Historians have identified two dominant currents in the Russian women'

Is the 700-level tag correct for this passage?

soumya170293, you are looking at the right part of the passage: "Both groups also recognized the enormous difficulties women faced when they combined paid labor with motherhood. In fact, at the First All-Russian Women's Congress in 1908, most participants advocated maternity insurance and paid maternity leave, although the intense hostility between some socialists and bourgeois feminists at the Congress made it difficult for them to recognize these areas of agreement."

This portion directly tells us that MOST participants (i.e. from both groups) advocated maternity insurance. This was one of the "areas of agreement". Although it was difficult for them to recognize that this was an area of agreement, both groups largely advocated maternity insurance. So they would NOT disagree about (C).

Since we are looking for a point of disagreement, (C) should be eliminated. For further explanation of this question, see this post.

As for #2...

First of all, I wouldn't consider "should" to be very extreme. It is indeed an important word to notice, but something like "must" would be much stronger language.

Regardless, you should NOT be under the impression that strong/extreme language = wrong answer. This is a common misconception, but it is not valid at all. You should definitely notice strong language and think really hard about how it affects the meaning of the answer choice. However, an answer with strong language could very well be the correct answer.

For more on the topic of strong language, check out this thread.

If I'm not mistaken, the difficulty tags are automatically generated on GMAT Club, based on how people perform using the timers. The GMAT doesn't tell us the difficulty levels of any of the GMATPrep questions, so there's no way to know what the actual difficulty is, sadly. It does look like the error rate is pretty high on this set of questions, so I wouldn't be surprised if the tag is reasonably accurate in this case.

IMO for the 2nd question, it is important to know the meaning of the word "subordinating" otherwise it would be pretty difficult to select the correct answer and we could be trapped to select the wrong answer which replicates some words from passage exactly.

hi Prasannathawait
would you please help me understanding "subordinating"?
I don't understand "to what" in the sentence, what the "to what" refers to ?

thanks in advance

Passage Understanding ( just outlined)
- Two currents in women movements in Russia- B and S
- B emphasis Individualism and S emphasis Class ( Para I talks about there difference)
- Para II - Talks about how these two groups even after being different were similar in certain belief.


Q 1. The passage is primarily concerned with

A. identifying points of agreement between two groups - Yes Para II talks about the common belief of both groups after initial introduction of two groups and their difference. Passage discusses similarity in their beliefs .
Option A - Correct

B. advocating one approach to social reform over another- Author does not advocate/ advice any one approach- So Eliminate B

C. contrasting two approaches to solving a political problem- Yes first para talks about contrasting things about two groups but does not talk any where about solving a political problem- So Eliminate C

D. arguing that the views espoused by one political group were more radical than those espoused by another group- Passage does not argue about views. Passage just puts forward difference and common beliefs.No argument about views- So Eliminate D

E. criticizing historians for overlooking similarities between the views espoused by two superficially dissimilar groups-- This trap ans looks tempting at first, but read carefully, does the passage criticize historians anywhere for overlooking similarities. Historians are not discussed anywhere except being mentioned in the first line. Dont fall in the trap. Eliminate E

Ans- A

Q 2. The passage suggests that socialists within the Russian women's movement and most bourgeois feminists believed that in Russia

Note- It is a inference question. We need to infer, information asked in this question will not be directly mentioned in the passage.

A. women would not achieve economic equality until they had political representation within the government-No where mentioned in the passage

B. the achievement of larger political aims should take precedence over the achievement of women's rights - Correct Refer the last three lines"Finally, socialist feminists and most bourgeois feminists concurred in subordinating women's emancipation to what they considered the more important goal of liberating the entire Russian population from political oppression, economic backwardness, and social injustice."

C. the emancipation of women would ultimately bring about the liberation of the entire Russian population from political oppression-- uses the trap to mention words similar to the passage but changes meaning.Passage talks about subordinating emancipation ( Giving less importance to liberation of women) here it says - other way round.So be careful of the trap .Eliminate C

D. women's oppression was more rooted in economic inequality than was the case in other countries--
Not mentioned in the passage- Eliminate D

E. the women's movement was more ideologically divided than were women's movements in other countries=Not mentioned again-Straight away eliminate as there is no supporting to this statement in the passage. Eliminate E

Ans B

3. According to the passage, Russian socialists within the women's movement and most bourgeois feminists disagreed about which of the following?

