Women's grassroots activism and their vision of a new civic consciousn

Hi, while I agree 3 A is accurate, I thought 3E was legitimate also. The traditional view of child labor reform is infereabble from the underline below specifically

The inference from the underline (i thought) can be made as such

BEFORE these recent observations were made, the older (i.e. traditional view) on behalf of the historical community was THAT that all women had the same view regarding OUTLAWING child marriage specifically.

Once these recent observations became public, the traditional view about what women thought about OUTLAWING child marraige changed.

Thus, the author mentions the observation of these women historians to point out ...actually there was a TRADITIONAL VIEW and a NEW VIEW

3E i thought captured that

Addendum to my own thinking : Well, even if the following was the traditional view on behalf of this historical community : ALL WOMEN were on the same page regarding OUTLAWING child labor

I don't think -- the new historians per the underline -- mention something that presents in a contradiction WITHIN (INHERENT) the TRADITIONAL view specifically.

There is no contradiction WITHIN the traditional view specifically.

The underline presents a contradiction FROM the traditional view (the underline DOES NOT present a contradiction WITHIN the traditional view)

Is 10 mins a good time to solve such passages? Took me 4 mins to read and take notes & less than 6 mins to answer all question. Not able to reduce the reading time.

Hi, mikemcgarry
For question 3 I choose E and for Q 5 I choose B so can you please explain y both of them are wrong?

dear experts: avigutman, AndrewN,MartyTargetTestPrep , RonTargetTestPrep


what's wrong with E?
the historians did observe something that contradicts with the view of reform.

Hello experts
I want to understand in question 1, why is option D correct ? and how can we eliminate option E ?
In general, is there any specific approach to primary purpose questions in RC that I can inculcate ?

Question 1

Generally speaking, the best way to grasp the primary purpose of an RC passage is to pause and briefly articulate the author's purpose in each paragraph. The goal is here is to grasp not just the facts presented by the author, but his or her overall goal in presenting these facts. Since many questions refer back to the author's purpose one way or another, this approach can be useful for many different question types.

Let's apply this approach to this passage.

Reading it through, we see the author discusses women's grassroots activism during the progressive era. But why is this topic being discussed? Is there anything interesting the author wants us to know?

Well, after announcing the general topic, the author points out the ironic fact that "child labor legislation pitted women of different classes against one another." How so? Well, middle-class reformers wanted to pass child labor statutes, while working-class families saw these statutes as a "personal economic disaster." Summing up this disagreement, the author points out that women reformers "failed to take account of the economic needs of working class families."

So overall, the author's purpose is to point a disagreement (i.e. between working class women and reformers), as well as the reason for this disagreement (i.e. the reformers failed to understand the needs of working-class families).

Let's apply the above analysis to question 1:

Does (D) match our analysis of the author's primary purpose? Well, we saw that the author's main goal was not merely to discuss a general topic, but to lay out the ironic fact that the reformers' goals pitted them against working-class women. Why did this happen? Because these reformers failed to grasp the needs of working families.

That sounds like an oversight on the part of these reformers, so let's hold on to (D).

Here's (E):

The passage is definitely concerned with "women reformers enacting Progressive Era reforms." But is it revising a traditional view?

Well, does the author actually present a traditional view of the "role played by these reformers?" Not really. We learn that these reformers "won a variety of victories" by "improving working conditions." But this is more of a fact than a view.

Yet even if we considered this fact a view, is the "role played by women reformers" revised by the author? Not exactly. The author points out a failure of the reformers -- i.e. they overlooked the economic needs of working class women. But the "role" they played isn't questioned. In other words, the author never questions the idea that these reformers helped to bring about child labor statues.

Since the author doesn't revise a traditional view about the role that reformers played, we can eliminate (E), and the correct answer is (D).

I hope that helps!

That was a good passage.
Enjoyed solving that!