Many scholars have theorized that economic development, particularly

Question

Many scholars  have theorized that economic development, particularly industrialization and urbanization, contributes to the growth of participatory democracy; according to this theory, it would seem logical that women would both demand and gain suffrage in ever greater numbers whenever economic development expanded their economic opportunities. However, the economic development theory is inadequate to explain certain historical facts about the implementation of women's suffrage. For example, why was women's suffrage, instituted nationally in the United States in 1920, not instituted nationally in Switzerland until the 1970's? Industrialization was well advanced in both countries by 1920: over 33 percent of American workers were employed in various industries, as compared to 44 percent of Swiss workers. Granted, Switzerland and the United States diverged in the degree to which the expansion of industry coincide with the degree of urbanization: only 29 percent of the Swiss population lived in cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants by 1920. However, urbanization cannot fully explain women's suffrage. Within the United States prior to 1920, for example, only less urbanized states had granted women suffrage. Similarly, less urbanized countries such as Cambodia and Ghana had voting rights for women long before Switzerland did. It is true that Switzerland urbanized cantons (political subdivisions) generally enacted women's suffrage legislation earlier than did rural cantons. However, these cantons often shared other characteristics—similar linguistic background and strong leftist parties—that may help to explain this phenomenon.   1 
 1. The primary purpose of the passage is to

A. contrast two explanations for the implementation of women's suffrage 
B. demonstrate that one factor contributes more than another factor to the implementation of women's suffrage 
C. discuss the applicability of a theory for explaining the implementation of women's suffrage 
D. clarify certain assumptions underlying a particular theory about the implementation of women's suffrage 
E. explain how a particular historical occurrence was causally connected to the implementation of women's suffrage

2 
 2. The passage states which of the following about Switzerland's urbanized cantons?

A. These cantons shared characteristics other than urbanization that may have contributed to their implementation of women's suffrage. 
B. These cantons tended to be more politically divided than were rural cantons. 
C. These cantons shared with certain rural cantons characteristics such as similar linguistic backgrounds and strong leftist parties. 
D. The populations of these cantons shared similar views because urbanization furthered the diffusion of ideas among them. 
E. These cantons were comparable to the most highly urbanized states in the United States in their stance toward the implementation of women's suffrage.

3 
 3. The passage suggests which of the following about urbanization in Switzerland and the United States by 1920?

A. A greater percentage of Swiss industrial workers than American industrial workers lived in urban areas. 
B. There were more cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants in Switzerland than there were in the United States. 
C. Swiss workers living in urban areas were more likely to be employed in industry than were American workers living in urban areas. 
D. Urbanized areas of Switzerland were more likely than similar areas in the United States to have strong leftist parties. 
E. A greater percentage of the United States population than the Swiss population lived in urban areas.

4 
 4. The passage suggests which of the following about states in the United States prior to 1920?

A. The states that were not highly urbanized were slow to grant women's suffrage.
B. The states that were highly urbanized were the most influential in determining national policies regarding suffrage.
C. The most highly urbanized states were more likely to have strong leftist parties.
D. The most highly urbanized states were not necessarily the most industrialized ones.
E. The most highly urbanized states had not yet granted women's suffrage.

5 
 5. According to the passage, the scholars mentioned in the highlighted text assert which of the following about the growth of participatory democracy within a particular nation?

A. It is not necessarily correlated with increasing income and opportunities for women in that nation.
B. It is not necessarily related to the implementation of women's suffrage within that nation.
C. It cannot adequately explain the nation's level of economic development.
D. It tends to be encouraged by the occurrence of industrialization in that nation.
E. It is to increase with the growth of leftist parties in that nation.

ID 00069

GMATPill · Accepted Answer

Here's how the passage breaks down using some RC Pill strategies (cutting the fluff and connecting the dots, as well as focusing on key transitive phrases)

Economic Development ---> Growth of participatory democracy ----> somehow linked to women's suffrage

- within economic development, 2 key drivers
1) industrialization
2) urbanization

Transitive Phrase which indicated CHANGE IN DIRECTION or AUTHOR's REAL PERSPECTIVE
"HOWEVER, ....." - basically saying that the link between economic development and women's suffrage is not really strong because of....whatever the rest of the passage is going to talk about.

Then starts, "FOR EXAMPLE..."

US and Switzerland were very similar yet there were differences in when women's suffrage was nationally institutionalized.

Those similarities are what..?

