Historical Profile Passage
Introduction
This section will apply the DIRECT Method to a CLT Historical Profile passage. Let’s begin with a review of the method. What does the “D” stand for? Why is this important? Test yourself and then check out the spoiler below.
The “D” stands for “Don’t read the passage first.” Unlike the Verbal Reasoning section, where you should read the passage before considering the questions, the Grammar/Writing section contains passages that, by definition, are full of errors needing correction. Reading the passage could lead to significant confusion; it’s better to let the underlined portions point you to where to read and then gather the information you need from the context.
The Historical Profile passage is more likely to contain more modern, accessible language than some other passages. Even if the subject of the passage may be an ancient figure like Homer or Aristotle, the writer is often a more recent figure. The writing is factual rather than narrative and summarizes key information.
DIRECT to the Source: The Historical Profile Passage
In this section, you’ll find excerpts from the article “Marx, Heinrich Karl” in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, vol. 17 (Cambridge, 1911). After each paragraph, you’ll find questions tied to the underlined portions in the paragraph. This format does not exactly mimic the format of the CLT, where the entire passage appears on the left and the questions on the right, so be sure to practice with official CLT materials as well.
1. lawyer in
A. NO CHANGE
B. lawyer; in
C. lawyer, in
D. lawyer—in
The answer is C. Notice the comma right after “His father.” It opens a phrase, “a Jewish lawyer,” that renames the father; a phrase that renames the noun before it is called an appositive. Try the Handlebar Rule: grab the phrase by its commas, pull it out, and you’re left with “His father in 1824 went over to Christianity,” a complete sentence. So the phrase is extra information, and it needs a comma on each side.
Without the closing comma (choice A), the reader gets no signal that the description has ended, and “in 1824” seems to tell us when the father was a lawyer rather than when he went over to Christianity. A semicolon (choice B) would cut the subject off from its verb and leave “His father, a Jewish lawyer” as a fragment. A dash (choice D) can set off extra information, but only as one of a matching pair: a phrase that opens with a comma must close with a comma.
2. The son, who went
A. NO CHANGE
B. The son, having gone
C. The son going
D. The son went
The answer is D. This sentence structure question asks whether we have a complete sentence, so look for the main verb. In choice A, “who went” begins a subordinate clause, a clause that describes the noun before it (“The son”) but can’t carry the sentence by itself. Read on, and you’ll find that nothing after the clause tells us what the son did: “The son, who went to the high grammar school at Trèves, and from 1835 to the universities of Bonn and Berlin.” That’s a fragment.
Choices B and C fail for the same reason. “Having gone” and “going” are participles, verb forms that can describe a noun but can’t serve as a sentence’s main verb. Only choice D gives the subject “The son” a true main verb, “went.” The rest of the sentence then falls into place: he went to the grammar school, and from 1835 he went on to the universities.
3. out of the question
A. NO CHANGE
B. in question
C. without question
D. into question
The answer is A. Word choice questions often turn on idioms, fixed expressions whose meaning you can’t work out word by word. All four choices are built on “question,” so you need to know what each expression means and which one fits. Context helps. Marx “at first intended” to become a lecturer, “but” his views made a university career _____, “and” he took a job on a newspaper instead. The word “but” tells us the plan failed, and his change of career tells us it had become impossible.
“Out of the question” means exactly that: impossible, not worth considering. “In question” means “being discussed” or “in doubt,” as in “the year in question,” and it doesn’t follow “made” idiomatically. “Without question” means “certainly,” nearly the opposite of what the sentence needs. “Into question” is only part of an idiom: you can call something into question, but you can’t make it into question.
4. The writer is thinking of including the following sentence here:
He did not, however, succeed in publishing further volumes of Das Kapital.
Should the writer make this addition?
A. No, because it contradicts the previous sentence’s claim that Marx had a chance to return to his scientific work.
B. Yes, because it names the work that the following sentence refers to as “it.”
C. Yes, because it explains why the International was dissolved.
D. No, because it shifts the paragraph’s focus from Marx’s life to his economic theory.
The answer is B. When you’re asked whether to add a sentence, read the sentences on either side of the place it would go. The sentence before says the end of the International gave Marx a chance to return to his scientific work. The sentence after begins, “In order to make it … as complete as possible.” Make what complete? Without the addition, “it” has nothing clear to point back to. “His scientific work” is too general, since “the part dealing with property in land” is a part of one particular book. The proposed sentence names that book, Das Kapital, and gives “it” a clear antecedent, so it belongs here.
Choice A is tempting because of the word “however,” but having a chance and succeeding are different things: the sentence qualifies the one before it without contradicting it. Choice C is wrong because the sentence says nothing about why the International ended. Choice D is wrong because the sentence concerns Marx’s unfinished book, not the theory inside it, and the paragraph stays with his last years.
5. it, and
A. NO CHANGE
B. it (and
C. it—and
D. it and
The answer is C. Before you choose, read to the end of the phrase that starts at the underlined portion. You’ll find a dash after “property in land,” and that dash is your clue. Dashes, like parentheses, set off an interruption. Here, “and especially the part dealing with property in land” is an aside dropped into the middle of the main idea, “In order to make it as complete as possible.” An interruption in the middle of a sentence needs a mark on each side, and the two marks must match. The closing mark is a dash, so the opening mark must be a dash too.
Choice A opens the interruption with a comma and closes it with a dash, a mismatched pair. Choice B does the same with a parenthesis, which would need a closing parenthesis. Choice D leaves a single dash in the middle of the sentence, so the reader can’t tell where the interruption began.