RC Question 7 Explanation
DISCUSSION: The point of the passage is to explain why the Great Migration accelerated in later stages when the income gap dropped.
Unusually, all of the wrong answers on this question are true in the passage. But, they don’t cover the whole thing. The right answer is vague enough that it does.
___________
- This only covers the first half of the first paragraph.
- This only covers the second half of the first paragraph.
- This is very tempting. But it’s not as thorough as E. For example, this only mentions “financial” costs. But earlier migrants also reduced “informational” costs. E.g. the letters home (lines 41-45), and the cultural cushion that helped adaptation (lines 54-56)
- This only covers lines 48-56.
- CORRECT. This best covers all of the passage. The first section covers lines 1-19. “Other factors must be cited” covers lines 19-56.
You might think this answer is “too vague”, but that’s precisely why it’s right. It’s vague enough to cover all of the complex information in the passage. The other answers were so specific that they only covered part of the passage.
Being specific while expressing the main point of the passage would probably involve writing several paragraphs.
Great explanation as always. One question on (C) – is it also noteworthy that (C) refers to “African American migration to the North,” which seems overly general, whereas (E) specifically refers to the “Great Migration,” which is more precise? That lack of precision on (C) jumped out at me, in addition to the issues already discussed.
Thanks!
That’s a good observation. It certainly doesn’t help that answer C doesn’t refer specifically to the Great Migration as named in the passage, but I’m not sure it’s a significant flaw in the answer. The Great Migration is a specific term for the acceleration of African American migration to the north, so they’re pretty interchangeable.
Thanks Orion. Maybe I’m being too nitpicky here, but (C) also says “at a time when income differences were narrowing” which is not as precise as (E), “triggered by the income differential between the North and South.” It seems to me that the LSAC folks realized (C) and (E) were a close class, so they decided to “stink up” (C) by adding in vagueness and imprecision, in addition to the fact that “defray the financial costs” is too narrow. Just some thoughts…thanks again!