As it relates to the TWO economic development drivers mentioned above:
1) industrialization - "Industrialization was well advanced in both countries by 1920"; 33% vs 44%
2) urbanization - "degree of urbanization: only 29 percent of the Swiss population lived in cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants by 1920."
- basically keyword "ONLY" 29% suggests that US had a higher % of population living in urban areas and was more "urbanized"

So when the question asks which one of the following about urbanization was "suggested" by the passage, we have it here. The passage SUGGESTS that US urban rate was higher than Swizz urban rate.

Adi93 · Answer

2. The passage states which of the following about Switzerland's urbanized cantons?

A. These cantons shared characteristics other than urbanization that may have contributed to their implementation of women's suffrage.
B. These cantons tended to be more politically divided than were rural cantons.
C. These cantons shared with certain rural cantons characteristics such as similar linguistic backgrounds and strong leftist parties.
D. The populations of these cantons shared similar views because urbanization furthered the diffusion of ideas among them.
E. These cantons were comparable to the most highly urbanized states in the United States in their stance toward the implementation of women's suffrage.

For Question 2 refer the lines It is true that Switzerland urbanized cantons (political subdivisions) generally enacted women's suffrage legislation earlier than did rural cantons. However, these cantons often shared o ther characteristics—similar linguistic background and strong leftist parties—that may help to explain this phenomenon .

The Above lines suggest that Answer is A.

C is shell game answer as it uses the terms from the passage and we dont know anything about  certain rural cantons  in choice C.

Remaining options are irrelevant or Out of scope.

Pauline · Answer

1. A
B,D,E go with POE. C remains for an afterthought...

 Within the United States prior to 1920, for example,  only less urbanized states had granted women suffrage . Similarly, less urbanized countries such as Cambodia and Ghana had voting rights for women long before Switzerland did. It is true that  Switzerland urbanized cantons  (political subdivisions) generally  enacted womenâ€™s suffrage legislation earlier  than did rural cantons. However,   these cantons   often shared other characteristicsâ€”similar linguistic back ground and strong leftist partiesâ€”that may help to explain this  phenomenon . 

Phenomenon is here - why urbanized cantons did that before rural ones, whereas in other countries the situation was opposite.
That's why the answer is A.

2. C
Again, others are eliminated by POE.

3. E

  Granted, Switzerland and the United States diverged in the degree to which the expansion of industry coincide with the degree of urbanization: only 29 percent of the Swiss population lived in cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants by 1920.

JS1290 · Answer

GMATNinja   GMATNinja Two,

Hi GMATNinja, could you please explain why option D is correct for Q5? I chose option B instead.

GMATNinja · Answer

No problem, let's start with the question itself:

This is a wordy way of asking, "Which choice matches what the  scholars  say about the growth of participatory democracy?" The phrase "within a particular nation" is a bit of a weird choice, but it's just another way of saying "within any given nation."

Here's what the passage attributes to these  scholars :

"Many  scholars  have theorized that  economic development,  particularly industrialization and urbanization , contributes to the growth of participatory democracy ; according to this theory, it would seem logical that women would both demand and gain suffrage in ever greater numbers whenever economic development expanded their economic opportunities."

We know that the author spends the rest of the passage picking apart what these scholars have theorized, using several different nations as examples. But the question doesn't asks us what the author says. The question asks us what the  scholars  say. And given what we've just read in the passage, the answer seems straightforward:  The scholars assert that industrialization and urbanization contribute to the growth of participatory democracy.

Let's look for the choice that matches and eliminate the choices that don't:
 
This is actually closer to the opposite of what the scholars say ("according to this theory, it would seem logical that women would both demand and gain suffrage in ever greater numbers whenever economic development expanded their economic opportunities"). Eliminate (A).

There's no information in the passage to support whether the highlighted scholars make this fine-grain distinction between participatory democracy and women's suffrage (i.e., women's right to vote). Remember, we're looking for the choice that matches  what the  scholars  say , not what the author or anyone else says. So let's eliminate (B), too.

As with (B), this choice isn't supported by the passage. The only thing that we really know about the  scholars  is that they've theorized that economic development contributes to the growth of participatory democracy. There's no mention of their beliefs regarding whether the growth of participatory democracy explains economic development. Eliminate (C).

Great! The  scholars  think that industrialization and urbanization contribute to the growth of participatory democracy, and choice (D) says almost exactly the same thing. Let's keep (D) around and check up on the last choice.

This potential association shows up in the author's observations at the end of the passage, but it doesn't at all match what the  scholars  say. Eliminate (E).

That's why (D) is the only choice supported by the passage, and why (B) -- not to mention every other choice -- is wrong. I hope this helps!