Note :- This is a detail question. Look for reference directly in the passage.

A. Whether legal reform was central to the achievement of feminist goals -YES Para I mentions this disagreement . CORRECT (REF:Socialist" feminists, by contrast, emphasized class, rather than gender, as the principal source of women's inequality and oppression, and socialist revolution, not legal reform, as the only road to emancipation and equality.
)

B. Whether paid employment was important for the achievement of equality- Para II says both agreed to this belief ( ref:Both regarded paid labor as the principal means by which women might attain emancipation) . So Eliminate B

C. Whether maternity insurance was desirable for working mothers-- Para II says both agreed to this too (Ref:most participants advocated maternity insurance and paid maternity leave) so eliminate C

D. Whether working mothers faced obstacles-- Again both groups agreed to this too ( ref:Both groups also recognized the enormous difficulties women faced when they combined paid labor with motherhood) So we eliminate D

E. Whether women's emancipation should be subordinated to the liberation of the Russian population - Again both groups agreed too ( Ref:Finally, socialist feminists and most bourgeois feminists concurred (Concurred= to agree) in subordinating women's emancipation to what they considered the more important goal of liberating the entire Russian population from political oppression, economic backwardness, and social injustice.)

Ans A

Hope it helps !

I dont agree with the answer to Q.1
(A) says to point out similarities, but it is not the reason why passage is written. It is written to show that ' Though there was difference of opinion on what to focus on to achieve women quality, but the two groups had similarities, alothough they had hard time to recognize it. But the two groups finally put people larger public good ahead of women equality'.
Please correct me if I have a flawed understanding

Hi AnushkaPatel961,

I think you answered your own question.

"However, despite antagonism between bourgeois feminists and socialist feminists, the two movements shared certain underlying beliefs. ". You are correct in your understanding, but not sure why you don't agree with the answer to Question 1.

You can also refer this answer : https://gmatclub.com/forum/historians-h ... l#p2037608


Let me know if you still have doubts.
Thanks.

I find such RC very difficult to comprehend. I usually get lost while reading and eventually lose the topic I had in mind. Any tips to read such RC passages. Please help!

Thanks in advance

If you haven't already, check out our RC guide for beginners, or the RC videos listed here. I hope those help a bit!

GMATNinja
Read through the thread but only find two members talking about choice D in question 2. I got this right but only because B was addressed directly in the paragraph. I am not entirely sure why D is wrong as it almost seems like one or both of these two feminist groups would have touched on the economic inequality. I thought focusing on career opportunity* could have been a subtle hint dropped by the bourgeois feminist group, but not as strong of a case as in paraphrasing the subordination of women's emancipation to address the political aims.

Question 2

You're right that both groups agreed that the economic role of women was important. This is discussed near the beginning of the second paragraph: "Both regarded paid labor as the principal means by which women might attain emancipation: participation in the workplace and economic self-sufficiency, they believed, would make women socially useful and therefore deserving of equality with men."

But take a closer look at the exact language of (D):

The author never tells us what these groups believed about other countries. Perhaps they thought that women's oppression in Russia was more rooted in economics, or perhaps they thought that the economic situation of women was much worse in other countries.

We really have no idea what the two groups thought about other countries, so (D) is out for question 2.

I hope that helps!

Question 2 is very tricky, especially if we don't know the meaning of "subordinating," which means of less importance or secondary. But even if we don't know the meaning, the official passages give enough clues, provided we read carefully. The passage states, "socialist feminists and most bourgeois feminists concurred in subordinating women's emancipation to what they considered the more important goal of liberating the entire Russian population from political oppression, economic backwardness, and social injustice." It means they concurred. On what? To subordinate X to Y. What is X? "women's emancipation." What is Y? The subordinate clause introduced by "what" "what they considered the more important goal." What is an important goal? The goal is to liberate the entire Russian population from political oppression, economic backwardness, and social injustice."

So, while the passage clearly states option B, option C is a perfect trap if we don't understand the passage and read in a hurry.