Q13

[MayaM405]

I narrowed this answer choice down to B and D, and end up choosing D. In retrospect, I see that D supports the initial explanation in paragraph 1 which the author's analysis expands upon, whereas B directly supports the author's analysis and evidence in the third paragraph. Is that why B provides more support than D and is the correct answer?

Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

Sorry for the slow reply.

Yes, I think you've nailed it. When you start any RC question, you read the stem and then try to answer it in your own words (or research what you need from the psg / or identify which lines in the passage you think they're testing).

When I read "the author's analysis", I would think, "WHERE in the passage was the author's analysis?"

The first two paragraphs are not the author's analysis. They are "what historians call the Great Migration". "Most accounts point to 1915 as the start".

The author definitely presents the ideas in the 1st paragraph as though she agrees with them or accepts them, but these sound like the analyses that other people have done.

We can tell because in the 2nd paragraph the author is essentially saying, "We all know why the Great Migration STARTED. What is less clear is why it CONTINUED long after we would have expected it to. We propose that ...."

So the author's analysis begins at the beginning of the 3rd paragraph.

(A) This seems to undermine the author's analysis. He thinks that the Great Migration continued because the early wave of migrations made the later wave easier, in part in terms of finding a job. This sounds like it was HARDER to find a job later, which is the opposite of what the author is envisioning.

(B) YES, this buttresses the author's notion that the early people who migrated made it easier for later people to migrate. (lines 54-57) One of the challenges in migrating that the author mentioned is adapting to a new culture in the North. How would early waves of migration make this easier for later waves? If people from Tennessee, for example, migrated to Chicago and ended up forming enclaves of Tennesseeans, then later waves of people from Tennessee would find it easier / more palatable to move north. They wouldn't have to adapt to Chicago as much. They could just live in "New Tennessee", within some enclave in Chicago.

(C) "fluctuating" doesn't help or hurt. It does both, so it does neither.
If we learned that housing in the North became MORE affordable as the 1915-1960 period continued, that might kinda help the idea that it was easier to migrate late vs. early. But it would also sound like an external factor was making it easier to continue migration, whereas the author is saying the early waves of migrating people MADE it easier. It's not clear how the early waves of migrants would have made housing prices in the North go down, so this answer could even weaken.

(D) This, as we said, only deals with the start of the Great Migration, whereas the author's analysis is about the LATER part of the Great Migration. WWI was only til like 1918 / 1919. The author's analysis is about why the Great Migration continued through the 40s / 50s.

(E) Huh? This is beyond the scope of the Great Migration, which ended in 1960.


Hope this helps.