Will2020 · Answer

Official Explanation - GMATPrep Question Pack :

Q1 - Answer Explanation 
Main idea

This question depends on understanding the passage as a whole and determining what is its primary purpose. The first sentence describes the economic development theory as an explanation for women’s suffrage, and the rest of the passage gives reasons to believe that that theory does not explain why women’s suffrage took so long to be implemented in Switzerland.

A The passage does not offer two explanations for the implementation of women’s suffrage; instead, it examines one explanation in detail.
B The passage argues against the idea that one factor—here, economic development—contributes more than another factor to the implementation of women’s suffrage.
C Correct. The passage considers whether the economic development theory is a sufficient explanation for the implementation of women’s suffrage in various countries.
D The passage suggests, in explaining what the economic development theory is, that it assumes that women would ask for and receive suffrage when their economic opportunities expand. The passage’s primary concern, however, is not the clarification of this assumption, but an investigation of whether it actually explains the implementation of women’s suffrage.
E The passage discusses the historical occurrence of urbanization but questions whether it was in fact causally connected to the implementation of women’s suffrage.

The correct answer is C.

HAPPYatHARVARD · Answer

Why nt option C for question number 3.
"Industrialization was well advanced in both countries by 1920: over 33 percent of American workers were employed in various industries, as compared to 44 percent of Swiss workers. "

GMATNinja · Answer

The piece of the passage that you've quoted tells us that,  overall,  a greater percentage of Swiss workers were employed in industry than were American workers. (Perhaps in the pretzel industry? I might argue that Swiss pretzels are better than German pretzels, but on the whole, German bakeries might be the most underrated in the world. Switzerland, incidentally, also has a remarkably robust vegetarian buffet industry. Who knew?)

Anyway, let's take another look at the exact wording of answer choice (C) for question #3: 
 
This sets up a comparison between Swiss and American workers  living in urban areas.  The passage does not provide evidence that this comparison is valid -- even though overall a higher percentage of Swiss workers were employed in industry, the passage does not tell us if this was true specifically for urban workers. It is possible that most industrial jobs in Switzerland were located in the countryside, and therefore urban Swiss workers were  less  likely to be employed in industry than their American counterparts. For this reason, (C) is not the answer for question #3.

Now look at (E):
 
Here is the most relevant piece of the passage to evaluate (E):
 
From the first part of the sentence, we know that the two countries "diverged" in the degree to which they were urbanized. Then, by saying that " only  29 percent of the Swiss population lived in cities..." the author makes it clear that Switzerland was less urbanized, by percentage of population, than was the United States.

(E) is the correct answer for question #3.

I hope that helps!

mimishyu · Answer

I’m quite perplexed about the end of this passage
In the end of this passage, the author mentions that “Switzerland’s urbanized cantons” can offer a plausible explanation for why“was women’s suffrage, instituted nationally in the United States in 1920, not instituted nationally in Switzerland until the 1970’s”
But what is its logic??
 is it that besides “industrialization and urbanization”, these urbanized cantons obstruct Switzerland’s instituted suffrage process for women to participatory democracy???

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Hi,

Let me try to address your query.

It is not correct to state that Switzerland's ubranized cantons offer a plausible explanation for women's suffrage institution in the country. Let us examine the last few sentences to glean the meaning intended by the passage.

Firstly, the passage states:  However, urbanization cannot fully explain women's suffrage.

So with this, the passage is rejecting urbanization alone as a causal factor for institution of women's suffrage. It then goes on to offer some plausible alternatives:

It is true that Switzerland urbanized cantons (political subdivisions) generally enacted women's suffrage legislation earlier than did rural cantons.

Ok, here,  it appears , at first glance, that urbanization had something to do with women's suffrage. However, this has already been ruled out earlier as a causal factor. This is reiterated by the very first word of the next sentence, which provides the alternatives:

However , these cantons often shared other characteristics—similar linguistic background and strong leftist parties—that may help to explain this phenomenon.

Now, it becomes clearer. It is not urbanization by itself that results in women's suffrage. The urban cantons of Switzerland had other things in common (apart from being urban, ie) viz; "zimilar linguistic background" and "strong leftist parties". Therefore, the passage is hinting that it was probably these factors which lead to women's suffrage being institutionalized, and not urbanization.

Hope this hels.

KarishmaB · Answer

The main idea of the passage is this:

The economic development theory is inadequate to explain certain historical facts about the implementation of women's suffrage.
Neither Industrialisation nor urbanisation (under economic development theory) fully explain why women's suffrage (voting rights) was implemented in different countries/counties etc when they were.

