Tale of Two Cities question?

Question

Do you agree that in our teim period "some of the noisiest authorities insist on it being received for good or for evil in the superlative degree of comparison only?" Why or why not?

This is based on a quote from the first chapter of Tale of Two Cities. Please help, i don't really understand the question

Answer 1

You don't understand the question because it makes not one iota of sense. What is the "it" referrred to in the question? Whatever it is, it's being rated not compared. I'd find the paragraph it belongs in and read it out loud three times. That should help.
Tale of Two Cities is an awesome book and one of my absolute favourites but your teacher is a moron if he/she makes ridiculously vague questions like that.

Answer 2

The "superlative degree of comparison" is a grammatical term that means "most," "best" "smallest" or "biggest." Adjectives are positive ("big") comparative ("bigger") and superlative ("biggest").
So the chapter you refer to begins, "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." "Best" and "worst" are superlatives.
So Dickens is saying something like "The supposed wise people nowadays, the ones who talk all the time, insist that the time was either the best or worst, but nothing in between.
He is being sarcastic.
The question you are supposed to answer is, "Do you think our present time is like that?"