Nearly all the workers of the Lowell textile mills of Massachusetts

Question

Nearly all the workers of the Lowell textile mills of Massachusetts were unmarried daughters from farm families. Some of the workers were as young as 10. Since many people in the 1820s were disturbed by the idea of working females, the company provided well-kept dormitories and boardinghouses. The meals were decent and church attendance was mandatory. Compared to other factories of the time, the Lowell mills were clean and safe, and there was even a journal, The Lowell Offering, which contained poems and other material written by the workers, and which became known beyond New England. Ironically, it was at the Lowell mills that dissatisfaction with working conditions brought about the first organization of working women.

The mills were highly mechanized, and were in fact considered a model of efficiency by others in the textile industry. The work was difficult, however, and the high level of standardization made it tedious. When wages were cut, the workers organized the Factory Girls Association. 15,000 women decided to “turn out,” or walk off the job. The Offering, meant as a pleasant creative outlet, gave the women a voice that could be heard by sympathetic people elsewhere in the country, and even in Europe. However, the ability of the women to demand changes was severely circumscribed by an inability to go for long without wages with which to support themselves and help support their families. This same limitation hampered the effectiveness of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA), organized in 1844.

No specific reform can be directly attributed to the Lowell workers, but their legacy is unquestionable. The LFLRA’s founder, Sarah Bagley, became a national figure, testifying before the Massachusetts House of Representatives. When the New England Labor Reform League was formed, three of the eight board members were women. Other mill workers took note of the Lowell strikes, and were successful in getting better pay, shorter hours, and safer working conditions. Even some existing child labor laws can be traced back to efforts first set in motion by the Lowell mills women.   1 
 1. According to the passage, which of the following contributed to the inability of the workers at Lowell to have their demands met?

(A) The very young age of some of the workers made political organization impractical.
(B) Social attitudes of the time pressured women into not making demands.
(C) The Lowell Female Labor Reform Association was not organized until 1844.
(D) Their families depended on the workers to send some of their wages home.
(E) The people who were most sympathetic to the workers lived outside of New England.

2 
 2. The author of the passage implies that the efforts of the women workers at the Lowell mills ______.

(A) were of less direct benefit to them than to other workers
(B) led to the creation of child labor laws that benefited the youngest workers at the Lowell mills
(C) forced the New England Labor Reform League to include three women on its board
(D) were addressed in the poetry included in The Offering
(E) were initially organized by Sarah Bagley

3 
 3. The author uses the word “Ironically” in the first paragraph to indicate that _______.

(A) none of the people who ran the Lowell mills expected that the workers would organize to express dissatisfaction with working conditions
(B) the women who worked at the Lowell mills did not realize how fortunate they were to work at such a place
(C) it could be considered surprising that an early effort to demand better working conditions began in an environment that was especially designed to promote worker satisfaction
(D) the people who created the working environment for the women at the Lowell mills did not really understand what it was they needed
(E) it was unusual for women workers of the time to organize, regardless of their work environment

4 
 4. The primary purpose of the passage is to do which of the following?

(A) Describe the labor reforms that can be attributed to the workers at the Lowell mills
(B) Criticize the proprietors of the Lowell mills for their labor practices
(C) Suggest that the Lowell mills played a large role in the labor reform movement
(D) Describe the conditions under which the Lowell mills employees worked
(E) Analyze the business practices of early American factories

sagarbuss · Accepted Answer

Hey, Your problem sounds similar to mine when i started my GMAT Preparation. Not that am good enough in RC now. But atleast crossed your phase and still lot more to improve. Every one has to develop and identify their own style of crossing RC. jotting down, memorizing, skimming and returning back etc are few of them. But you need to mix your strategy with these only once you got to know wats wrong with yours.

Looking at the similarity between your problem and mine, i would like to tell you few of my mistakes during start. Check if you are also doing the same.

1. I was just reading an RC as if was reading a news paper. I used to ignore what ever i dont understand and try to skim tough sentence formations.
--- Never read an RC like an usual news paper. Get involved into the RC in the way 'Arjun did hit the birds eye'. Only then you would atleast understand main content. Literally any external disturbance/thoughts/deviations of couple of seconds will make you lose the contact between what you are reading now and what you read earlier in passage.

2. Trying to understand whole sentence, no matter how big it is.
--- Try to break the sentence structure. Remove the modifiers and re-read the sentence.

3. Understanding the meaning of current sentence alone.
--- It helps me to understand the current sentence. But if i dont relate the meaning of current sentence with previous sentence/paragraph, i will miss the context. This will hit badly in generic questions. Try to relate the sentence with earlier one and understand the whole theme. Similarly, understand the connectivity between paragraphs too.

