Practice free →
HomeGRE › Verbal Reasoning › Passage (Michael Faraday, *The Chemical History …

Passage (Michael Faraday, *The Chemical History of a Candle*, Lecture I, 1860–61, continued): "In this wood we have one of the most beautiful illustrations of the general nature of a candle that I can possibly give. The fuel provided, the means of bringing that fuel to the place of chemical action, the regular and gradual supply of air to that place of action — heat and light — all produced by a little piece of wood of this kind, forming, in fact, a natural candle. But we must speak of candles as they are in commerce. Here are a couple of candles commonly called dips. They are made of lengths of cotton cut off, hung up by a loop, dipped into melted tallow, taken out again and cooled, then re-dipped until there is an accumulation of tallow round the cotton." The detailed description of how dip candles are made (cotton cut, hung by a loop, dipped, cooled, re-dipped) serves chiefly to:

Atest the audience's knowledge of chemistry.
Bground the abstract framework in a step-by-step physical process the audience can picture.
Cargue that dip candles are superior to other types.
Dintroduce a list of commercial brands.
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: B. ground the abstract framework in a step-by-step physical process the audience can picture.
Faraday gives the *procedure* — cut, hang, dip, cool, re-dip — in sufficient detail that an attentive listener can picture each step. This matches his pedagogy: ground the abstract in the physical. - **A** misreads the demonstration as a test. - **C** and **D** are not in the text.
Solve this in the app — GRE practice & 24k+ MCQs →
Related questions