Reading Comprehension

PT148 · S2 · P2 · Q10 The Great Migration

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This passage was adapted from an article written by three economists.

Topic

The causes and momentum of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the North between 1915 and 1960.

Framework

Answer / Explain

Main Point

The Great Migration started due to increased income opportunities in the North compared to the South, but the migration continued and even accelerated because earlier migrants made it much easier and less costly for others to follow. *Most Valuable Sentence:* (Start of P3)

P1: Causes of the Great Migration

Three main factors sparked the Great Migration: World War I pushed up demand for northern industrial labor, halted European immigration forced factories to recruit Black Southerners, and the boll weevil devastated Southern cotton crops, making local jobs scarce.

P2: Initial vs. Continuing Migration

Migration began in 1915 mainly due to the large pay gap, but it’s puzzling why migration didn’t slow down—even as the North-South income gap shrank, migration rates kept increasing.

P3: Explaining Ongoing Migration (Momentum Hypothesis)

The passage proposes that migration gained "momentum": once some people migrated, they made it easier and cheaper for future migrants by reducing uncertainty, costs of moving, and the challenges of settling into a new place.

10.

The authors of the passage would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements?

  1. Correct

    Expected financial gains alone may

    Why this is right

    We should be very attracted to considering this answer because of how marvelously soft the language is: "X by itself may not be a reliable indicator of Y". To support this, we only need one example in which if we only looked at X we might get the wrong impression about Y. This is an idea we can derive from the authors' main point. They were saying, "the Great Migration continued for as long and as strong as it did because even though the economic draw of the North became less juicy over time, the challenges of moving to the North became less daunting over time." Thus, the Great Migration is an example that you can't only look at the benefit side of moving (the expected financial gains) in order to predict whether people will be willing to migrate. You also have to look at the "expected pains of moving/adjusting". If we only considered expected financial gains, we wouldn't have guessed the Great Migration would continue for as long or as strong as it did, because the North-South income differences were narrowing in the later decades of the Migration.

    Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    76% picked this

  2. A complete explanation of the

    Too Strong: must

    The authors seem totally fine with saying that the official start of the Great Migration was 1915. At the beginning of the 2nd paragraph, they say: In short, the Great Migration began in 1915 and not earlier, because it was only then that the North-South income gap became large enough to start such a large-scale migration.

    11% picked this

  3. The Great Migration is not

    Too Strong: most

    We don't have any sentence in the passage that would allow us to talk about more than 50% of known migration movements. And the way the authors are talking in the 3rd and 4th, they seem to be acting like "general things we know about migration" can be applied to and inferred from the Great Migration.

    1% picked this

  4. Most large-scale migrations can be

    Too Strong: most Opposite, if anything

    We can't point to anywhere in the passage where the authors are saying what's true for more than 50% of large-scale migrations. Also, the main point of these authors is that we shouldn't just look at the income gap between North and South. That wouldn't adequately explain the later decades of the Great Migration. We need to also understand how "migration develops momentum over time as current migration reduces the difficulty and cost of future migration".

    5% picked this

  5. Large-scale migrations generally did not

    Too Strong: generally

    We have no basis for saying more than 50% of large-scale migrations didn't occur until the early 20th century. The passage is discussing one large-scale migration that occurred in the early 20th century.

    7% picked this

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