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Sub 505 (Easy)|   Short Passage|   Social Science|                                    
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Elite097
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to 25 Dec 2022, 00:24
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avigutman GMATNinja egmat Q4 why not C- refuses to take a position on women’s status in the eighteenth century?
The passage says that women s status increased in some and decreased in some aspects so he has not given his position about the status concretely.
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to 25 Dec 2022, 09:10
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Let's review the question itself:
Quote:
According to the passage, Lebsock’s work differs from Buel and Buel’s work in that Lebsock’s work
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Elite097, I know that you tried to justify a particular answer choice with what you wrote below, but your justification shows a lack of focus on what the question is asking (any justification of the correct answer has to rely on both works - you can't just look at one of the works and pick an answer based on that. We're asked to perform a comparative analysis here).
Also please note that "refuses" is a very strong word, and therefore requires strong evidence from the passage.
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avigutman GMATNinja egmat Q4 why not C- refuses to take a position on women’s status in the eighteenth century?
The passage says that women s status increased in some and decreased in some aspects so he has not given his position about the status concretely.
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to 13 Jan 2024, 03:22
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Hi, can I check why A) is wrong for Q-80 -- is it because since the passage says they lost power, then that would mean 18th century had more power than less so its incorrect?
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to 07 Mar 2024, 08:03
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miag
Hi, can I check why A) is wrong for Q-80 -- is it because since the passage says they lost power, then that would mean 18th century had more power than less so its incorrect?
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Yep, that's exactly right!
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Can you pls explain question 78? Was stuck between options B and E and went with E
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Sorry for the delay on this one! There are two problems with (E):
  1. ­Lebsock's book describes the "history of women in one southern community." We also know that Lebsock's book addresses the debate on whether women gained or lost status in the nineteenth century as compared with the eighteenth century. From that, we can infer that this "history of women in one southern community" encompasses both of those centuries. So it wouldn't be accurate to describe Lebsock's book as a "biography of a nineteenth-century woman" -- after all, the book was about WOMEN (plural) and likely covered multiple centuries.
  2. There's also nothing in the passage suggesting that Lebsock "applied recent historiographical methods" in her book.

As for (B), the passage specifically states that "[Lebsock] shows that the debate [on whether women gained or lost status in the nineteenth century as compared with the eighteenth century] itself depends on frame of reference...". This clearly suggests that Lebsock has demonstrated the importance of frame of reference in answering questions about women’s status.

So (B) is our winner.
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to 08 Jan 2026, 10:10
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How is this even sub505 level, when the questions are so twisted & difficult to get!
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to 08 Jan 2026, 10:20
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anushree01
How is this even sub505 level, when the questions are so twisted & difficult to get!
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The difficulty level of a question on the site is determined automatically after sufficient attempts, based on various parameters from users' attempts, such as the percentage of correct answers and the time taken to answer. Therefore, this is a sub-505 level question based on our statistics. For RC passages, the difficulty level is the average of the difficulties of all questions, so for this question, it's the average of the difficulties of all 6 questions.
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to 11 Feb 2026, 08:35
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i am always confused about when author examine and when author discuss? Here also i am confused between option A and D
Please experts help me to differentiate these things
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to writing the history of United States women. Buel and Buel’s biography of Mary Fish (1736–1818) makes little effort to place her story in the context of recent historiography on women. Lebsock, meanwhile, attempts not only to write the history of women in one southern community, but also to redirect two decades of historiographical debate as to whether women gained or lost status in the nineteenth century as compared with the eighteenth century. Although both books offer the reader the opportunity to assess this controversy regarding women’s status, only Lebsock’s deals with it directly. She examines several different aspects of women’s status, helping to refine and resolve the issues. She concludes that while women gained autonomy in some areas, especially in the private sphere, they lost it in many aspects of the economic sphere. More importantly, she shows that the debate itself depends on frame of reference: in many respects, women lost power in relation to men, for example, as certain jobs (delivering babies, supervising schools) were taken over by men. Yet women also gained power in comparison with their previous status, owning a higher proportion of real estate, for example. In contrast, Buel and Buel’s biography provides ample raw material for questioning the myth, fostered by some historians, of a colonial golden age in the eighteenth century but does not give the reader much guidance in analyzing the controversy over women’s status.

1. The primary purpose of the passage is to

(A) examine two sides of a historiographical debate
(B) call into question an author’s approach to a historiographical debate
(C) examine one author’s approach to a historiographical debate
(D) discuss two authors’ works in relationship to a historiographical debate
(E) explain the prevalent perspective on a historiographical debate



2. The author of the passage mentions the supervision of schools primarily in order to

(A) remind readers of the role education played in the cultural changes of the nineteenth century in the United States
(B) suggest an area in which nineteenth-century American women were relatively free to exercise power
(C) provide an example of an occupation for which accurate data about women’s participation are difficult to obtain
(D) speculate about which occupations were considered suitable for United States women of the nineteenth century
(E) illustrate how the answers to questions about women’s status depend on particular contexts



3. With which of the following characterizations of Lebsock’s contribution to the controversy concerning women’s status in the nineteenth-century United States would the author of the passage be most likely to agree?

