Reading comp PrepTest 101 · Section 1 · Question 11

Passage

Questions 7-13  .        In April 1990 representatives of the Pico Korea  . Union of electronics workers in Buchon City, Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Sciences


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Background on Pico Korea Union (championed by Korean Americans, who were affected by PKU's dispute)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • The Pico Korea Union's dispute was supported by an extraordinary collection of Korean-American groups and had a profound effect on the Korean-American community (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "championed" (last sentence); "deeply affected" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • How the PKU’s dispute affected KA community (increased young KAs' interest in politics/culture, expanded KA’s political base)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • List of ways the Pico Korea Union's dispute affected the Korean-American community, according to the author:
      • Unified a diverse Korean-American community (first sentence)
      • Increased the political awareness of second-generation Korean Americans (second sentence)
      • Promoted second-generation Korean American's interest in their cultural identity (third and fourth sentences)
      • Expanded the political base of the Korean-American community to include recent working-class immigrants, who gave the community a more global perspective on working conditions (fifth and sixth sentences)
      • Created new alliances between the Korean-American community and progressive labor and social justice groups (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "rallying focus for a diverse community often divided" (first sentence); "Most notably" (second sentence); "mobilized" (second sentence); "can help to globalize the perspective" (sixth sentence); "can help to establish international ties on a more personal level" (sixth sentence); "especially warm" (sixth sentence); "as evidenced" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Why PKU dispute affected KA community (strong human component of PKU's demands)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Cause-and-effect relationship, according to the author:
      • The strong human component and a lack of an ideological bent to the Pico Korea Union's demands caused members of the Korean-American community to put aside their differences and focus on the Union's demands for social justice and workers' rights (first and second sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "strong human component" (second sentence); "larger concerns" (second sentence); "unencumbered" (third sentence); "economic exploitation" (last sentence); "underscored the common interests" (last sentence)

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • Lesson of PKU's dispute (joining labor/social struggle in original country can unify immigrant community)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • The Pico Korea Union's visit shows that the most effective way to unify and empower an immigrant community may be joining a fight for economic and social justice in their country of origin (first through last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "offers an important lesson" (first sentence); "need more than just knowledge" (second sentence); "perhaps the most effective means" (last sentence); "may be" (last sentence)

Main Point: The Pico Korea Union's dispute over unpaid wages mobilized and unified the diverse Korean-American community against the economic exploitation of these workers and offers an important lesson on how to empower immigrant communities.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 2 (P1, S2) - Author summarizes how PKU affected KA community

P4, S3 - Author summarizes lesson to take away from PKU's dispute

Meta-Structure?

Importance of Subject: This passage utilizes the Importance of Subject Meta-Structure. In this passage, the author describes why the Pico Korea Union's dispute over unpaid wages and eventual visit to the U.S. was historically significant, particularly in how it impacted the Korean-American community.

When a passage utilizes an Importance of Subject Meta-Structure, the main point is generally the author's opinions on why the subject is important. The author's has two takes on why the dispute was important, which the author describes at length in the second and fourth paragraphs. The author uses the second paragraph to enumerate the ways the Pico Korea Union's dispute and eventual visit to the U.S. mobilized and unified the Korean-American community. The author uses the fourth paragraph to describe what lessons we should take away from the Union's dispute. We summarized both of these points in our anticipated main point.

List: The most prominent minor Meta-Structure is the list of all the ways the Pico Korea Union's dispute and eventual visit to the U.S. affected the Korean-American community. We've listed each effect in the Passage Summary above. Expect this list to figure into at least one of the questions.

Last Thoughts?

This question has a balanced mixed of author’s attitude and minor Meta-Structures. Therefore, we should expect a balanced mix of Major Point, Minor Point, Argument Structure, and Tone questions.