4. Hard Terminology
--- Till you reach 700 level i dont thing you will find, hard vocabulary. So this is not an issue to you as of now. Even if you reach hard terminology without actually knowing the meaning of the term you can guess the meaning. Eg: It was one of the disastrous  catastrophes  i have ever seen - You may not understand what 'catastrophes' mean but the word before it 'disastrous' will indicate you that catastrophes is something bad. Just move on after that.

5. Too many characters or Technical jargons
--- Give abbrivative name to each jargon or character so as you dont have to read it fully (eg: xenophobia. Break it to XP and just move on) Your brain stops understanding necessary information once you are stuck with remembering characters/identifying meaning of jargons/pronouncing a hard word etc. You really dont need them for to answer.

6. For starter you can read editorials from 'The Hindu'. But to really ace RC in GMAT you need to understand sentence structure used by native authors. For that i would recommend to Read News opinions from NY Times, Washington Post, Scientific American etc. to understand how the native authors speak.
-- When you read the opinion, try to read them without seeing the title of the article. At the end of the article give your own title to the article and compare it with the given article. 
-- Try to understand the tone of author. +Ve, -Ve, neutral, opposing, criticizing, supportive, cautious etc.
-- Try to summarize what you read in couple of sentences and cross check your understanding.
-- When you read the articles, you dont need to time yourself (since the length of article will not be same as a standard GMAT Passage). For better understanding of the article try to figure out 'what are the modifiers modifying?', 'what is the noun a particular pronoun is referring to?' etc.

7. Answer choices are too close.
-- Remember if you have two parts in 1 answer choice. you understand one part is correct and you dont really pay attention to the other part of answer and just move on. Thumb rule: Dont just move on while answering the passage. Use 'Move on' Strategy only for reading the passage. Until and unless you dont find the complete answer convincing dont just mark it. Thats a classic Trap. You will surely find a better choice once you complete reading all answers.

Once you are done with all above (should take a couple of months to improve), concentrate on timing. My instructor said that the ideal timing should be 2-3 min for passage and 1 min/question.

PS: I should really thank egmat free session regarding RC, to understand my mistakes and improve my RC Skills to far better extent than where i started.

Note: Inspite of taking care of all above am struggling with 600+ level passages with just 60 - 70 % success rate. Dont know what else can be done. Experts can add their 2 cents pls..

gagan0001 · Answer

Hi all,
Can someone please tell me a way to improve timing in RC?
I mostly get the answers correct but it takes lot of time, as for this question I was able to get all answers right but it took 12 minutes.
Noting down the key points method is not working well enough for me. Sometimes to answer a question I have to read a para again and again.
And that info connects somewhere else and finding that takes another read to the passage.
A little help would really be appreciated.
Thanks

kornn · Answer

Dear VeritasKarishma VeritasPrepBrian VeritasPrepRon IanStewart GMATGuruNY MartyTargetTestPrep DmitryFarber ccooley quixx23 I think I find some problems with the question from Veritas below: I think choice D. is stated in the passage: The test writer tried to mean that The Offering gave those women a VOICE but didn't address their efforts? What kind of VOICE is the passage trying to say? The Offering didn't talk about the efforts of the women workers at all? Why is the Offering still considered a VOICE then? Moreover, I think choice E. is stated in the passage: The test writer tried to mean that SB was a FOUNDER but didn't INITIALLY ORGANIZE the "efforts of the women workers at the Lowell mills"? I think this point is highly debatable! I'm very confused here. VeritasPrepBrian doesn't give any reason why choice D. and E. are wrong in both the guide book and VDO lesson. What VeritasPrepRon wrote in https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2015/0 ... -the-gmat/ doesn't quite resolve my doubts! Please help me out, Veritas experts!

KarishmaB · Answer

Neither (D) nor (E) is a feasible candidate.

Let's break down the passage:

Para 1 (tells us how Lowell mills provided better facilities than others) 
Talking about 1820s...
Lowell Mills provided well-kept dormitories ... meals were decent... Compared to other factories of the time, the Lowell mills were clean and safe, and there was even a journal, The Lowell Offering, which contained poems and other material written by the workers... Ironically, it was at the Lowell mills that dissatisfaction with working conditions brought about the first organization of working women.

Para 2 (tells us about the efforts women put to improve conditions) 
Work was tedious... When wages were cut, the workers organized the Factory Girls Association (call it FGA, it is NOT LFLRA). 15,000 women decided to “turn out,” or walk off the job. The Offering, meant as a pleasant creative outlet, gave the women a voice that could be heard by sympathetic people elsewhere in the country (it became a platform on which they raised their concerns). However, the ability of the women to demand changes was severely circumscribed by an inability to go for long without wages... This same limitation hampered the effectiveness of the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA), organized in 1844.

