The second debate, the so-called origins debate, concerned the emergence of racial slavery in the southern colonies: was slavery the inevitable result of the deep-rooted racial prejudice of early British colonists or did racial prejudice arise only after these planters instituted slave labor?
Although these debates are parallel in some respects, key differences distinguished them. Whereas the debate over women’s status revolved around implicit comparisons of colonial women to their counterparts in the antebellum period (1800--1860), thus inviting comment from scholars of both historical periods, the origins debate was primarily confined to a discussion about slavery in colonial America. Second, in contrast to the newness of the debate over women’s status and its continued currency throughout the early 1980s, the debate over race and slavery, begun in the 1950s, 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.
Each debate also assumed a different relationship to the groups whose histories it concerned. In its heyday, the origins debate focused mainly on White attitudes toward Africans rather than on Africans themselves. With few exceptions, such as Wood’s Black Majority (1974) and Mullin’s Flight and Rebellion (1972), which were centrally concerned with enslaved African men, most works pertaining to the origins debate focused on the White architects, mostly male, of racial slavery. In contrast, although women’s historians were interested in the institutions and ideologies contributing to women’s subordination, they were equally concerned with documenting women’s experiences. As in the origins debate, however, early scholarship on colonial women defined its historical constituency narrowly, women’s historians focusing mainly on affluent White women.
Over time, however, some initial differences between the approaches taken by scholars in the two fields faded. In the 1980s, 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. Historians of early American women moved in similar directions during the decade and began to consider the effect of racial difference on women’s experience.
The passage is primarily concerned with:
The passage is primarily concerned with:
Show Hint
- Showing how historians who were engaged in a particular debate influenced historians engaged in another debate
- Explaining why two initially parallel scholarly debates diverged in the 1980s
- Comparing two scholarly debates and discussing their histories
- Contrasting the narrow focus of one scholarly debate with the somewhat broader focus of another
Evaluating the relative merits of the approaches used by historians engaged in two overlapping scholarly debates
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Identify the purpose of the passage.
The passage describes two debates: one about women’s status and one about the origins of racial slavery. It outlines their content, scope, differences, and evolution.
Step 2: Evaluate options.
- (A): Influence is not the focus.
- (B): The debates did not diverge in the 1980s; they actually became similar.
- (C): Correct, the passage compares and traces their histories.
- (D): Contrast alone is not enough; the passage does more.
- (E): No evaluation of merits, just description.
Step 3: Conclusion.
Hence, the answer is (C).
It can be inferred that the author of the passage mentions American Slavery, American Freedom in the second paragraph primarily in order to:
It can be inferred that the author of the passage mentions American Slavery, American Freedom in the second paragraph primarily in order to:
Show Hint
- Substantiate a point about the methodology that came to be prevalent among scholars engaged in the origins debate
- Cite a major influence on those scholars who claimed that racial prejudice preceded the institution of slavery in colonial America
- Show that some scholars who were engaged in the origins debate prior to the 1980s were interested in the experiences of enslaved people
- Identify a reason for a certain difference in the late 1970s between the origins debate and the debate over American women’s status
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
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Recall the passage.
The text says the origins debate lost urgency after the publication of Morgan’s \emph{American Slavery, American Freedom}, which was regarded as the “last word” on the subject.
Step 2: Match options.
- (A): Not about methodology.
- (B): Not framed as influence on prejudice claims.
- (C): Not about enslaved people’s experiences.
- (D): Correct—explains why the origins debate had declined in urgency compared to the women’s debate.
- (E): No such contrast is made here.
Step 3: Conclusion.
Answer is (D).
The passage suggests which of the following about the women’s historians mentioned in the third paragraph?
The passage suggests which of the following about the women’s historians mentioned in the third paragraph?
Show Hint
- They disputed certain claims regarding the status of eighteenth-century American women relative to women in England during the same period.
- 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.
- Their work focused on the experiences of both White and African American women.
- 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.
To some extent, they concurred with Wood and with Mullin about the origins of racism in colonial America.
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Recall the third paragraph.
It says women’s historians studied institutions and ideologies but were equally concerned with women’s actual experiences.
Step 2: Compare with Wood and Mullin.
Wood’s and Mullin’s works focused on enslaved people’s experiences. Both approaches highlight the lived experiences of subordinated groups.
Step 3: Analyze options.
- (A): Not stated.
- (B): No direct influence mentioned.
- (C): They focused mainly on affluent White women, not both races.
- (D): Correct, both studied lived experiences under subordination.
- (E): Racism origins not connected here.
Step 4: Conclusion.
Answer is (D).