Question prompt

In the second paragraph, Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: C

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Review the reference to immigrants from China in passage, consult notes, and choose an answer choice based on your understanding of that reference in the passage’s overall argument

Answer Anticipation

This question asks us why the author inserted the discussion of immigrants from China into the second paragraph. Unless a detail conflicts with the paragraph's purpose, the author probably mentioned that detail to advance the paragraph's role. So, reviewing the second paragraph's role, which we hopefully wrote down in the notes on our scratch paper, will generally reveal why the author included that detail.In this case, our note for the second paragraph is, "How the PKU’s dispute affected KA community (increased young KAs' interest in politics/culture, expanded KA’s political base)." So, the second paragraph is there to show how the Korean-American community's involvement with the Pico Korea Union dispute changed that community. The reference to Chinese immigrants probably serves that role in some capacity. Let's review the reference to these Chinese immigrants to see if we're right about that.In the second paragraph, the author says the Korean-American community's involvement with the Pico Korea Union dispute expanded the Korean-American community’s political base to include recent working-class immigrants, who gave the community a more global perspective on working conditions and made international ties more personal (P2, S5-6). The author says that this last point can be "witnessed" in the "especially warm exchange between the Pico workers and recent working-class immigrants from China." (P2, S6). The reference to these Chinese immigrants seems to serve the last point in our note — expanding the base of the Korean-American community. But the description of the "warm exchange" between the Chinese immigrants and the Pico workers suggests that the Chinese immigrants show how this expanding political base can change the community's outlook, making global ties more personal. So, this reference to working-class immigrants from China provides an example of how recent working-class immigrants can expand an immigrant community's political base and outlook. Let's look for this in the answer choices.

Answer choices

  1. A
    highlight the contrast between Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this say that the reference to immigrants from China provides an example of how recent working-class immigrants can expand an immigrant community's political base and outlook?

    Nope. We didn't review anything about the "working conditions in the United States." Our note for the second paragraph didn't allude to this topic, either. Therefore, this can't be the reason the author brought up immigrants from China.

  2. B
    demonstrate the uniqueness of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this say that the reference to immigrants from China provides an example of how recent working-class immigrants can expand an immigrant community's political base and outlook?

    Nope. Quite the contrary — the author mentions how the "warm exchange" between the two groups shows that the Chinese workers could sympathize with the Pico workers' struggle (P2, S6). That would suggest that the author wasn't not trying to show that the Pico workers' issues were unique.

  3. C
    offer an example of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem

    (C) Does this say that the reference to immigrants from China provides an example of how recent working-class immigrants can expand an immigrant community's political base and outlook?

    This gets quite close to our anticipation! (C) just says the reference provides an example of a "role that can be played by recent working-class immigrants." It doesn't specify that the role is expanding the immigrant community's political base and outlook. But that's OK. Even if (C) is phrased in a more general way than our anticipation, it still captures the same idea. The language in (C) is also backed up in the second paragraph, where the author says the "Pico workers suggested new roles that can be played by recent immigrants, particularly working-class immigrants" (P2, S5). Because (C) matches both the idea in our anticipation and the language in the passage, we can confidently select it and advance straight to the next question.

  4. D
    provide an analogy for Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this say that the reference to immigrants from China provides an example of how recent working-class immigrants can expand an immigrant community's political base and outlook?

    No. The Chinese immigrants weren't involved in a situation that was analogous to the Korean-American community's activism. According to the passage, these Chinese immigrants were directly involved in the Korean-American community's activism! They actually met with the Pico workers and hugged and exchanged compliments (or whatever the author meant by "warm exchange"). Since (D) mischaracterizes the basic facts, it can't describe why the author mentioned Chinese immigrants.

  5. E
    compare the disparate responses Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this say that the reference to immigrants from China provides an example of how recent working-class immigrants can expand an immigrant community's political base and outlook?

    Nope. Our anticipation doesn't have anything to do with "disparate responses of two immigrant communities," so (E) can go straight into the trash bin. The author focuses on the Korean-American community's response to the Pico workers' dispute. The Chinese American's response just provided an example of how working-class immigrants can function within an immigrant community.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 5%
  2. B 2%
  3. C Credited 72%
  4. D 8%
  5. E 12%

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Discussion

  • Why not E? 1 reply

    Started by the66guy

  • A or B 1 reply

    Started by Chloe

  • Help 2 replies

    Started by mechirenee

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