Q26

[MayaM405]

I chose C rather than A, though I did not feel that I could eliminate either.

Is C wrong because it says its "supporting a contention" that isnt explicitly discussed? How did people know to eliminate E?

[ohthatpatrick]

Let me start by attempting a prephrase without looking at answers.

I remind myself that the passage, as a whole, was about black historians who were uncomfortable with the nationalism of mainstream history, but who demonstrated their own nationalist desire for the diaspora of black people worldwide.

How does the 2nd paragraph fit into that?

Well it begins with the word "First, ....", so I can tell this paragraph is beginning a list of examples/reasons. It must be supporting the previous sentence, so I'll re-read that sentence to hear what the "framing idea" is that the 2nd paragraph is unpacking.

Line 6-9 is saying that there were "SEVERAL REASONS" that black historians saw a transnational perspective as necessary in order to treat the history of AA's honestly.

So the 2nd paragraph is apparently "reasons that black people of the time would have been uncomfortable with the nationalism of mainstream history".

Looking at answers,
(A) that sounds like a strong match for line 6-9. Keep it.

(B) "constitutional amendments"? I guess that was in the 2nd paragraph, but that's nowhere near our prephrase.

(C) Imperialism is in the third paragraph, not the second one.

(D) It's too narrow no matter what, but it's also a not-great description to say that anyone ADVOCATED emigration as an ALTERNATIVE.

(E) The author wasn't trying to make any big point about the 14th Amendment. This passage is about black historians, so the purpose of the 2nd paragraph has to be what it is telling us about black historians.


When we're asked for the purpose of a paragraph, usually the correct answer sounds a lot like the first sentence of that paragraph, because usually the first sentence of a paragraph is a topic sentence and the rest of the paragraph is details fleshing out that framing idea.

Here, since the 2nd paragraph began with "First, ..." we could tell that the framing idea had to be right before it. We knew the 2nd paragraph was going to list out reasons for something, so we just needed to re-read line 6-9 to see what big idea the 2nd paragraph would be supporting.

Hope this helps.