(A) Lebsock has studied women from a formerly neglected region and time period.
(B) Lebsock has demonstrated the importance of frame of reference in answering questions about women’s status.
(C) Lebsock has addressed the controversy by using women’s current status as a frame of reference.
(D) Lebsock has analyzed statistics about occupations and property that were previously ignored.
(E) Lebsock has applied recent historiographical methods to the biography of a nineteenthcentury woman.



4. According to the passage, Lebsock’s work differs from Buel and Buel’s work in that Lebsock’s work

(A) uses a large number of primary sources
(B) ignores issues of women’s legal status
(C) refuses to take a position on women’s status in the eighteenth century
(D) addresses larger historiographical issues
(E) fails to provide suffi cient material to support its claims



5. The passage suggests that Lebsock believes that compared to nineteenth-century American women, eighteenth-century American women were
(A) in many respects less powerful in relation to men
(B) more likely to own real estate
(C) generally more economically independent
(D) more independent in conducting their private lives
(E) less likely to work as school superintendents



6. The passage suggests that Buel and Buel’s biography of Mary Fish provides evidence for which of the following views of women’s history?

(A) Women have lost power in relation to men since the colonial era.
(B) Women of the colonial era were not as likely to be concerned with their status as were women in the nineteenth century.
(C) The colonial era was not as favorable for women as some historians have believed.
(D) Women had more economic autonomy in the colonial era than in the nineteenth century.
(E) Women’s occupations were generally more respected in the colonial era than in the nineteenth century.



RC00109-01
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to 11 Feb 2026, 08:46
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Quote:
Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to writing the history of United States women. Buel and Buel’s biography of Mary Fish (1736–1818) makes little effort to place her story in the context of recent historiography on women. Lebsock, meanwhile, attempts not only to write the history of women in one southern community, but also to redirect two decades of historiographical debate as to whether women gained or lost status in the nineteenth century as compared with the eighteenth century. Although both books offer the reader the opportunity to assess this controversy regarding women’s status, only Lebsock’s deals with it directly. She examines several different aspects of women’s status, helping to refine and resolve the issues. She concludes that while women gained autonomy in some areas, especially in the private sphere, they lost it in many aspects of the economic sphere. More importantly, she shows that the debate itself depends on frame of reference: in many respects, women lost power in relation to men, for example, as certain jobs (delivering babies, supervising schools) were taken over by men. Yet women also gained power in comparison with their previous status, owning a higher proportion of real estate, for example. In contrast, Buel and Buel’s biography provides ample raw material for questioning the myth, fostered by some historians, of a colonial golden age in the eighteenth century but does not give the reader much guidance in analyzing the controversy over women’s status.
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1. The primary purpose of the passage is to

The author contrasts two 1984 works on the history of women in the United States, focusing on how each engages (or fails to engage) the historiographical debate about whether women gained or lost status from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century.

(A) examine two sides of a historiographical debate

The passage mentions both “women gained” and “women lost,” but it does not primarily lay out the two debate positions; it mainly compares how the two books handle the debate.

(B) call into question an author’s approach to a historiographical debate

The passage does criticize Buel and Buel for not giving guidance on the debate, but it is not mainly a takedown of one author. It is a comparison of two works.

(C) examine one author’s approach to a historiographical debate

Too narrow. The passage spends substantial time on Lebsock, but it explicitly contrasts her approach with the other book.

(D) discuss two authors’ works in relationship to a historiographical debate

This is the best match: the passage uses the historiographical debate as the organizing lens to compare the two books, praising one for addressing it directly and criticizing the other for not doing so. This is the passage’s main purpose.

(E) explain the prevalent perspective on a historiographical debate

The passage does not claim what the “prevalent perspective” is; it describes how one author reframes the debate (frame of reference) and how the other largely avoids it.

Answer: (D)
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Two works published in 1984 demonstrate contrasting approaches to 11 Feb 2026, 08:55
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shaliny
i am always confused about when author examine and when author discuss? Here also i am confused between option A and D
Please experts help me to differentiate these things

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Think of it this way:

(A) “examine two sides of a debate” means the passage’s main job is to lay out the two opposing positions (women gained status vs women lost status) and weigh them as ideas.

(D) “discuss two authors’ works in relationship to a debate” means the passage’s main job is to compare how two books handle that debate.

Here, the passage is mostly about the books: Lebsock tackles the debate directly and refines it; Buel and Buel provide material but do not guide the debate. The debate is mainly the lens used to compare the two works, not the main thing being evaluated on its own. So D fits better than A.
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