A strong answer to the first quiz

The first quiz seems to have been a bit tough, partly because you were having to deal with a new form and a fairly lengthy passage in an unusually short amount of time. I don't think we'll get much of a chance to talk about IDs again until a week from this Friday, when there will be a second quiz; however, I wanted to share with you one particularly strong response to part c. ("state briefly the significance of the passage for the themes of the text"), which Kelly M. (305) has generously agreed to share:

Prevalent throughout this passage is the theme of autonomy and control of one's own lif -- while Casaubon has always lived for the "higher" cause of intellectual pursuit, he still does not lead a full life. This lack of happiness ties directly into the theme of courtship and its social role. Casaubon loses control of his happiness because of the rigidity of the social system in place -- without a spouse and with only the seemingly worthless pursuit of his studies, Casaubon cannot be happy.

Although this answer could have engaged even more directly with the text of the passage -- pointing towards, for example, the contradiction at the beginning of the passage: "he was in danger of being saddened by the very conviction that his circumstances were unusually happy" -- it does a remarkably strong job of revealing the play of thematic concerns in this passage.