Most scholars of Mexican American history mark César Chávezs unionizi

Question

Most scholars of Mexican American history mark
César Chávez’s unionizing efforts among Mexican
and Mexican American farm laborers in California as
the beginning of Chicano political activism in the
  (5)   1960s. By 1965, Chávez’s United Farm Workers
Union gained international recognition by initiating a
worldwide boycott of grapes in an effort to get
growers in California to sign union contracts. The
year 1965 also marks the birth of contemporary
  (10)   Chicano theater, for that is the year Luis Valdez
approached Chávez about using theater to organize
farm workers. Valdez and the members of the
resulting Teatro Campesino are generally credited by
scholars as having initiated the Chicano theater
  (15)   movement, a movement that would reach its apex in
the 1970s.

In the fall of 1965, Valdez gathered a group of
striking farm workers and asked them to talk about
their working conditions. A former farm worker
  (20)   himself, Valdez was no stranger to the players in the
daily drama that was fieldwork. He asked people to
illustrate what happened on the picket lines, and the
less timid in the audience delighted in acting out their
ridicule of the strikebreakers. Using the farm
  (25)   workers’ basic improvisations, Valdez guided the
group toward the creation of what he termed “ actos ,”
skits or sketches whose roots scholars have traced to
various sources that had influenced Valdez as a
student and as a member of the San Francisco Mime
  (30)   Troupe. Expanding beyond the initial setting of
flatbed-truck stages at the fields’ edges, the  acto 
became the quintessential form of Chicano theater in
the 1960s. According to Valdez, the acto should
suggest a solution to the problems exposed in the
  (35)   brief comic statement, and, as with any good political
theater, it should satirize the opposition and inspire
the audience to social action. Because actos were
based on participants’ personal experiences, they had
palpable immediacy.

(40)   In her book  El Teatro Campesino , Yolanda
Broyles-González rightly criticizes theater historians
for having tended to credit Valdez individually with
inventing actos as a genre, as if the striking farm
workers’ improvisational talent had depended entirely
  (45)   on his vision and expertise for the form it took. She
traces especially the actos’ connections to a similar
genre of informal, often satirical shows known as
carpas that were performed in tents to mainly
working-class audiences. Carpas had flourished
  (50)   earlier in the twentieth century in the border area of
Mexico and the United States. Many participants in
the formation of the Teatro no doubt had substantial
cultural links to this tradition and likely adapted it to
their improvisations. The early development of the
  (55)   Teatro Campesino was, in fact, a collective
accomplishment; still, Valdez’s artistic contribution
was a crucial one, for the resulting actos were neither
carpas nor theater in the European tradition of
Valdez’s academic training, but a distinctive genre
  (60)   with connections to both.    1 
 1. Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

(A) Some theater historians have begun to challenge the once widely accepted view that in creating the Teatro Campesino, Luis Valdez was largely uninfluenced by earlier historical forms.
(B) In crediting Luis Valdez with founding the Chicano theater movement, theater historians have neglected the role of César Chávez in its early development.
(C) Although the creation of the early material of the Teatro Campesino was a collective accomplishment, Luis Valdez’s efforts and expertise were essential factors in determining the form it took.
(D) The success of the early Teatro Campesino depended on the special insights and talents of the amateur performers who were recruited by Luis Valdez to participate in creating actos.
(E) Although, as Yolanda Broyles-González has pointed out, the Teatro Campesino was a collective endeavor, Luis Valdez’s political and academic connections helped bring it recognition.

2 
 2. The author uses the word “immediacy” (line 39) most likely in order to express

(A) how little physical distance there was between the performers in the late 1960s actos and their audiences
(B) the sense of intimacy created by the performers’ technique of addressing many of their lines directly to the audience
(C) the ease with which the Teatro Campesino members were able to develop actos based on their own experiences
(D) how closely the director and performers of the Teatro Campesino worked together to build a repertoire of actos
(E) how vividly the actos conveyed the performers’ experiences to their audiences

3 
 3. The second sentence of the passage functions primarily in which one of the following ways?

(A) It helps explain both a motivation of those who developed the first actos and an important aspect of their subject matter.
(B) It introduces a major obstacle that Valdez had to overcome in gaining public acceptance of the work of the Teatro Campesino.
(C) It anticipates and counters a possible objection to the author’s view that the actos developed by Teatro Campesino were effective as political theater.
(D) It provides an example of the type of topic on which scholars of Mexican American history have typically focused to the exclusion of theater history.
(E) It helps explain why theater historians, in their discussions of Valdez, have often treated him as though he were individually responsible for inventing actos as a genre.