Para 3 (tells us how FGA helped others) 
No specific reform can be directly attributed to the Lowell workers, but their legacy is unquestionable. The LFLRA’s founder, Sarah Bagley, became a national figure, testifying before the Massachusetts House of Representatives. When the New England Labor Reform League was formed, three of the eight board members were women. Other mill workers took note of the Lowell strikes, and were successful in getting better pay, shorter hours, and safer working conditions. Even some existing child labor laws can be traced back to efforts first set in motion by the Lowell mills women.

2. The author of the passage implies that the efforts of the women workers at the Lowell mills ______.

What were the efforts of women workers at Lowell? Para 2 tells us. They organised FGA, they walked out, they talked about it in the Offering. 
Para3 tells us that their efforts left a legacy and helped others. Hence (A) is correct.

(A) were of less direct benefit to them than to other workers

(D) were addressed in the poetry included in The Offering
The women talked about their concerns in The Offering. They didn't talk about their "efforts". Also, the poetry did not "address" their efforts. Something can address concerns, not efforts. Hence, this option doesn't make much sense.

(E) were initially organized by Sarah Bagley
No. Sarah Begley was the founder of LFLRA in 1844. Efforts of women workers were FGA organised in 1820s.

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Official Explanation

2. The author of the passage implies that the efforts of the women workers at the Lowell mills ______.

Difficulty Level:   700

Explanation

Inference questions are the most difficult when you have to leverage and connect separate pieces of information within a passage. This question is a perfect example of leveraging two pieces of information: 1. In passage you learn that  the women of the Lowell strikes could not reap any benefits because they had to go back to work to support their families.  2. In passage you learn that  “other mill workers took note of the Lowell strikes and were successful in getting better pay,”  etc. From those two statements you can infer that the efforts of the women workers  “were of less direct benefit to them than to other workers,”  so answer  choice A  is correct.

It is important to note how much subtler this is than either a  “just regurgitate”  Specific question or an Inference question in which you need to only use one piece of information. You cannot make this inference from either statement alone, but with both it must be true. The difficulty lies in both finding and linking those pieces of together in order to recognize that answer  choice A  must be true. Several of the other inferences are close (especially answer  choice D ), but they all go a little too far and make statements that cannot be concretely supported by the passage.

Answer: A

TheUltimateWinner · Answer

VeritasKarishma 
The choice C says that the author is  suggesting  something, but I did not find any sentence in the passage where the author made any  suggestion . How the word  suggest  in choice C makes sense?

TheUltimateWinner · Answer

^^  ‘Other mill workers’  means what, actually? Is it only men? Or women? Or combination of both men and women? It seems that it means combination of both men and women. 
Question stem talks about  ‘women’ . Isn’t that ‘women’ overlaps the ‘other mill workers’?
If yes, how the answer choice A talks about LESS? If the passage says  something  (instead of 'Other mill workers') other than  women , then we can say that women get LESS direct benefit.

Also, can I say choice B is wrong because it talked about 'youngest' (out of scope)?
Thanks__

KarishmaB · Answer

When an author writes a passage, it is because she wants to tell us something/suggest something. It just means she wants to say something. The word "suggest" is used in this context. The purpose of the passage is to suggest (to tell us) that the Lowell mills played a large role in labor reform movement. 
The author talks about conditions at Lowell mills (first para), the reform efforts of women there (second para) and how they contributed to eventual reforms (third para).

KarishmaB · Answer

Note the first sentence:
"Nearly all the workers of the Lowell textile mills of Massachusetts were unmarried daughters from farm families."

Lowell mill workers were almost all women. They made efforts to improve worker conditions. Though their efforts did not have a lot of impact on them, but workers of other mills (men/women/children - irrelevant) benefited.
So (A) is correct.

As for (B), all we know is "Even some existing child labor laws can be traced back to efforts first set in motion by the Lowell mills women."
Did these laws actually benefit any Lowell mills children? We don't know.

TheUltimateWinner · Answer

VeritasKarishma 
Thanks for the kind response.
I've seen so many official RC where author did not put his/her own  suggestion/opinion . S/he just wrote whole the passage with so many  facts . In that time, I like to choose the word  describe  instead of  suggest ! 
But, it seems that author is going to  criticize  with the following sentence.

^^ The author is criticizing by the word  however , I guess. Am I missing anything, mam?

The following sentence is also the negative tone of the passage, so the word  criticize  instead  suggest  makes sense to me.

KarishmaB · Answer

Even when the author gives just 'facts', they are all leading up to a conclusion. Think about why you would write an article on XYZ - because you want to tell people something about XYZ. The motive you have for writing (e.g. "I want to tell people that XYZ played a big role in ABC" or "I want to tell people that XYZ is expected to return good profits next year" etc) is the main purpose. Sometimes, it may be clearly mentioned in the passage, sometimes it may be something you need to infer.

