GMAT Prep - Test 0704-16

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GMAT Prep - Test 0704-16

by vineetbatra » Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:09 am
Historians have identified two dominant currents
in the Russian women's movement of the late tsarist
period. "Bourgeois" feminism, so called by its more
radical opponents, emphasized "individualist" feminist
goals such as access to education, career opportunities,
and legal equality. "Socialist" feminists, by contrast,
emphasized class, rather than gender, as the principal
source of women's inequality and oppression, and
socialist revolution, not legal reform, as the only road
to emancipation and equality.

However, despite antagonism between bourgeois
feminists and socialist feminists, the two movements
shared certain underlying beliefs. Both regarded paid
labor as the principal means by which women might
attain emancipation: participation in the workplace
and economic self-sufficiency, they believed, would
make women socially useful and therefore deserving of
equality with men. Both groups also recognized the
enormous difficulties women faced when they
combined paid labor with motherhood. In fact, at the
First All-Russian Women's Congress in 1908, most
participants advocated maternity insurance and paid
maternity leave, although the intense hostility between
some socialists and bourgeois feminists at the
Congress made it difficult for them to recognize these
areas of agreement. Finally, socialist feminists and
most bourgeois feminists concurred in subordinating
women's emancipation to what they considered the
more important goal of liberating the entire Russian
population from political oppression, economic
backwardness, and social injustice.

Q The Passage is primarily concerned with

Identifying points of agreement between the 2 groups

advocating one approach to social reform over other

contrasting 2 approaches to solve a political problem

arguing that views of one group was mopre radical than the other group

criticizing historians for overlooking similarities between the views espoused by 2 dissimilar groups.

In this Q the OA is A, but the first para of the RC also mentions about the disimilarities, so it does not include that in the OA

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by kevincanspain » Sat Apr 10, 2010 2:46 pm
Paragraph 1 summarizes what historians have already identified.

Paragraph 2 contains information that may well be unknown to most people, giving 3 examples to show that they shared many beliefs. That they had a lot in common is the idea that the author wants you to take away from this passage, the primary concern
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by vineetbatra » Sun Apr 11, 2010 12:06 pm
Thanks, that makes sense.

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by this_time_i_will » Thu Apr 15, 2010 6:18 pm
The first line of second para has the clue.

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by susantaiitk » Sun May 02, 2010 9:11 pm
I got confused between the options A & C.

A - Identifying points of agreement between the 2 groups

C- contrasting 2 approaches to solve a political problem - actually the two approaches are not contrasted and it is shown that they had similarities.. so C is ruled out.

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by ballubalraj » Wed May 19, 2010 10:36 pm
this_time_i_will wrote:The first line of second para has the clue.
I got the answer correctly for this question from POE.

However, I have a question on your approach: How do you determine whether the clue is in first line of second para or first line of first para, etc.? In my opinion, we need to understand the whole passage to answer this question.

Please clarify.

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by gmat_perfect » Tue Oct 19, 2010 9:56 am
vineetbatra"]Historians have identified two dominant currents
in the Russian women's movement of the late tsarist
period. "Bourgeois" feminism, so called by its more
radical opponents, emphasized "individualist" feminist
goals such as access to education, career opportunities,
and legal equality. "Socialist" feminists, by contrast,
emphasized class, rather than gender, as the principal
source of women's inequality and oppression, and
socialist revolution, not legal reform, as the only road
to emancipation and equality.

However, despite antagonism between bourgeois
feminists and socialist feminists, the two movements
shared certain underlying beliefs. Both regarded paid
labor as the principal means by which women might
attain emancipation: participation in the workplace
and economic self-sufficiency, they believed, would
make women socially useful and therefore deserving of
equality with men. Both groups also recognized the
enormous difficulties women faced when they
combined paid labor with motherhood. In fact, at the
First All-Russian Women's Congress in 1908, most
participants advocated maternity insurance and paid
maternity leave, although the intense hostility between
some socialists and bourgeois feminists at the
Congress made it difficult for them to recognize these
areas of agreement. Finally, socialist feminists and
most bourgeois feminists concurred in subordinating
women's emancipation to what they considered the
more important goal of liberating the entire Russian
population from political oppression, economic
backwardness, and social injustice.


The passage suggests that socialists within the Russian women's movement and most bourgeois feminists believed that in Russia

(A) women would not achieve economic equality until they had political representation within the government
(B) the achievement of larger political aims should take precedence over the achievement of women's rights
(C) the emancipation of women would ultimately bring about the liberation of the entire Russian population from political oppression
(D) women's oppression was more rooted in economic inequality than was the case in other countries
(E) the women's movement was more ideologically divided than were women's movements in other countries

OA: B

I don't know how.

Please explain.

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by gmatdriller » Sat Dec 04, 2010 10:16 pm
The correct response lies in the last sentence of the last paragraph:
"socialist feminists and most bourgeois feminists concurred in subordinating
women's emancipation to what they considered the more important goal of
liberating the entire Russian population from political oppression, economic
backwardness, and social injustice."

From above, we can deduce that B should be the answer.