Reading Comprehension

Source: OG 12th Ed

In the two decades between 1910 and 1930,
more than ten percent of the black population
of the United States left the South, where the
preponderance of the black population had been
located, and migrated to northern states, with the
largest number moving, it is claimed, between 1916
and 1918. It has been frequently assumed, but not
proved, that the majority of the migrants in
what has come to be called the Great Migration
came from rural areas and were motivated by two
concurrent factors: the collapse of the cotton
industry following the boll weevil infestation, which
began in 1898, and increased demand in the North
for labor following the cessation of European
immigration caused by the outbreak of the First
World War in 1914. This assumption has led to
the conclusion that the migrants' subsequent lack
of economic mobility in the North is tied to rural
background, a background that implies unfamiliarity
with urban living and a lack of industrial skills.

But the question of who actually left the South
has never been rigorously investigated. Although
numerous investigations document an exodus from
rural southern areas to southern cities prior to the
Great Migration, no one has considered whether the
same migrants then moved on to northern cities.
In 1910 more than 600,000 black workers, or ten
percent of the black workforce, reported themselves
to be engaged in "manufacturing and mechanical
pursuits," the federal census category roughly
encompassing the entire industrial sector. The Great
Migration could easily have been made up entirely
of this group and their families. It is perhaps
surprising to argue that an employed population
could be enticed to move, but an explanation lies in
the labor conditions then prevalent in the South.

About thirty-five percent of the urban black
population in the South was engaged in skilled
trades. Some were from the old artisan class of
slavery-blacksmiths, masons, carpenters-which
had had a monopoly of certain trades, but they
were gradually being pushed out by competition,
mechanization, and obsolescence. The remaining
sixty-five percent, more recently urbanized, worked in
newly developed industries-tobacco, lumber, coal
and iron manufacture, and railroads. Wages in
the South, however, were low, and black workers
were aware, through labor recruiters and the black
press, that they could earn more even as unskilled
workers in the North than they could as artisans
in the South. After the boll weevil infestation,
urban black workers faced competition from the
continuing influx of both black and white rural
workers, who were driven to undercut the wages
formerly paid for industrial jobs. Thus, a move north
would be seen as advantageous to a group that was
already urbanized and steadily employed, and the
easy conclusion tying their subsequent economic
problems in the North to their rural background
comes into question.

Q 1
In the passage, the author anticipates which of the following as a possible objection to her argument?
(A) It is uncertain how many people actually migrated during the Great Migration.
(B) The eventual economic status of the Great Migration migrants has not been adequately traced.
(C) It is not likely that people with steady jobs would have reason to move to another area of the country.
(D) It is not true that the term "manufacturing and mechanical pursuits" actually encompasses the entire industrial sector.
(E) Of the African American workers living in southern cities, only those in a small number of trades were threatened by obsolescence.

OA: C

Q 2
The primary purpose of the passage is to
(A) support an alternative to an accepted methodology
(B) present evidence that resolves a contradiction
(C) introduce a recently discovered source of information
(D) challenge a widely accepted explanation
(E) argue that a discarded theory deserves new attention

OA: D