Also, use of one or two words will not tell you the tone of the passage. The same words could be used in different contexts to mean different things. And again, use of one word in an option does not make it correct. The author does not criticize the proprietors of the Lowell mills for their labor practices. If anything, he thinks that conditions at Lowell were better than those at other mills and that it was ironic that the first dissatisfaction with working conditions was observed at Lowell Mills.

"...Compared to other factories of the time, the Lowell mills were clean and safe, and there was even a journal,.. Ironically, it was at the Lowell mills that dissatisfaction with working conditions brought about the first organization of working women."

TheUltimateWinner · Answer

VeritasKarishma 
So, from the highlighted part, it seems that author does not write any passage where there is  no  opinion of the author, right? But, I say few official RC where the author does not have any opinion. I mean, the author does not put his/her own CONCLUSION! What is your thought about those RC?
Thank you mam..

KarishmaB · Answer

When the author does not give his own opinion, his purpose may be to give you an overview of the situation or to describe an event etc. If he describes it completely objectively, the test will not ask you what he thinks about it. Though normally GMAT RC passages will not be so cut and dry.

anushree01 · Answer

4. The primary purpose of the passage is to do which of the following?
(A) Describe the labor reforms that can be attributed to the workers at the Lowell mills
(B) Criticize the proprietors of the Lowell mills for their labor practices
(C) Suggest that the Lowell mills played a large role in the labor reform movement
(D) Describe the conditions under which the Lowell mills employees worked
(E) Analyze the business practices of early American factories

I still dont understand how C is correct! Lowell mills didnt play a large role in reform rather the Lowell mill women workers did!!

egmat · Answer

anushree01 You're right that it was the women workers who actually organized and protested, not the mill owners or buildings themselves. Here's the key insight: In RC answer choices, "Lowell mills" is used as shorthand for the entire Lowell mills phenomenon - the workplace, the workers, the organizations, everything associated with it. This is called metonymy, where an institution or place name represents the people and activities connected to it. Evidence from the passage: "it was at the Lowell mills that dissatisfaction...brought about the first organization of working women" - here the mills represent the context/location where workers organized The passage uses "the Lowell workers," "the Lowell mills women," and "the Lowell mills" interchangeably throughout Final sentence: "efforts first set in motion by the Lowell mills women " - showing these workers are inseparable from the Lowell mills identity The broader phrasing "Lowell mills" captures the entire phenomenon while still crediting the workers, who are the central part of this story. Think of it like this: When we say "Silicon Valley revolutionized technology," we don't mean the geographic valley did it - we mean the people and companies there. Same principle applies here. Here's my suggestion for Primary Purpose questions: Don't be overly literal with institutional or place names in answer choices - they typically encompass the people and activities associated with them. Focus on whether the choice captures the passage's main thrust. If you catch yourself thinking "but technically , it wasn't X, it was Y within X," you're likely overthinking the distinction. Hope this helps clear your confusion. If you still have any follow-up questions, feel free to ask

Su1206 · Answer

(C) Suggest that the Lowell mills played a large role in the labor reform movement

Direct reading of statement says 'Lowell mills' played a role in the labor reform movement. 
But reading of passage tells that the women who worked there played a role, not the 'mill' itself. I trained myself to read these fine details and went wrong with the question.

MartyMurray   KarishmaB   chetan2u  @dimitryfarber please help. Was my reading incorrect or is it something else?

MartyMurray · Answer

It generally works well to pay attention to such details in RC passages and questions.

At the same time, in this case, we have to be a little flexible for a few reasons.

One is that the point of the passage isn't just about the women who worked in the mills. Notice that even the fact that the Lowell mills had a journal,  The Offering , factored into the events that occurred. So, we can say that something about the mills themselves, and not just the women who worked there, figured into the labor reform-related events that occurred.

Also, in general, it makes sense to be a little flexible in this case because the women did work at the mills and were called "Lowell mill workers" and "Lowell mill women" in the passage. So, the point is that people who worked at the mills, who in essence are what made the mills go and thus can be considered part of the mills, took the actions discussed.

Also, we can see that the passage is just as much about the mills as about the women who worked there.

So, it's reasonable to say that the point of the passage is that "the Lowell mills" played a role in the labor reform movement.

Finally, there's no other answer choice that works better.

So, we can safely go with (C).

Nearly all the workers of the Lowell textile mills of Massachusetts

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GMAT Reading Comprehension (RC) Questions

Nearly all the workers of the Lowell textile mills of Massachusetts

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