Question

The passage is primarily concerned with

• A. showing how historians who were engaged in a particular debate influenced historians engaged in another debate
• B. explaining why two initially parallel scholarly debates diverged in the 1980's
• C. comparing two scholarly debates and discussing their histories
• D. contrasting the narrow focus of one scholarly debate with the somewhat broader focus of another
• E. evaluating the relative merits of the approaches used by historians engaged in two overlapping scholarly debates
• A. substantiate a point about the methodology that came to be prevalent among scholars engaged in the origins debate
• B. cite a major influence on those scholars who claimed that racial prejudice preceded the institution of slavery in colonial America
• C. show that some scholars who were engaged in the origins debate prior to the 1980's were interested in the experiences of enslaved people
• D. identify a reason for a certain difference in the late 1970's between the origins debate and the debate over American women's status
• J. contrast the kind of work produced by scholars engaged in the origins debate with the kind produced by scholars engaged in the debate over American women's status
• A. They disputed certain claims regarding the status of eighteenth-century American women relative to women in England during the same period.
• B. Their approach to the study of women's subordination had been partly influenced by earlier studies published by some scholars engaged in the origins debate.
• C. Their work focused on the experiences of both White and African American women.
• D. Their approach resembled the approach taken in studies by Wood and by Mullin in that they were interested in the experiences of people subjected to a system of subordination.
• O. To some extent, they concurred with Wood and with Mullin about the origins of racism in colonial America.
• A. gave more attention to the experiences of enslaved women
• B. gave less attention to the cultures of enslaved people
• C. were read by more scholars in other fields
• D. were more concerned with the institutions and ideologies that perpetuated racial prejudice in postcolonial America
• T. made direct comparisons between the subordination of White women and the subordination of African American people

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This question asks for the main idea or primary purpose of the entire passage. To answer this, we need to synthesize the information from all four paragraphs to understand the author's overall goal.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The passage introduces two historical debates from the 1970s: one on women's status and one on the origins of slavery.
Paragraph 1: Introduces both debates.
Paragraph 2: Discusses key differences between them (scope, timeline, urgency).
Paragraph 3: Compares their different approaches and notes a similarity in their narrow focus (origins debate on White men, women's debate on affluent White women).
Paragraph 4: Describes how the two fields converged in the 1980s.
The entire structure is a comparison and contrast of two scholarly fields, tracing their development over time.
Analyzing the Options:
(A) This is too specific. While the passage shows convergence, it doesn't focus heavily on direct "influence" from one group of historians on the other.
(B) This is incorrect. The passage states that the debates converged in the 1980s, not diverged.
(C) This accurately describes the overall structure and content. The author compares the debates on multiple points (their central questions, timelines, methodologies, and focus) and discusses their historical progression from their origins to their convergence in the 1980s.
(D) This is a misreading. The passage suggests both debates initially had a narrow focus. While there were differences, this option doesn't capture the full scope of the comparison.
(E) The author describes the debates but does not "evaluate the relative merits" or judge one approach as superior to the other. The tone is descriptive and analytical, not evaluative.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The passage is primarily a comparative discussion of two scholarly debates, outlining their histories, differences, similarities, and eventual convergence. Therefore, option (C) is the best description of its main purpose.

Answer 2

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This is a detail-in-context question. We need to understand why the author included the specific reference to Morgan's book, \textit{American Slavery, American Freedom}, within the argument of the second paragraph.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
Let's examine the context in paragraph 2: "Second, in contrast to the newness of the debate over women's status and its continued currency throughout the early 1980's, the debate over race and slavery, begun in the 1950's, had lost some of its urgency with the publication of Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom (1975), widely regarded as the last word on the subject."
The author is highlighting a difference between the two debates. The women's status debate was new and ongoing, while the origins debate was older and had lost momentum. The book is cited as the reason for this loss of momentum.
Analyzing the Options:
(A) The passage mentions the book's impact (being seen as the "last word"), not its methodology.
(B) The passage does not specify which side of the origins debate the book supported.
(C) The passage does not describe the content of the book, so we cannot infer this.
(D) This aligns perfectly with the analysis. The book is mentioned to explain a key difference—the varying levels of "urgency" and "currency" of the two debates in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
(E) The book is used to contrast the timelines and scholarly energy of the debates, not the specific "kind of work" produced.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The author mentions the book to explain why the origins debate had lost urgency, which was a key difference compared to the then-current debate on women's status.

Answer 3

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This is an inference question that asks us to draw a conclusion about the "women's historians" based on the information provided in the third paragraph.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
Paragraph 3 contrasts the focus of the two debates. The origins debate "focused mainly on White attitudes toward Africans rather than on Africans themselves." The exceptions were Wood and Mullin, who were "centrally concerned with enslaved African men." In contrast, the women's historians "were equally concerned with documenting women's experiences."
The key insight is to see the parallel: the mainstream origins debate focused on the powerful (the "White architects"), while both the women's historians and the exceptional historians (Wood and Mullin) focused on the experiences of the subordinated group.
Analyzing the Options:
(A) This refers to the "golden age theory" from the first paragraph, but the third paragraph doesn't discuss this specific dispute.
(B) The passage suggests a later convergence (in paragraph 4), not an early influence on the women's historians' approach.
(C) This is explicitly contradicted. Paragraph 3 states that these historians focused "mainly on affluent White women."
(D) This is the correct inference. The women's historians' focus on "documenting women's experiences" is analogous to Wood's and Mullin's focus on the experiences of "enslaved African men." Both groups centered their work on the people who were subjected to subordination, which set them apart from the main trend in the origins debate.
(E) The passage provides no information about the women's historians' views on the origins of racism.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The passage supports the inference that the women's historians shared a methodological focus with Wood and Mullin: they studied the experiences of the subordinated group itself.

Answer 4

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
This is a specific detail question asking about the changes in the field of race and slavery studies during the 1980s as described in the passage.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
The answer can be found directly in the final paragraph: "In the 1980's, historians of race and slavery in colonial America shifted their attention to enslaved people; interest in African American culture grew, thereby bringing enslaved women more prominently into view."
This sentence explicitly outlines the key differences between pre-1980s and 1980s studies. The new focus was on the enslaved people, their culture, and particularly enslaved women.
Analyzing the Options:
(A) gave more attention to the experiences of enslaved women.
This is directly supported by the phrase "bringing enslaved women more prominently into view."
(B) gave less attention to the cultures of enslaved people.
This contradicts the text, which says, "interest in African American culture grew."
(C) were read by more scholars in other fields.
The passage does not provide any information about the readership of these studies.
(D) were more concerned with the institutions and ideologies...
This describes the focus of the *earlier* studies (on the "White architects" of slavery), not the studies from the 1980s.
(E) made direct comparisons between the subordination of White women and... African American people.
While the two fields moved in "similar directions," the passage does not state that the slavery studies themselves began making these direct comparisons. It states that their focus shifted internally.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The passage explicitly states that the studies in the 1980s brought enslaved women more prominently into view, making option (A) the correct answer.