1. The primary purpose of the passage is to

A. contrast two explanations for the implementation of women's suffrage 
B. demonstrate that one factor contributes more than another factor to the implementation of women's suffrage

C. discuss the applicability of a theory for explaining the implementation of women's suffrage 
The theory is economic development theory and the passage discusses how it is inadequate in it explanation of implementation of women's suffrage.

D. clarify certain assumptions underlying a particular theory about the implementation of women's suffrage 
E. explain how a particular historical occurrence was causally connected to the implementation of women's suffrage

Answer (C)

custodio · Answer

I also find it hard to understand the passage as a whole.

The main question to be answered in the passage is this:
"why was women's suffrage, instituted nationally in the United States in 1920, not instituted nationally in Switzerland until the 1970s?".
In other words,  WHY WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE WAS TOO LATE IN SW?

Then the author argues that:
- Industrialization can't explain this (because Industrialization in US and SW is equally advanced)
- Urbanization can't explain this either (SW being less urbanized than US (or US being more urbanized) does not answer why WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE WAS TOO LATE IN SW, because, in fact,  UNURBANIZED  US states gave women suffrage. In other words, we would expect that SW with low urbanization would give women suffrage EARLIER as US with unurbanized states did.)

Then, the author says that there is an  explanation  WHY WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE WAS TOO LATE IN SW:
- It is true that Switzerland's urbanized cantons (political subdivisions) generally enacted women's suffrage legislation earlier than did rural cantons. However, these cantons often shared other characteristics???similar linguistic backgrounds and strong leftist parties???that may help to explain this phenomenon.

MY question is: How does this  explanation  correlate with WHY WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE WAS TOO LATE IN SW?

GMATNinja · Answer

Based on the first sentence of the passage, we'd expect that women would have gained suffrage "in ever greater numbers" wherever economic development occurred. However, the author believes that the economic development theory doesn't fully explain the historical facts:

This is the author's main idea.

To defend this idea, the author then compares women's suffrage in Switzerland and the United States. In other words, the discussion of Switzerland and the United States is merely an example to support the main idea. Later on, the author argues that urbanization "cannot fully explain women's suffrage." To defend this point, the author points out that "only less urbanized states had granted women's suffrage" in the U.S.

Later still, the author admits that Switzerland's urbanized cantons "generally enacted legislation earlier than did rural cantons." Notice that this would appear to contradict the main idea of the passage. To defend the main idea, the author then presents an alternative explanation. More specifically, the author tells us that the urbanized cantons "shared other characteristics -- similar linguistic background and strong leftists parties -- that may help to explain this phenomenon."

Overall, the author is trying to support the idea that economic development theory doesn't fully explain the history of women's suffrage. In developing this argument, the author admits that urbanized cantons in Switzerland granted suffrage earlier than rural cantons, which would appear to weaken the main idea. Yet according to the author, these cantons didn't grant suffrage first BECAUSE they were more urbanized. Instead, it was because they "shared other characteristics," such as linguistic background and strong leftist politics.

This explanation supports the author's main idea that the economic development theory is inadequate.

I hope that helps!

manavsaraf001 · Answer

How to solve such passage if one does not know the meaning of word "  SUFFRAGE  "

GMATNinja · Answer

When you don't know a particular word in a passage, you can try to use context clues to try to figure out what it means. To pick up those clues about the word "suffrage," start with the first couple of lines of the passage:

"Many scholars have theorized that economic development, particularly industrialization and urbanization, contributes to the growth of participatory democracy."

Here, we're given a theory that one things contributes to, or causes, another. Specifically, economic development causes the growth of participatory democracy. What is "participatory democracy"? Well, it is all the ways in which people can participate in democratic processes: voting, running for office, that kind of thing.

Then look at the second half of that sentence:

"According to this theory, it would seem logical that women would both demand and gain suffrage in ever greater numbers whenever economic development expanded their economic opportunities."

In the first bit, we learned the theory that economic development causes an increase in participatory democracy. So, if economic development expanded opportunities for women, what might they demand and gain? Well, it makes sense that they'd demand and gain the ability to participate in democracy. So, "suffrage" must be one of those activities listed above -- voting, running for office, etc.

"Suffrage" means the right to vote. While you might not be able to come up with that specific definition based on context, you can at least get in the ballpark by picking apart the clues in the rest of the sentence.

One note: before getting too worked up about knowing a particular word, you want to assess how important it is to the meaning of the passage overall. In this passage, "suffrage" is super important, so it's worth your time to try to puzzle it out. That might not be the case in other contexts -- sometimes you may be able to understand the passage even if you don't know every single word on the page.

I hope that helps!

VerbalBot · Answer

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Many scholars have theorized that economic development, particularly

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Many scholars have theorized that economic development, particularly

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