to me). Number 10 is a bit easy. Mermaids don’t live in ship cabins, and Houses contrast to the outside.</p>
<p>Are both of these level 5 questions?</p>
<p>^ The first one is probably a level 1 or a 2 at the most. The second one is probably a 3.</p>
<p>The second one is simply paraphrasing i think.</p>
<p>the first one is level 5 and the second one level 4. i remember giving this passage to my english teacher and he got the questions correct after 5 tries for each. then he told me they are bad questions = =</p>
<p>They’re definitely higher than level 3 in my opinion… I now understand what the passage is saying, but I found it rather more confusing than most other short passages I’ve read. Anyway, thanks everyone for explaining. Energize, I get the sentence now, thanks. But my question is how do you know the passage was talking about the word evening? (the three syllable word)</p>
<p>“Evening was her special time of day. She gave the word three syllables…” The only part of line 4 that had anything to do with pronunciation was the description of Sylvie’s usage of the word “evening”. (After all, none of the other words could be correctly pronounced with three syllables!)</p>