Reading comp PrepTest 145 · Section 3 · Question 22

Passage

Questions 20-27  .        In contrast to the mainstream of U.S.  . historiography during the late nineteenth and early  . Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Late 19th- and early 20th-century African American historians’ perspective (transnational, necessary to treat history honestly) contrasted with mainstream historiography
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparison, according to the author:
      • Late 19th- and early 20th-century African American historians like George Washington Williams and W.E.B. DuBois adopted a transnational perspective, unlike the mainstream (first sentence)
    • Author's view:
      • The African American historians adopted a transnational perspective for several reasons, including the need to do so to honestly treat African American history (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "necessity of doing ... were to be treated honestly" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Reason for one transnational perspective (Citizenship not genuinely resolved, some argued for emigration)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Cause-and-effect-relationship, according to the author:
      • One reason to adopt a transnational perspective was that the issue of African American citizenship was not resolved by the 14th Amendment, which made emigrationist sentiment popular in African American political discourse (first through third sentences)
    • Comparison, according to the author:
      • Some African American leaders insisted on their right to U.S. citizenship (and few wanted to relinquish citizenship's benefits), others questioned their allegiance to the U.S. and looked to emigrate to form their own nation (fifth and last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "problem of citizenship" (first sentence); "had not been genuinely resolved" (second sentence); "central issue" (third sentence); "critical topics for investigation" (third sentence); "enormous" (fourth sentence); "certainly not willing to relinquish their claims" (last sentence); "profound pessimism" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Mainstream approach (nationalist) and African American historian criticism (could lead to imperialism)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparison, according to the author:
      • In contrast to the transnational perspective, the mainstream perspective was rooted in nationalism, which called for the glorification of nation-state (first sentence)
    • Cause-and-effect relationship, according to the author:
      • Europe and the U.S.'s expanding influence caused the creation of new myths about nations (second sentence)
    • African American historians's view:
      • Nationalism leads to imperialism as states attempt to expand their power by taking over territories (third and last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "firmly rooted" (first sentence); "dominant" (first sentence); "myths" (second sentence); "their 'temperments'" (second sentence); "distinct aspect" (last sentence)

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • The author's view on African American historians (they promoted their own kind of nation based on a shared identity and culture)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparison, according to the author:
      • Even though African American historians distrusted nationalism, they engaged in nation-building based on a positive Black identity, creating a "nation" without land (first through last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "were themselves engaged in a sort of nation building" (first sentence); "contributed to the formation of a collective identity" (second sentence); "for the purposes" (second sentence); "degrading representations" (second sentence); one might argue" (third sentence); "possesses a single culture, however mythical, with singular historical roots" (third sentence)

Main Point: Early African American historians promoted a transnational approach rather than a nationalist one, but this approach reflected a different type of nation-building that built a diasporic community based on common culture and history.

Meta-Structure?

Resolving a Debate: This passage best fits a Resolving a Debate Meta-Structure.* In such a passage, the author typically describes two sides of a debate before taking a side or attempting to reconcile the two sides. In this passage, the author describes a debate between the perspective taken by late 19th- and early 20th-century historians. One side, the mainstream historian took a nationalist perspective, which glorified and promoted the nation-state. On the other side, African American historians took a transnational perspective, debating whether they should emigrate and form their own nation-state outside the U.S. Ultimately, the author resolves the debate by showing that African American historians' transnational perspective wasn't all that different from the nationalist perspective — they were promoting their own nation-state!

In a Resolving a Debate passage, the main point is generally the author’s mediation/reconciliation of the debate. The author mediates the debate in the fourth paragraph, so we summarized that paragraph to formulate our main point.

*That said, you could certainly call this an Old Approach/New Approach passage, provided that you recognized that the author ultimately concludes that African American historians' "new" transnational approach wasn't all that different from the "old" national approach. Remember, there's no one correct answer to the Meta-Structure question — usually, more than one Meta-Structure will do a good job describing the passage's structure and helping you articulate the main point.

Comparison: The author spends a lot of time comparing the national and transnational perspectives, which makes the comparison the most prominent minor Meta-Structures in this passage. If it's not too burdensome, we should try to memorize a few differences (nation-building vs. emigration) and similarities (both ultimately promote a nation). This can help us quickly assess the answer choices to the inevitable questions about the two approaches. Failing that, having the similarities and differences highlighted can help us quickly locate the necessary information.

Last Thoughts?

Note that the author doesn’t cast a positive or negative opinion towards either approach to history — the nationalist or transnational approach. The author presents the negative view of African American historians towards the nationalist approach in that they believed it trended towards imperialism (P3, S4), but there’s no indication that the author believes this to be the case. And while "Yet” (P4, S1) can have a negative connotation — a pivot to criticism — that’s not what we get here. The author does say that the early African American historians were engaged in a form of nationalism, and they distrusted it, but the author never says or implies that the author distrusts it. In fact, in the last paragraph, the author speaks to the benefits of this type of nation-building (P4, S2-S5), suggesting that the author may have a positive view of the work of the early African American historians in their distinct form of nationalism.

