10
QuizMultiple Choice

Cultural Change in the Industrial Age

Question 10 • World History 1A - Mr.Sauceda (Fall 2026)

Read the passage from Charles Dickens’s Hard Times.It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable [unending] serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.

Answer
A
“like the head of an elephant”
B
“rattling and a trembling all day long”
C
“a town of machinery and tall chimneys”
D
“a black canal”

Explanation

The comparison uses “like” to connect the steam-engine’s piston moving up and down with “the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.” This is a simile because it compares two unlike things using the word “like.” “Rattling and a trembling all day long” describes the noise and movement rather than making a comparison.

AI-written and checked against the verified answer.