Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized for You
we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History
Track Your Progress
every week, we’ll send you an estimated GMAT score based on your performance
Practice Pays
we will pick new questions that match your level based on your Timer History
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Thank you for using the timer!
We noticed you are actually not timing your practice. Click the START button first next time you use the timer.
There are many benefits to timing your practice, including:
Struggling with Table analysis questions on GMAT Data Insights? You're not alone! With typical accuracy rates hovering around 45% and average solving time of 3.25 minutes per question, Table analysis can be a real challenge.
We present a collection of 30 GMAT Focus practice questions covering Problem Solving, Data Sufficiency, Data Insights, and Critical Reasoning. Take this GMAT practice quiz live with peers, analyze your GMAT study progress, and more.
Sayali narrates her experience of succeeding on the GMAT after 4 attempts & 2 years of preparations. Sayali achieved 99 percentile score on GMAT Focus edition after significantly improving her performance in verbal section of the GMAT
After just 3 months of studying with the TTP GMAT Focus course, Conner scored an incredible 755 (Q89/V90/DI83) on the GMAT Focus. In this live interview, he shares how he achieved his outstanding 755 (100%) GMAT Focus score on test day.
In this conversation with Ankit Mehra, IESE MBA and CEO & Co-Founder, of GyanDhan, we will discuss how prospective MBA students can finance their MBA education with education loans and scholarships.
What do András from Hungary, Pablo from Mexico, Conner from the United States, Giorgio from Italy, Leo from Germany, and Rishab from India have in common? They all earned top scores on the GMAT Focus Edition using the Target Test Prep course!
Ready to conquer GMAT's toughest Data Insights questions? Unlock the secrets of Graphical Interpretation & Two-Part Analysis with our expert-led webinar! Limited seats!
While historians once propagated the myth that Africans who
[#permalink]
27 May 2005, 06:59
While historians once propagated the myth that Africans who were brought to the New World as slaves contributed little of value but their labor, a recent study by Amelia Wallace Vernon helps to dispel this notion by showing that Africans introduced rice and the methods of cultivating it into what is now the United States in the early eighteenth century. She uncovered, for example, an 1876 document that details that in 1718 starving French settlers instructed the captain of a slave ship bound for Africa to trade for 400 Africans including some "who know how to cultivate rice". This discovery is especially compelling becuase the introduction of rice into what is now the United States had previously been attributed to French Acadians, who did not arrive until the 1760s.
Vernon interviewed elderly African Americans who helped her discover the locations where until about 1920 their foreberas had cultivated rice. At the heart of Vernon's research is the question of why, in an economy dedicated to mazimizing cotton production, African Americans grew rice. She proposes two intriguing answers, depending on whether the time is before or after the end of slavery. During the period of slavery, plantation owners also ate rice and therefore tolerated or demanded its "After-hours" cultivation on patches of land not suited to cotton. In additon, growing the rice gave the slaves some relief from a system of regimented labor under a filed supervisor, in that they were left alone to work independently.
After the abolotion of slavery, however, rice cultivation is more difficult to explain: African Americans had acquired a preference for eating corn, there was no market for the small amounts of rice they produced, and under the tenant system-- in which farmers surrendered a portion of their crops to the owners of the land they farmed-owners wanted only cotton as payment. The labor required to transform unused land to productive ground would thus seem completely out of proportion to the reward--except that, according to Vernon, the transforming of the land itself was the point.
Vernon suggests that these African Americans did not transform the land as a means to an end, but rahter as an end in itself. In order words, they did not tranform the land in order to grow rice-for the reulting rice was scarcely worth the effort required to clear the land-but instead transformed the land becaus ethye vieweed land as an extension of self and home and so wished to nurture it and make it their own. In additon to this cultural explanation, Vernon speculates that rice cultivation might also have been a political act, a next step after the emancipation of the slaves: the symbolic claiming of plantation land that the U.S government had promised but failed to parcel off and deed to newly freed African Americans.
27. The author's primary purposein the passage is to A) describe the efforts of a historian to uncover evidence for a puzzling phenomenon
B) illustrate the historical background of a puzzling phenonmemon
C) present a historian's theories about a puzzling phennomenon
D) criticize the work of previous historians regarding a puzzling phenomenon
E) analyze the effects of a puzzling phenomenon on an economic system.
Archived Topic
Hi there,
This topic has been closed and archived due to inactivity or violation of community quality standards. No more replies are possible here.
Still interested in this question? Check out the "Best Topics" block below for a better discussion on this exact question, as well as several more related questions.
Re: While historians once propagated the myth that Africans who
[#permalink]
Updated on: 29 May 2005, 16:29
for me, it is clear B. if needed, explain later.
gmataquaguy wrote:
27. The author's primary purposein the passage is to
A) describe the efforts of a historian to uncover evidence for a puzzling phenomenon B) illustrate the historical background of a puzzling phenonmemon C) present a historian's theories about a puzzling phennomenon D) criticize the work of previous historians regarding a puzzling phenomenon E) analyze the effects of a puzzling phenomenon on an economic system.
Originally posted by HIMALAYA on 29 May 2005, 08:12.
Last edited by HIMALAYA on 29 May 2005, 16:29, edited 1 time in total.
Re: While historians once propagated the myth that Africans who
[#permalink]
29 May 2005, 23:20
Well, I suppose it's worthwhile to at least provide a new answer on top of all the different ones. I'd choose C myself.
This paragraph obviously is about rice cultivation. The slaves started cultivating rice but since they have acquired the taste of corn and did not need to cultivate rice any more after the demolition of the slavery, why do they continue to do it? The paragraph did not focus on how the historian (Vernon) tries to uncover this issue, nor rebutted other explanations to the phenomenon. Rather, it presented the historian's explanation: that they viewed land as an extension of self and home and so wished to nurture it and make it their own.
Re: While historians once propagated the myth that Africans who
[#permalink]
31 May 2005, 08:42
I think Vernon indeed proposed two theories, one for:
why African Americans grew rice before the end of slavery ?
Another for:
why do they still grew rice after the end of slavery ?
...
At the heart of Vernon's research is the question of why, in an economy dedicated to mazimizing cotton production, African Americans grew rice. She proposes two intriguing answers, depending on whether the time is before or after the end of slavery. ...
Re: While historians once propagated the myth that Africans who
[#permalink]
31 May 2005, 11:34
gmataquaguy wrote:
27. The author's primary purpose in the passage is to A) describe the efforts of a historian to uncover evidence for a puzzling phenomenon B) illustrate the historical background of a puzzling phenonmemon C) present a historian's theories about a puzzling phennomenon D) criticize the work of previous historians regarding a puzzling phenomenon E) analyze the effects of a puzzling phenomenon on an economic system.
For a "primary purpose" question, it's helpful to pay attention to the whole entire passage. Note that the Historian Vernon is introduced in the very first paragraph, and is menitoned by name in each subsequent paragraph.
The passage is about the "puzzling phenomenon" of rice cultivation (when other crops would have seemed to be more desirable). But note that the passage is totally about Vernon's take on the subject. This passage is all about one particular historian's view. If you doubt me, re-read the passage with that in mind.
Still interested in this question? Check out the "Best Topics" block above for a better discussion on this exact question, as well as several more related questions.
Thank you for understanding, and happy exploring!
gmatclubot
Re: While historians once propagated the myth that Africans who [#permalink]