Historians have identified two dominant currents in the

[Beatrice Michael]

Historians have identified two dominant currents in the
Russian women's movement of the late tsarist period.
"Bourgeois" feminism, so called by its more radical
opponents, emphasized "individualist" feminist goals
such as access to education, career opportunities, and
legal equality. "Socialist" feminists, by contrast,
emphasized class, rather than gender, as the principal
source of women's inequality and oppression, and
socialist revolution, not legal reform, as the only road
to emancipation and equality.
However, despite antagonism between bourgeois
feminists and socialist feminists, the two movements
shared certain underlying beliefs. Both regarded paid
labor as the principal means by which women might
attain emancipation: participation in the workplace
and economic self-sufficiency, they believed, would
make women socially useful and therefore deserving
of equality with men. Both groups also recognized the
enormous difficulties women faced when they
combined paid labor with motherhood. In fact, at the
First All-Russian Women's Congress in 1908, most
participants advocated maternity insurance and paid
maternity leave, although the intense hostility between
some socialists and bourgeois feminists at the
Congress made it difficult for them to recognize these
areas of agreement. Finally, socialist feminists and
most bourgeois feminists concurred in subordinating
women's emancipation to what they considered the
more important goal of liberating the entire Russian
population from political oppression, economic
backwardness, and social injustice.

The passage is primarily concerned with
(A) identifying points of agreement between two
groups
(B) advocating one approach to social reform over
another
(C) contrasting two approaches to solving a political
problem
(D) arguing that the views espoused by one political
group were more radical than those espoused by
another group
(E) criticizing historians for overlooking similarities
between the views espoused by two superficially
dissimilar groups


Please can an expert explain why is C the answer here and why not A . Isnt the passage talking mainly about where they agreed together to acheive one aim

Please advice.. I am going wrong in all the main purpose questions


point1
However, despite antagonism between bourgeois
feminists and socialist feminists, the two movements
shared certain underlying beliefs


point2
. Finally, socialist feminists and
most bourgeois feminists concurred in subordinating
women's emancipation

[tim]

the points of agreement are only addressed in the second paragraph; anytime you see this happening, that is not the primary purpose of the passage. what is happening here is that the passage is showing how two contrasting movements worked toward the same political goals, which is what C says..

[vikram4689]

answer to this question is A. it is a gmat prep problem. clearly C is wrong as there is no problem discussed in passage. moreover, passage briefly describes 2 groups and discusses points of agreement between the two.

[tim]

i'd like some proof regarding which answer is correct. once i have that, i'll be glad to explain why it is correct. C sounded a little fishy to me, but i gave the best explanation i could based on an assertion that C was correct. if i find that A is actually correct, i'll give an even better explanation! :)

[ricardocs84]

[tim]

blank post. care to try again?

[ricardocs84]

Hello:

I cannot attach the screen shoot of the Gmat Prep question (don't know how...)

But the official answer is indeed choice A, I chose E, though,,,

Could you please elaborate about the OA?

Thanks in advance,

[tim]

can you upload the screen shot somewhere and give us a link?

[ricardocs84]

Sure, I've created a blog just because of this, so I'll wait for a super awesome explanation! - kidding

Hope you guys can see the upload well, here the url: https://racanothingmuch.blogspot.com/b/ ... -post.html

[tim]

care to try again? :)

[daniel.palacios.posada]

Tim,

I can confirm that the OA is A. I also incorrectly chose C when I was taking the GMAT Prep test since the first paragraph contrasts the two approaches and assumed that the women's movement is in fact a political problem.

Can you or another instructor please clarify why A is the correct answer and provide an explanation on why C is wrong?

Thanks

[tim]

okay, i'm locking the thread. i'm sorry to have to take such drastic measures, but there seems to be no less invasive way to get across the point that IF YOU DON'T SEE THE ACTUAL GMAT PREP SOFTWARE SHOWING THE ANSWER, YOU SHOULD NOT TAKE SOMEONE ELSE'S WORD FOR IT!!! the fact that no one has been able to provide a screen shot of the correct answer suggests that none of you have actually seen it with your own eyes. it's not a good idea to discuss an answer that we have no basis to believe other than speculation if there has been some uncertainty in the discussion about what the actual answer is. if you can post a screen shot of the answer, feel free to start another thread and we can discuss this one further. if you start such a thread without a screen shot though, expect it to get shut down as well..