4 
 4. The passage indicates that the early actos of the Teatro Campesino and the carpas were similar in that

(A) both had roots in theater in the European tradition
(B) both were studied by the San Francisco Mime Troupe
(C) both were initially performed on farms
(D) both often involved satire
(E) both were part of union organizing drives

5 
 5. It can be inferred from the passage that Valdez most likely held which one of the following views?

(A) As a theatrical model, the carpas of the early twentieth century were ill-suited to the type of theater that he and the Teatro Campesino were trying to create.
(B) César Chávez should have done more to support the efforts of the Teatro Campesino to use theater to organize striking farm workers.
(C) Avant-garde theater in the European tradition is largely irrelevant to the theatrical expression of the concerns of a mainly working-class audience.
(D) Actors do not require formal training in order to achieve effective and artistically successful theatrical performances.
(E) The aesthetic aspects of a theatrical work should be evaluated independently of its political ramifications.

6 
 6. Based on the passage, it can be concluded that the author and Broyles-González hold essentially the same attitude toward

(A) the influences that shaped carpas as a dramatic genre
(B) the motives of theater historians in exaggerating the originality of Valdez
(C) the significance of carpas for the development of the genre of the acto
(D) the extent of Valdez’s acquaintance with carpas as a dramatic form
(E) the role of the European tradition in shaping Valdez’s contribution to the development of actos

7 
 7. The information in the passage most strongly supports which one of the following statements regarding the Teatro Campesino?

(A) Its efforts to organize farm workers eventually won the acceptance of a few farm owners in California.
(B) It included among its members a number of individuals who, like Valdez, had previously belonged to the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
(C) It did not play a major role in the earliest efforts of the United Farm Workers Union to achieve international recognition.
(D) Although its first performances were entirely in Spanish, it eventually gave some performances partially in English, for the benefit of non-Spanish-speaking audiences.
(E) Its work drew praise not only from critics in the United States but from critics in Mexico as well.

8 
 8. The passage most strongly supports which one of the following?

(A) The carpas tradition has been widely discussed and analyzed by both U.S. and Mexican theater historians concerned with theatrical performance styles and methods.
(B) Comedy was a prominent feature of Chicano theater in the 1960s.
(C) In directing the actos of the Teatro Campesino, Valdez went to great lengths to simulate or recreate certain aspects of what audiences had experienced in the carpas.
(D) Many of the earliest actos were based on scripts composed by Valdez, which the farm-worker actors modified to suit their own diverse aesthetic and pragmatic interests.
(E) By the early 1970s, Valdez was using actos as the basis for other theatrical endeavors and was no longer directly associated with the Teatro Campesino.

kalpama · Answer

can any one explain 4th one??

keets02 · Answer

in line 46-48:   She   traces especially the actos’ connections to a  similar     genre  of informal, often  satirical shows  known as   carpas that were performed in tents to mainly   working-class audiences.  
 it mentions clearly that the similarity between them is the satirical expression, hence Option:    (D) both often involved satire

icandoit4u · Answer

can anyone explain question 7 ? how is it comedy? it though satire and comedy are different

guddo · Answer

7. The information in the passage most strongly supports which one of the following statements regarding the Teatro Campesino?

The passage says the United Farm Workers gained international recognition in 1965 by starting a worldwide grape boycott. It also says Teatro Campesino began later that same year, when Valdez approached Chávez about using theater to organize farm workers.  So Teatro Campesino was important to Chicano theater and farm-worker organizing, but not to the union’s earliest international recognition effort .

(A) Its efforts to organize farm workers eventually won the acceptance of a few farm owners in California.

Wrong. The passage says the boycott aimed to get growers to sign union contracts, but it does not say Teatro Campesino won acceptance from farm owners.

(B) It included among its members a number of individuals who, like Valdez, had previously belonged to the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

Wrong. The passage says Valdez had been a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, but it does not say other Teatro members had been.

(C) It did not play a major role in the earliest efforts of the United Farm Workers Union to achieve international recognition.

Correct. The UFW gained international recognition through the grape boycott in 1965. Teatro Campesino began when Valdez later approached Chávez about using theater to organize farm workers. So the passage supports that Teatro Campesino was not central to that  earliest international recognition .

(D) Although its first performances were entirely in Spanish, it eventually gave some performances partially in English, for the benefit of non-Spanish-speaking audiences.

Wrong. The passage says nothing about language use in performances.

(E) Its work drew praise not only from critics in the United States but from critics in Mexico as well.

Wrong. The passage does not discuss critical reception in either country.

Answer: (C)

Most scholars of Mexican American history mark César Chávezs unionizi

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Most scholars of Mexican American history mark César Chávezs unionizi

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