The passage most helps to answer which one of the following questions?

TimB on March 13, 2020

Eighteenth Century

Hi! I chose E, which I understand is not entirely correct, but the reason why I didnt pick the correct answer is that it never says in the passage anything about the eighteenth century. Should I have inferred that this is the time period they were talking about when they discussed cathedrals being several hundred years old?

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AndreaK on March 15, 2020

Hi @TimB,

The correct answer actually says nineteenth century, not eighteenth. That being said, you'll find the line references where this is talked about in the last paragraph of the passage! Lines 46 ("Until the nineteenth...") down to the end of the passage answer this question pretty directly. Take special note of the comparison made in line 55 that discuses the techniques today, as well ("Today, most window glass is made...")!

Hope this helps! This is a tough passage!

meganw on May 9, 2020

I don't understand that explanation. "Until the 19th century" would not include the 19th century, so wouldn't it make more sense that it answers the question of how glass was made in the 17th century, since that is before the 19th?

meganw on May 9, 2020

^ never mind, I understand!

lklop on September 18, 2020

Why is E incorrect?

Julia96 on September 12 at 01:48AM

Hi, as Megan followed up asking (although later resolved), I also don't understand the timeline laid out in the passage in correspondence with the answer choice.

To elaborate, I was dead set on B at first. But what deterred me was the passage says, "Until the nineteenth century, the only way to make window glass was to...". This lead me to assume that this practice changed/modernized in the 19th century, further leading me to conclude that the shift in practice made during the 19th century is parallel with the practice performed today. Therefore, if this were the case, it wouldn't explain how today's practice differ from those of the 19c but with earlier centuries (>18c)

The following shows how I saw/interpreted the timeline in my mind:
X-1700s/18c: blow molten glass into a large globe and then flatten into disk
~1800s/19c: new method comes about or, in other words, the modern approach (19c-21c)
--> Therefore, this does not explicitly state how 19c techniques differ from those used today but rather how >18c practices differ from today

I know these questions sometimes get lost in the sauce, but I would be grateful for a response

Emil-Kunkin on September 13 at 02:10PM

Hi, the last paragraph actually describes a progression of three techniques, not just two. You're right that before the 1800s we only had the big globe method and that after that we had also the pulling melt from a rod method. However, the last line of the passage tells us that today most glass is made via a floating method. This is different from the method used in the 1800s, so we know there was a change between the 1800s and today.