Historians have identified two dominant currents in the Russian women'

Indeed, the passage mentions two approaches. But you need to think about the purpose of the passage, not just the content of the passage.

The first paragraph explains the differences between the two groups, as identified by historians. Then the author opens the second paragraph with, "However, despite antagonism between bourgeois feminists and socialist feminists, the two movements shared certain underlying beliefs." The rest of the second paragraph describes these shared beliefs.

So think about the structure of the passage:

• Historians have identified two groups. Here's what separates those two groups.
• However, despite some conflict between the two groups, they actually had a lot in common, such as...

Is the author just trying to tell us that the groups are different? No.. this is already know (i.e. by historians). The author wants us to realize that those two groups actually had things in common, despite their differences. The author's primary purpose is to to identify the "points of agreement" between the two groups. So (A) is the best answer.



The portion you highlighted in blue actually tells us why the answer is (B), not (C): "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."

Both groups agreed that women's emancipation should be made secondary (i.e. subordinated) to liberating the entire Russian population from...

In other words, the two groups agreed that liberating Russians from political oppression, economic backwardness, and social injustice ("larger political aims") was a more important goal than emancipating women ("achievement of women's rights").

The author does NOT say that the emancipation of women would LEAD TO the liberation of the entire Russian population from political oppression, so (C) should be eliminated.
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Passage breakdown

In the first paragraph, the author:

• Introduces two contrasting groups in the Russian women's movement of the late Tsarist period

In the second paragraph, the author:

• Lists three beliefs that these groups actually had in common.
• Suggests that the "intense hostility" between some members of these groups made it difficult for them to recognize these common beliefs.

For more on the process of breaking down RC passages, check out this article and our live RC videos.

Explanations for individual questions

• Question 1
• Question 2
  
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
• Question 3
  
  • Part 1
  • Part 2

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6.5 min taken
2/3 correct questions.

The toughest question in this passage is the 2nd one (as stats shows). I got it incorrect, too. I choose C instead of B. Understanding the phrase "in subordinating" is key to answer this 2nd question:

"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."

This means that both groups agree that W's emancipation should be less important than liberating Russia from some big problems. So, The main goal should be liberating Russia, and indeed the efforts should be focussed on achieving this more important goal first. B is correct!

Answer choice C is incorrect because the passage never says that emancipation of W is a mean to achieve the big goal of Russia.

Hope this help guys!

Thanks

Rumi

The passage talks about 2 movements in a Russian period and what they believed in Para 1

Para 2 it talks about Common points of agreement and how in later stages they decided to focus on other Important goal than Woman's emancipation..
B,C,and D out...There is no Crticisim as well...So ans is A


Look how well they have masked the question... We need to find All Socialists and Most Bourgeois Feminists...If you capurted this well...Ans should not be a problem..or atleast i think it will not be a problem....Ans is B
A -Both Socialists and BF agreed
C: They did not agree
D: Only Socialists
E: Not even discussed



They disagreed....
B,C,D,and E------All agreed

A is the answer
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@sujay25: Go through the last line.



This clearly says that finally an agreement is reached and they thought that "liberating the entire Russian population" was more important than "women's emancipation". Thus "women's emancipation" was "subordinated" in this way.

would be happy if someone explains why 'C' is incorrect answer choice for second question?
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The second question is referred to this part of the passage "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."

So they believe liberating the entire Russian population is more important than women's emancipation. C is incorrect because it says the opposite of what they believe

Read this snippet of the 2nd passage , both socialist and bourgeois feminists agreed that women's emancipation is less important then the most important goal of liberating the entire Russian population from political oppression, economic backwardness, and social injustice.


Finally, socialist feminists and most bourgeois feminists concurred in subordinatingwomen's emancipation to what they considered the more important goal of liberating the entire Russian population from political oppression, economic backwardness, and social injustice.

adding sujay25 as he has also raised the same question .

Hi All,

Sorry to reopen an old thread.

In the question:
3. According to the passage, Russian socialists within the women's movement and most bourgeois feminists disagreed about which of the following?
A. Whether legal reform was central to the achievement of feminist goals
B. Whether paid employment was important for the achievement of equality
C. Whether maternity insurance was desirable for working mothers
D. Whether working mothers faced obstacles
E. Whether women's emancipation should be subordinated to the liberation of the Russian population

A is correct as pointed in the above answers. But isn't the passage also suggesting a disagreement about C?
"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"

takeTWO Read the highlighted part in the 2nd para

"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 means that almost all the members of both the factions *agreed* on having "maternity insurance". The question asks us to identify a point of *disagreement*.

Lets look at the 1st paragraph:

Historians have identified two dominant currents in the Russian women's movement of the late tsarist period. "Bourgeois" feminism, so called by its more radical opponents, emphasized "individualist" feminist goals such as access to education, career opportunities, and legal equality."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.

Time taken : 2:50

All correct.

