Humanities Passages · Lesson 3

How the essay moves from anecdote to idea

Many humanities essays follow a familiar path. They open with a small, specific anecdote (a memory, a scene, a person at work). They widen it into a pattern ("once I started listening, I heard it everywhere"). Then comes a turn: the writer raises a question, offers a common answer, and pushes against it with but, yet, or still. The middle develops the writer's own idea. The ending is often a closing reflection that returns to the opening image or applies the idea to the writer.

Structure questions ask what a part does, not what it says. Answer with a verb: introduces, illustrates, challenges, qualifies, echoes, concludes. To find the job, read the part plus the sentence before and after it, and ask why the writer put it there.

Common parts of a humanities essay
PartTypical jobSignals
Opening anecdoteintroduces the subject through one casea specific person, place, or time
Wideningshows the case is part of a patterneverywhere, so does, many
Turnchallenges a common viewBut, Yet, A better answer
Closing reflectionechoes the opening or applies the ideaa return to the first image; I still

Was I Humming?

1The man who repaired our upright piano when I was twelve hummed the entire time he worked. He hummed while he lifted the lid, while he tapped each key and listened, and while he turned the pins with a small steel wrench. The odd thing was that his humming had nothing to do with the notes he was tuning. He would strike a key, frown, and go on humming something slow and wandering that sounded like no song I knew. When I finally asked what it was, he looked surprised. "Was I humming?" he said.

2I have thought about that question for years, because once I started listening, I heard humming everywhere. A carpenter planing a door hums. So does a clerk sorting mail, a cook rolling dough, and a student copying notes. Hardly any of them, I suspect, could tell you the tune, and most would be as surprised as the piano tuner to learn that they had been making any sound at all.

3Why do people do it? The most common explanation is that humming passes the time, a little music to soften dull work. But that explanation does not fit the tuner, whose work was hardly dull and required his full attention. A better answer, I think, is that humming is a way of keeping the mind company while the hands are busy. It occupies the restless part of attention, the part that would otherwise wander off to make plans or worry, so that the rest of attention can stay on the task. The tune does not matter, which is why so few hummers can name it. What matters is the steady, low sound, a kind of fence around the work.

4If this is right, then humming is not a distraction from concentration but one of its tools. It may also explain why humming tends to stop when work goes wrong. The tuner fell silent whenever a pin stuck, and he resumed only once it turned. The fence comes down when the whole mind is needed.

5I do not hum, or at least I did not think I did, until a friend sat with me while I repaired a lamp last spring. Halfway through, she started laughing. I asked her what was funny. She said I had been humming for ten minutes, and that it had not sounded like any song she knew.

Worked example Easy

Show the whole passage

Was I Humming?

1The man who repaired our upright piano when I was twelve hummed the entire time he worked. He hummed while he lifted the lid, while he tapped each key and listened, and while he turned the pins with a small steel wrench. The odd thing was that his humming had nothing to do with the notes he was tuning. He would strike a key, frown, and go on humming something slow and wandering that sounded like no song I knew. When I finally asked what it was, he looked surprised. "Was I humming?" he said.

2I have thought about that question for years, because once I started listening, I heard humming everywhere. A carpenter planing a door hums. So does a clerk sorting mail, a cook rolling dough, and a student copying notes. Hardly any of them, I suspect, could tell you the tune, and most would be as surprised as the piano tuner to learn that they had been making any sound at all.

3Why do people do it? The most common explanation is that humming passes the time, a little music to soften dull work. But that explanation does not fit the tuner, whose work was hardly dull and required his full attention. A better answer, I think, is that humming is a way of keeping the mind company while the hands are busy. It occupies the restless part of attention, the part that would otherwise wander off to make plans or worry, so that the rest of attention can stay on the task. The tune does not matter, which is why so few hummers can name it. What matters is the steady, low sound, a kind of fence around the work.

4If this is right, then humming is not a distraction from concentration but one of its tools. It may also explain why humming tends to stop when work goes wrong. The tuner fell silent whenever a pin stuck, and he resumed only once it turned. The fence comes down when the whole mind is needed.