Question prompt

Which one of the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

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

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Remind ourselves of the main point of the passage, then head to the answers, focusing on those that line up with the main point and then using our notes/the passage to find the correct answer

Answer Anticipation

This question asks us to infer, based on the entire passage, a statement that must be true. Such questions can be very challenging. These questions provide little indication as to the topic of the correct answer or where it’ll show up in the passage. Moreover, the correct answer probably won't restate something from the passage. Instead, the question will likely require us to draw a connection between a few different pieces of information.We’ll need to rely on our big-picture understanding of the passage to answer these questions. We should start by reminding ourselves of the main point (either by reviewing what we said after reading the passage or by rereading our answer to the main point question). From there, we can head to the answer choices. If something in an answer choice doesn't seem familiar and isn’t reflected in our notes on each paragraph, we shouldn’t check the passage to see if it was mentioned. Instead, we’ll table it and move on to the next answer choice. If something seems inconsistent with the main point, we can eliminate it. If something seems familiar, consistent with the main point, or reflected in our notes, we’ll use our notes/highlights/underlines to find the part of the passage that proves the answer choice must be true. If we can find that confirmation, we’ll select that answer choice and move on.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Emigrationist sentiment would not Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem

    (A) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    Yes! This is reflected in our notes for the second paragraph, which states, "Reason for one transnational perspective (Citizenship not genuinely resolved, some argued for emigration)." Because our note for the second paragraph connects citizenship and emigrationist sentiment, we should check this answer by reviewing that paragraph.

    Upon review, we'll see that the author asserts a cause-and-effect relationship early on. The author claims that "[b]ecause" the issue of African American citizenship was not resolved by the 14th Amendment, emigrationist sentiment became popular in African American political discourse (P2, S2-S3). So, the fact that citizenship wasn't fully realized for African Americans caused emigrationist sentiment to be strong. If we take away that cause — if citizenship was fully realized for African Americans — we should lessen the effect. Consequently, emigrationist sentiment wouldn't be as strong. Therefore, this answer choice is supported by the cause-and-effect relationship asserted in the second paragraph. And since we found textual support for this claim, we can select it and immediately advance to the following question.

  2. B
    Scholars writing the history Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    No. Neither the main point nor our notes bring up what scholars writing about diasporic communities "generally" do. The passage discusses only one set of historians writing about a diasporic community. For this reason, we can eliminate — or at least table — (B) without checking the passage.

    Besides, we wouldn't find support for this answer if we reviewed the entire passage. The passage doesn't note that the scholars who wrote about African Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries didn't bring up the forces that led to the diaspora in the first place in this writing. In fact, by stating that early African American historians viewed their task, in part, as writing the history of a people "scattered by force and circumstance” (P4, S5), the author suggests that they very well would write about the forces and circumstances that caused the scattering.

  3. C
    Most historians of the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    Nope. Neither the main point nor our notes suggest that "most historians" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries wanted to make nations seem "more glorious than they actually were." After all, the passage was only about mainstream U.S. historians and African American historians from this era. Presumably, there were many other historians outside of the U.S. For this reason, we can eliminate — or at least table — (C) without checking the passage.

    Besides, we wouldn't find support for this answer if we reviewed the entire passage. The third paragraph discusses the glorification of the nations, but it's noted that this is what "[m]ainstream U.S.” historians did (P3, S1). While that might mean that most U.S. historians were engaged in the glorification of nations, that doesn't mean that most historians were — it's possible that historians from every other country in the world took a different approach, outnumbering the U.S. ones.

  4. D
    To be properly considered Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    No. Neither the main point nor our notes suggest that this is a requirement of nationalism. For this reason, we can eliminate — or at least table — (D) without checking the passage.

    Besides, we wouldn't find support for this answer if we reviewed the entire passage. In fact, when describing the nationalist approach, the author says that it looked at their "expanding spheres of influence,” their "temperaments," and their "destinies" (P3, S2), all of which would require discussing how the nation affected other nations.

  5. E
    A considerable number of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our notes?

    Negative. Neither the main point nor our notes suggest African American historians embraced nationalism — quite the opposite, in fact! For this reason, we can eliminate (E) without checking the passage.

    Besides, we wouldn't find support for this answer if we reviewed the entire passage. The author opens the passage by stating that the early African American historians stood in "contrast" to the mainstream, nationalist U.S. historiography of the time (P1, S1), contradicting this answer. While the author argues that these historians were engaged in a form of nation-building (P4, S1), that's the author's view — the author never says that the historians "embraced” their work as being nationalist in a sense.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 58%
  2. B 6%
  3. C 21%
  4. D 3%
  5. E 12%

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