1. The passage is primarily concerned with
A. identifying points of agreement between two groups - What the second paragraph is doing and the first paragraph is a buildup to that. Correct
B. advocating one approach to social reform over another
C. contrasting two approaches to solving a political problem
D. arguing that the views espoused by one political group were more radical than those espoused by another group
E. criticizing historians for overlooking similarities between the views espoused by two superficially dissimilar groups

2. The passage suggests that socialists within the Russian women's movement and most bourgeois feminists believed that in Russia
A. women would not achieve economic equality until they had political representation within the government
B. the achievement of larger political aims should take precedence over the achievement of women's rights - This is correct and is clearly stated in the passage
C. the emancipation of women would ultimately bring about the liberation of the entire Russian population from political oppression
D. women's oppression was more rooted in economic inequality than was the case in other countries
E. the women's movement was more ideologically divided than were women's movements in other countries

3. According to the passage, Russian socialists within the women's movement and most bourgeois feminists disagreed about which of the following?
A. Whether legal reform was central to the achievement of feminist goals - This is clearly stated in the first paragraph. Correct!
B. Whether paid employment was important for the achievement of equality
C. Whether maternity insurance was desirable for working mothers
D. Whether working mothers faced obstacles
E. Whether women's emancipation should be subordinated to the liberation of the Russian population

bansal4uin The 1st paragraph tells us about the differences between 2 schools of thoughts but the 2nd paragraph tells us about the point on which both the schools of thoughts agreed.



Option C talks only about contrasting (or differences) and hence only talks about paragraph 1 - paragraph 2 is not explained by this option.



Option A tells us about the value of paragraph 2. A valid question that can come to your mind could be, "If Option C is wrong because it suffered from omitting the value of paragraph 2, then why can't A be wrong because it fails to explain the value of paragraph 1". The reason why A is correct is because we can take paragraph 1 to be a primer or an introduction to the main body i.e. paragraph 2. So in essence the main idea of the passage is in paragraph 2 and paragraph 1 only gives us a background and sort of tells us why the situation elaborated in paragraph 2 is significant (that in spite of the extreme differences between the 2 schools of thoughts elaborated in paragraph 1, the 2 schools of thoughts agreed in 1 area).

Hello Experts: chetan2u, Divyadisha, mikemcgarry, souvik101990, aditya8062, Nevernevergiveup, carcass and others
Can someone please explain why Q1 - Answer1: a and NOT c?
1. The passage is primarily concerned with
A. identifying points of agreement between two groups
C. contrasting two approaches to solving a political problem

I selected C because (i think) contrasting encompasses both similarity and difference. Although focusing more on difference. Isn't that the case here? 1 para - differences and 2nd para similarity between two movements which 2 groups failed to properly appreciate.
I did read explanation provided by Amovy but i am still confused.
Thanks

Can someone explain the answer for question 3.

If I were to read the quoted text, the passage doesn't explicitly differentiate between 'some' or 'most' bourgeois feminists, so how can A be the answer?

Hey ameyaprabhu

Even I made the same mistake and selected the incorrect answer choice in Q3

The catch is in the question itself which we didn't read clearly

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

The women's movement is only given in the first para, you don't even need to look at the second paragraph. Hence answer should be A as you rightly highlighted in the first paragraph

On another note, in the second para the two groups disagreed over maternity insurance
Read this line
although the intense hostility between some socialists and bourgeois feminists at the Congress made it difficult for them to recognize these areas of agreement

Hope this helps. Don't forget to give kudos
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Hi

I am still not able to Conclude that for 3rd question the answer is A
From these lines from Para

Historians have identified two dominant currents in the Russian women's movement of the late tsarist period. "Bourgeois" feminism, so called by its more radical opponents, emphasized "individualist" feminist goals such as access to education, career opportunities, and legal equality."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.

From My understanding Only Socialist is disagree with Legal reform.

I also want some one to help me in solving detail question as I face very tough to find the that particular detail from Question to passage and it take lot of time and that is the reason i take so much time in detailed question, Any strategy I should follow.

Hi GMATNinjaTwo, Could you help with question 3?

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

A. Whether legal reform was central to the achievement of feminist goals
B. Whether paid employment was important for the achievement of equality
C. Whether maternity insurance was desirable for working mothers
D. Whether working mothers faced obstacles
E. Whether women's emancipation should be subordinated to the liberation of the Russian population
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In the first paragraph, we are told that "Bourgeois" feminists emphasized "individualist" feminist goals such as legal equality. This implies that the BFs wanted legal reform in order to attain legal equality. In other words, legal equality did not exist, so the BFs wanted changes (reform) to move towards legal equality.

"Socialist" feminists, by contrast, emphasized socialist revolution, not legal reform, as the only road to emancipation and equality. This implies that the SFs did not think legal reform was central to their goals as feminists.

So BFs wanted legal equality (i.e. legal reform), while the SFs did NOT emphasize legal reform. Thus, the two groups disagreed about whether legal reform was central to achievement of feminists goals.

(A) is the best answer.
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Maternalism and Child Welfare in Late Imperial Russia
pp. 114-125 | DOI: 10.1353/jowh.2010.0411
Adele Lindenmeyr

Journal of Women's History
Volume 5, Number 2, Fall 1993

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/363307/pdf

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