A question about a character’s view tests whether you can tell what that person thinks, not what someone else claims. Find the character’s own comments and ask what the doubt is about. Then put those lines in a few words, keeping signs of hope as well as doubt. Words about time and certainty tell you how strongly the person holds a view, so check both. Wrong answers often make the person’s view stronger or broader than the text allows.
Hints
- Hint 1
Where does Eleanor move from reporting Nathaniel’s claims to giving her own doubts? Read the words after yet.
- Hint 2
Look at the examples behind Eleanor’s worry. What do the manufacturers and the gentlemen care about?
- Hint 3
Compare the sentences beginning “Perhaps he is right” and “For the moment, however.” Track what each says about time and certainty.
Step-by-step
Follow Eleanor’s own words
Step 1Find Eleanor’s own view
Eleanor’s less hopeful voice gives us her own judgment rather than Nathaniel’s promises. What is she worried about? She says the world holds tight to the familiar with both hands, so she doubts people will give up old ways. Let’s use her examples to see what worries her.
- Step 2
Find the source of her doubts
Do her examples question whether the engine can work? Manufacturers want machines of proven profit, while gentlemen judge status by the number of hooves in their stables. Both are about money and old habits, so the choice questioning whether it will actually work as he claims adds a doubt she never gives.
- Step 3
Separate the present from the future
Does her closing doubt rule out later success? perhaps, decades hence, children will learn his name in their schoolbooks leaves the distant future open, while For the moment, however shows doubt about the present. A laurel is an honor, so the soot will cling to him longer than any laurel pictures continued work without quick recognition. The prediction that customs will keep it from changing travel on a large scale goes too far, while broad support in the near future turns her present doubt around.
- Step 4
Check what she leaves possible
Nathaniel promises travelers will need neither horse nor scheduled train, and Eleanor says Perhaps he is right. What change would that make possible? Replacing both could transform travel, so could eventually revolutionize travel stays a possibility, not a promise, while doubts it will receive immediate acceptance keeps her doubt about how people will respond now. Choice D.