Role of the Argument

Writing this post so that I can alert the instructors. It does not ask me when I start the discussion for some reason. Thank you

Hi @Brendan, thanks for your posts and apologies for the delayed reply. This is an Argument Structure question that asks you to identify the role played by a specific concession made by the passage author, namely, that "correlating federal intervention and the acceleration of black economic progress might be incorrect." Let's find that phrase. It's at lines 58-60. Always wise to read a few lines above and a few lines below, to refresh your understanding of the context. Here, the preceding sentence identifies a correlation: "the coincidence of increased United States government antidiscrimination pressure in the mid-1960s with the acceleration in the rate of black economic progress beginning in 1965 argues against the continuity theorists' view." (Lines 53-57) If we take a step back and assess the passage as a whole, the writer is arguing against "continuity theorists'" views of what brought about a decrease in racial discrimination in employment and wages in the United States in the mid-1960s. The paragraph in which the quoted phrase appears, paragraph 4, sets out "an additional problem for continuity theorists" (Lines 49-51), and identifies this "additional problem" as the coincidence quoted above (Lines 53-57). Yet the author acknowledges a potential weakness or objection to this line of argument, in Lines 58-60. He does this in order to subsequently bolster the argument (Lines 67-71). This is why answer choice (A) is correct. Answer choice (E) is incorrect because the quoted phrase does not serve to *introduce* a discussion about the impact of federal intervention on discrimination--that discussion is actually introduced way up at Line 1. Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any additional questions.