According to the passage, historical studies of race and slavery in early America that were produced during the 1980s differed from studies of that subject produced prior to the 1980s in that the studies produced during the 1980s:
According to the passage, historical studies of race and slavery in early America that were produced during the 1980s differed from studies of that subject produced prior to the 1980s in that the studies produced during the 1980s:
Show Hint
- gave more attention to the experiences of enslaved women
- gave less attention to the cultures of enslaved people
- were read by more scholars in other fields
- were more concerned with the institutions and ideologies that perpetuated racial prejudice in postcolonial America
made direct comparisons between the subordination of White women and the subordination of African American people
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Recall the relevant passage portion.
The last paragraph of the passage notes that in the 1980s, historians of race and slavery “shifted their attention to enslaved people; interest in African American culture grew, thereby bringing enslaved women more prominently into view.”
Step 2: Compare with pre-1980s scholarship.
Earlier works (before the 1980s) focused primarily on White architects of slavery and on White attitudes toward Africans, with limited attention to enslaved people themselves. Only exceptions, such as Wood and Mullin, highlighted enslaved men.
Step 3: Analyze options.
- (A): Correct—1980s scholarship brought enslaved women into focus.
- (B): Incorrect—attention to enslaved cultures actually increased, not decreased.
- (C): No mention of readership across fields.
- (D): Incorrect—the passage describes ideologies of subordination for women’s historians, not specifically for slavery in postcolonial America.
- (E): Incorrect—no such direct comparisons are described.
Step 4: Conclusion.
The key difference is (A): more attention to enslaved women.
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
For the past two years at FasCorp, there has been a policy to advertise any job opening to current employees and to give no job to an applicant from outside the company if a FasCorp employee applies who is qualified for the job. This policy has been strictly followed, yet even though numerous employees of FasCorp have been qualified for any given entry-level position, some entry-level jobs have been filled with people from outside the company.
If the information provided is true, which of the following must on the basis of it also be true about FasCorp during the past two years?- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
As an example of the devastation wrought on music publishers by the photocopier, one executive noted that for a recent choral festival with 1,200 singers, the festival’s organizing committee purchased only 12 copies of the music published by her company that was 5 performed as part of the festival.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the support the example lends to the executive’s contention that music publishers have been devastated by the photocopier?- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- The most plausible justification for higher taxes on automobile fuel is that fuel consumption harms the environment and thus adds to the costs of traffic congestion. But the fact that burning fuel creates these “negative externalities” does not imply that no tax on fuel could ever be too high. Economics is precise about the tax that should, in principle, be levied to deal with negative externalities:
the tax on a liter of fuel should be equal to the harm caused by using a liter of fuel.
If the tax is more than that, its costs (including the inconvenience to those who would rather have used their cars) will exceed its benefits (including any reduction in congestion and pollution).- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- Objectively, of course, the various ecosystems that sustain life on the planet proceed independently of human agency, just as they operated before the hectic ascendancy of Homo sapiens. But it is also true that it is difficult to think of a single such system that has not, for better or worse, been substantially modified by human culture. Nor is this simply the work of the industrial centuries. It has been happening since the days of ancient Mesopotamia. It is coeval with the origins of writing, and has occurred throughout our social existence. And it is this irreversibly modified world, from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is all the nature we have.
- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
- Music critics have consistently defined James P. Johnson as a great early jazz pianist, originator of the 1920s Harlem ``stride'' style, and an important blues and jazz composer. In addition, however, Johnson was an innovator in classical music, composing symphonic music that incorporated American, and especially African American, traditions.
Such a blend of musical elements was not entirely new: by 1924 both Milhaud and Gershwin had composed classical works that incorporated elements of jazz. Johnson, a serious musician more experienced than most classical composers with jazz, blues, spirituals, and popular music, was particularly suited to expand Milhaud's and Gershwin's experiments. In 1927 he completed his first large-scale work, the blues- and jazz-inspired Yamekraw, which included borrowings from spirituals and Johnson's own popular songs. Yamekraw, premiered successfully in Carnegie Hall, was a major achievement for Johnson, becoming his most frequently performed extended work. It demonstrated vividly the possibility of assimilating contemporary popular music into the symphonic tradition.- GRE - 2025
- Verbal Reasoning
- Reading Comprehension
Questions Asked in GRE exam
Early critics of Emily Dickinson’s poetry mistook for simplemindedness the surface of artlessness that in fact she constructed with ...............
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion
The macromolecule RNA is common to all living beings, and DNA, which is found in all organisms except some bacteria, is almost as ...............
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion
Linguistic science confirms what experienced users of ASL—American Sign Language—have always implicitly known: ASL is a grammatically .............. language, as capable of expressing a full range of syntactic relations as any natural spoken language.
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion
Dreams are .............. in and of themselves, but, when combined with other data, they can tell us much about the dreamer.
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion
- Each of the following questions includes a short text with two or three blanks, each blank indicating that something has been omitted. Select one entry for each blank from the corresponding column of choices. Fill all blanks in the way that best completes the text.
- GRE - 2025
- Sentence Completion