5I do not hum, or at least I did not think I did, until a friend sat with me while I repaired a lamp last spring. Halfway through, she started laughing. I asked her what was funny. She said I had been humming for ten minutes, and that it had not sounded like any song she knew.

The main function of paragraph 1 is to:

  1. explain in detail the steps a technician follows to tune an upright piano
  2. argue that humming helps workers concentrate
  3. describe the author's own piano lessons
  4. introduce, through a memory, the habit the essay examinesAnswer

How to solve it

  1. Read paragraph 1 and the start of paragraph 2.
  2. Paragraph 1 is one memory: a tuner who hummed without knowing it. Paragraph 2 widens it: "I heard humming everywhere."
  3. Name the job: the anecdote introduces the subject, humming.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. Tuning is mentioned only in passing ("tapped each key and listened"); the focus is the humming, which "had nothing to do with the notes he was tuning."
  • B. Incorrect. That argument comes later: "humming is not a distraction from concentration but one of its tools" (paragraph 4). Paragraph 1 only tells a story.
  • C. Incorrect. The paragraph is about the man who "repaired our upright piano," not about the author learning to play.
  • D. Correct. The memory of the tuner ("Was I humming?") introduces the habit, and paragraph 2 widens it: "once I started listening, I heard humming everywhere."

Worked example Medium

Show the whole passage

Was I Humming?

1The man who repaired our upright piano when I was twelve hummed the entire time he worked. He hummed while he lifted the lid, while he tapped each key and listened, and while he turned the pins with a small steel wrench. The odd thing was that his humming had nothing to do with the notes he was tuning. He would strike a key, frown, and go on humming something slow and wandering that sounded like no song I knew. When I finally asked what it was, he looked surprised. "Was I humming?" he said.

2I have thought about that question for years, because once I started listening, I heard humming everywhere. A carpenter planing a door hums. So does a clerk sorting mail, a cook rolling dough, and a student copying notes. Hardly any of them, I suspect, could tell you the tune, and most would be as surprised as the piano tuner to learn that they had been making any sound at all.

3Why do people do it? The most common explanation is that humming passes the time, a little music to soften dull work. But that explanation does not fit the tuner, whose work was hardly dull and required his full attention. A better answer, I think, is that humming is a way of keeping the mind company while the hands are busy. It occupies the restless part of attention, the part that would otherwise wander off to make plans or worry, so that the rest of attention can stay on the task. The tune does not matter, which is why so few hummers can name it. What matters is the steady, low sound, a kind of fence around the work.

4If this is right, then humming is not a distraction from concentration but one of its tools. It may also explain why humming tends to stop when work goes wrong. The tuner fell silent whenever a pin stuck, and he resumed only once it turned. The fence comes down when the whole mind is needed.

5I do not hum, or at least I did not think I did, until a friend sat with me while I repaired a lamp last spring. Halfway through, she started laughing. I asked her what was funny. She said I had been humming for ten minutes, and that it had not sounded like any song she knew.

In paragraph 3, the author mentions the piano tuner mainly in order to:

  1. show that tuning a piano is dull, repetitive work
  2. challenge a common explanation for hummingAnswer
  3. introduce a second hummer who can name his tunes
  4. prove that humming makes repair work faster and more accurate than silent work

How to solve it

  1. Find the common explanation: humming "passes the time, a little music to soften dull work."
  2. Read the next sentence: "But that explanation does not fit the tuner, whose work was hardly dull."
  3. The tuner is a counterexample that challenges the common view.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. The author says the reverse: the tuner's work "was hardly dull and required his full attention."
  • B. Correct. The common view ties humming to dull work, "But that explanation does not fit the tuner, whose work was hardly dull." He is a counterexample.
  • C. Incorrect. The tuner is the same man from paragraph 1, and he did not even know he was humming ("Was I humming?").
  • D. Incorrect. The passage never measures speed or accuracy. It suggests only that humming helps attention "stay on the task," a smaller claim.

Trap Function vs content

A function question asks why a part is there, and the trap choice tells you what it says, or names a job that belongs to another part. "The tuner hummed while he worked" is content. "Introduces the habit the essay examines" is function. If a choice could be answered by copying a sentence, it is probably content; look for the choice with a job verb that fits this exact spot.