Humanities Passages · Lesson 4

Then and now: a writer's changing view

Many humanities essays tell the story of a changed mind. The writer once believed one thing, something happened, and now the writer believes something else. The ACT-style questions on these passages often test whether you can keep the three stages apart: then (the earlier view), the cause (what changed it), and now (the current view).

Watch the time signals. When I first, for years, I used to, and at first mark the earlier view. What changed my mind, until, and then one day mark the cause. Now, I no longer, I have come to believe, and these days mark the current view. When a question asks what the writer thinks, it means the current view unless the stem says otherwise.

The List I Stopped Keeping

1When I first began translating, I kept a list of untranslatable words. Every translator I knew kept one, and we traded entries the way children trade stickers. There was a word, in one language I worked from, for the particular quiet of a house after guests have left. There was another for the kind of rain that falls while the sun is still shining. I copied these into a green notebook and felt, I admit, a little proud of them. They seemed to prove that each language held something no other language could reach, and that my job was, at its heart, impossible.

2I believed this for nearly ten years. What changed my mind was not an argument but a deadline. I was translating a novel in which a character uses the word for the quiet after guests leave, and I could not leave a blank in the middle of her sentence. I tried a footnote, and the footnote killed the scene. I tried borrowing the original word, and readers in my test group stumbled over it. Finally I wrote: "The house had gone quiet in the way it does only after company." It was thirteen words where the original had one. But it worked. Readers paused at it the way I wanted them to.

3That sentence did not make the word less special. It made me see that what I had been calling untranslatable was really something more modest: words that cannot be translated briefly. Almost anything a person can feel can be said in another language, if the translator is willing to spend more words or rebuild the sentence around it. The original word is a shortcut, and a language without that shortcut simply has to take the longer road.

4I no longer keep the green notebook. I still love the words in it, and I still feel a small thrill when a language packs a whole scene into a syllable or two. But I have stopped treating those words as proof that my work is impossible. They are, instead, a description of the work: the distance a translator must cover, sentence by sentence, between one shortcut and another road.

Worked example Easy

Show the whole passage

The List I Stopped Keeping

1When I first began translating, I kept a list of untranslatable words. Every translator I knew kept one, and we traded entries the way children trade stickers. There was a word, in one language I worked from, for the particular quiet of a house after guests have left. There was another for the kind of rain that falls while the sun is still shining. I copied these into a green notebook and felt, I admit, a little proud of them. They seemed to prove that each language held something no other language could reach, and that my job was, at its heart, impossible.

2I believed this for nearly ten years. What changed my mind was not an argument but a deadline. I was translating a novel in which a character uses the word for the quiet after guests leave, and I could not leave a blank in the middle of her sentence. I tried a footnote, and the footnote killed the scene. I tried borrowing the original word, and readers in my test group stumbled over it. Finally I wrote: "The house had gone quiet in the way it does only after company." It was thirteen words where the original had one. But it worked. Readers paused at it the way I wanted them to.

3That sentence did not make the word less special. It made me see that what I had been calling untranslatable was really something more modest: words that cannot be translated briefly. Almost anything a person can feel can be said in another language, if the translator is willing to spend more words or rebuild the sentence around it. The original word is a shortcut, and a language without that shortcut simply has to take the longer road.

4I no longer keep the green notebook. I still love the words in it, and I still feel a small thrill when a language packs a whole scene into a syllable or two. But I have stopped treating those words as proof that my work is impossible. They are, instead, a description of the work: the distance a translator must cover, sentence by sentence, between one shortcut and another road.

When the author first began translating, the author believed that:

  1. footnotes were the best way to handle difficult words
  2. translation was a simple matter of matching words
  3. some words held meanings no other language could reachAnswer
  4. any word with no exact match should be left out of a translation so that readers would not stumble over it

How to solve it

  1. Find the earlier-view signal: "When I first began translating."
  2. Read what the list seemed to prove: "each language held something no other language could reach."
  3. Match that belief to the choices.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. The footnote comes up years later, in paragraph 2, and it fails: "the footnote killed the scene."
  • B. Incorrect. The early view was the opposite: the author thought the job "was, at its heart, impossible."
  • C. Correct. Paragraph 1: the words "seemed to prove that each language held something no other language could reach."
  • D. Incorrect. The author never wanted words left out; "I could not leave a blank" shows the opposite.

Worked example Medium

Show the whole passage

The List I Stopped Keeping

1When I first began translating, I kept a list of untranslatable words. Every translator I knew kept one, and we traded entries the way children trade stickers. There was a word, in one language I worked from, for the particular quiet of a house after guests have left. There was another for the kind of rain that falls while the sun is still shining. I copied these into a green notebook and felt, I admit, a little proud of them. They seemed to prove that each language held something no other language could reach, and that my job was, at its heart, impossible.

2I believed this for nearly ten years. What changed my mind was not an argument but a deadline. I was translating a novel in which a character uses the word for the quiet after guests leave, and I could not leave a blank in the middle of her sentence. I tried a footnote, and the footnote killed the scene. I tried borrowing the original word, and readers in my test group stumbled over it. Finally I wrote: "The house had gone quiet in the way it does only after company." It was thirteen words where the original had one. But it worked. Readers paused at it the way I wanted them to.

3That sentence did not make the word less special. It made me see that what I had been calling untranslatable was really something more modest: words that cannot be translated briefly. Almost anything a person can feel can be said in another language, if the translator is willing to spend more words or rebuild the sentence around it. The original word is a shortcut, and a language without that shortcut simply has to take the longer road.

4I no longer keep the green notebook. I still love the words in it, and I still feel a small thrill when a language packs a whole scene into a syllable or two. But I have stopped treating those words as proof that my work is impossible. They are, instead, a description of the work: the distance a translator must cover, sentence by sentence, between one shortcut and another road.

According to paragraph 2, what mainly changed the author's view?

  1. a practical problem that had to be solved on deadlineAnswer
  2. an argument made by a more experienced translator
  3. test readers who asked for more footnotes
  4. the loss of the green notebook of untranslatable words

How to solve it

  1. Find the cause signal: "What changed my mind was not an argument but a deadline."
  2. The author "could not leave a blank" in a novel and had to make a sentence work.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Correct. "What changed my mind was not an argument but a deadline": the author "could not leave a blank" and had to find a sentence that worked.
  • B. Incorrect. The author says directly that the change "was not an argument but a deadline"; no argument from another translator is mentioned.
  • C. Incorrect. The test readers "stumbled over" the borrowed word; the footnote was a separate attempt that "killed the scene." No reader asks for footnotes.
  • D. Incorrect. The author chose to stop keeping the notebook ("I no longer keep the green notebook") after the change and never says it was lost.

Trap Confusing the writer's earlier view with their current one

Shift passages give the earlier view plenty of space, often a whole paragraph told with real feeling, so a choice that restates it sounds right. Before you answer, check which stage the stem asks about. If it asks what the writer thinks now, cross out any choice that matches only the then paragraph.