One strain of historical thought that achieved popularity in the 1950s

One strain of historical thought that achieved popularity in the 1950s forwarded the notion that immigration - more than the frontier experience, or any other specific event or factor - had been and continued to be the defining element of United States history. In this depiction, the 30 million immigrants who entered the country between 1820 and 1900 had common experiences regardless of their national, religion, or race: namely, in experiencing hardship and alienation, they themselves changed, but they also carried on the development of the nation itself.

Both casual and formal students of history should, however, be careful in equating the experiences of different groups of immigrants, especially under the somewhat blurring concept of "hardship." The description that all immigrants experienced hardship and immigration fails to account properly for the fact that in the 17th and 18th century millions of Africans were forcibly shipped to the United States and sold into slavery. While this group of people should not be excluded from any full reckoning of the nation's migrants, its alienation and hardship was of a substantially different character from that of the other populations, who migrated more willingly and independently and who arrived under and lived in vastly different conditions. If it is, indeed, the hardship and alienation experienced by the nation's migrants that have above all shaped both them and their nation, then to ignore this distinction would be to distort an important element of what our nation has been shaped to be.

1. The passage is primarily concerned with

A. contrasting the advantages of one historical characterization with the advantages of another
B. describing a defect in a particular historical characterization
C. discussing the value of a particular historical characterization and some concerns about its use
D. describing how some historians' use of a particular characterization has led to criticism
E. analyzing the influence of the views of current historians on characterizations of immigration in America


2. According to the passage, which of the following distinguishes the hardship of African immigrants sold into slavery?

A. The degree to which and manner in which African immigrants had already suffered in transit prior to arrival
B. The degree to which the hardship by African immigrants was not experienced willingly
C. The fact that suffering and alienation by African immigrants was excluded from many accounts of migration
D. The expectations and experiences already common to African immigrants upon their arrival
E. The degree to which African migrants lived in conditions independent of those in which other immigrants lived


3. The author of the passage would be most likely to make which of the following recommendations to scholars of immigration in America?

A. They should acknowledge that the hardship experienced by African immigrants was more severe than that experienced by other migrant groups.
B. They should assume that conclusions drawn about immigrants to the United States in general to not apply to African immigrants sold into slavery.
C. They should present a better argument as to why the hardship experienced by African immigrants is comparable to that experienced by other immigrant groups.
D. They should adjust their theory of immigration so that it does not appear to express equivalence of the different kinds of hardship experienced by immigrants.
E. They should not exclude from their theory of immigration groups that migrated contrary to their will.


4. Which of the following best describes the function of the last sentence of the passage?

A. It provides an example of how the hardship of African migrants to the United States was of a fundamentally different character than that of other groups.
B. It advances a critical relationship between the theory of immigration discussed and the flaw in that theory described by the author of the passage.
C. It provides further evidence of how African immigrants cannot meaningfully be compared to immigrants of other groups.
D. It illustrates an irreconcilable contradiction between the theory of immigration discussed and the flaws exposed by the author of the passage.
E. It outlines the conditions that must be met to repair the theory under discussion about immigration.


5. According to the passage, the concept of hardship, as it is used in the argument discussed by the author, is subject to which of the following criticisms?

A. It assumes one characterization of immigration as fact, without admitting the possibility that other characterizations may be equally valid.
B. It is identified as the force that shaped both the experience of immigrants and the nation as a whole.
C. It fails to allow for those immigrants who did not suffer hardship and for those non-immigrants who did suffer hardship.
D. It fails to account for other factors that are essential to an accurate description of some groups' immigration experience.
E. It implicitly equates experiences by different groups of immigrants that are substantially different.


6. According to the passage, each of the following is a difference between the experience of African immigrants and that of other immigrants EXCEPT:

A. African immigrants migrated less willingly to the United States than did other groups.
B. African immigrants carried on their existence in the country under different circumstances than did other immigrants.
C. The experiences of African immigrants have not been included in most depictions of immigration in the United States.
D. African immigrants experienced alienation that was significantly different from the alienation experienced by other immigrants.
E. The hardship experienced by African immigrants shaped the nation differently than did the hardship experienced by other immigrants.