QUESTION: 159

When Gwendolyn Brooks published her first collection of poetry A Street In Bronzeville in 1945 most reviewers recognized Brooks' versatility and craft as a poet. Yet, while noting her stylistic successes few of her contemporaries discussed the critical question of Brooks' relationship to the Harlem Renaissance. How had she addressed herself, as a poet, to the literary movement's assertion of the folk and African culture, and its promotion of the arts as the agent to define racial integrity?

The New Negro poets of the Harlem Renaissance expressed a deep pride in being Black; they found reasons for this pride in ethnic identity and heritage; and they shared a common faith in the fine arts as a means of defining and reinforcing racial pride. But in the literal expression of this impulse, the poets were either romantics, or realists and, quite often within the same poem, both. The realistic impulse, as defined best in the poems of McKay's Harlem Shadows (1922), was a sober reflection upon Blacks as second class citizens, segregated from the mainstream of American socio-economic life, and largely unable to realize the wealth and opportunity that America promised. The romantic impulse, on the other hand, as defined in the poems of Sterling Brown's Southern Road (1932), often found these unrealized dreams in the collective strength and will of the folk masses.
In comparing the poems in A Street in Bronzeville with various poems from the Renaissance, it becomes apparent that Brooks brings many unique contributions to bear on this tradition. The first clue that A Street In Bronzeville was, at its time of publication, unlike any other book of poems by a Black American is its insistent emphasis on demystifying romantic love between Black men and women. During the Renaissance, ethnic or racial pride was often focused with romantic idealization upon the Black woman. A casual streetwalker in Hughes' poem, "When Sue Wears Red," for example, is magically transformed into an Egyptian Queen. In A Street In Bronzeville, this romantic impulse runs headlong into the biting ironies of racial discrimination. There are poems in which Hughes, McKay and Brown recognize the realistic underside of urban life for Black women. But for Brooks, unlike the Renaissance poets, the victimization of poor Black women becomes not simply a minor chord but a predominant theme.
...Brooks' relationship with the Harlem Renaissance poets, as A Street in Bronzeville ably demonstrates, was hardly imitative. As one of the important links with the Black poetic tradition of the 1920s and 1930s, she enlarged the element of realism that was an important part of the Renaissance world-view. Although her poetry is often conditioned by the optimism that was also a legacy of the period, Brooks rejects outright their romantic prescriptions for the lives of Black women. And in this regard, she serves as a vital link with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s that, while it witnessed the flowering of Black women as poets and social activists as well as the rise of Black feminist aesthetics in the 1970s, brought about a curious revival of romanticism in the Renaissance mode.
Which of the following would best complete the last paragraph of the passage?

For many readers, however, Brooks will best be remembered for her virtuosity in poetic technique.
In many ways, Brooks' poetry owes more to the influence of the Black Arts movement than to the poets of the Harlem Renaissance.
For while poets of the Black Arts movement would often idealize their culture, their work was tempered by realism.
But while her importance for later movements is established, Brooks' relationship to the Harlem Renaissance remains open to question.

Answer(s): C

Explanation:

This choice works best because the last sentence is a conclusion for which no evidence is provided, and choice C provides that evidence. The author alleges "a vital link" (line 64) between Brooks and the Black Arts Movement, and identifying the latter with Brooks' mix of the idealized and the realistic is just such a link.
Choice A implies that paragraph 4's topic is how Brooks is remembered by readers, when in fact the paragraph exists to summarize Brooks' art and influence. Moreover, choice A focuses on technique, something we haven't really heard about since lines 1-3.
Choice B makes the odd implication that Brooks (who first published in 1945) was influenced by a Movement that came 15 years later. Possible but unlikely; no evidence provided.
Choice D is wrong in saying that "Brooks' relationship to the Harlem Renaissance" is "open to question," since the passage just got through assessing the same.

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QUESTION: 160

When Gwendolyn Brooks published her first collection of poetry A Street In Bronzeville in 1945 most reviewers recognized Brooks' versatility and craft as a poet. Yet, while noting her stylistic successes few of her contemporaries discussed the critical question of Brooks' relationship to the Harlem Renaissance. How had she addressed herself, as a poet, to the literary movement's assertion of the folk and African culture, and its promotion of the arts as the agent to define racial integrity?
The New Negro poets of the Harlem Renaissance expressed a deep pride in being Black; they found reasons for this pride in ethnic identity and heritage; and they shared a common faith in the fine arts as a means of defining and reinforcing racial pride. But in the literal expression of this impulse, the poets were either romantics, or realists and, quite often within the same poem, both. The realistic impulse, as defined best in the poems of McKay's Harlem Shadows (1922), was a sober reflection upon Blacks as second class citizens, segregated from the mainstream of American socio-economic life, and largely unable to realize the wealth and opportunity that America promised. The romantic impulse, on the other hand, as defined in the poems of Sterling Brown's Southern Road (1932), often found these unrealized dreams in the collective strength and will of the folk masses.
In comparing the poems in A Street in Bronzeville with various poems from the Renaissance, it becomes apparent that Brooks brings many unique contributions to bear on this tradition. The first clue that A Street In Bronzeville was, at its time of publication, unlike any other book of poems by a Black American is its insistent emphasis on demystifying romantic love between Black men and women. During the Renaissance, ethnic or racial pride was often focused with romantic idealization upon the Black woman. A casual streetwalker in Hughes' poem, "When Sue Wears Red," for example, is magically transformed into an Egyptian Queen. In A Street In Bronzeville, this romantic impulse runs headlong into the biting ironies of racial discrimination. There are poems in which Hughes, McKay and Brown recognize the realistic underside of urban life for Black women. But for Brooks, unlike the Renaissance poets, the victimization of poor Black women becomes not simply a minor chord but a predominant theme.
...Brooks' relationship with the Harlem Renaissance poets, as A Street in Bronzeville ably demonstrates, was hardly imitative. As one of the important links with the Black poetic tradition of the 1920s and 1930s, she enlarged the element of realism that was an important part of the Renaissance world-view. Although her poetry is often conditioned by the optimism that was also a legacy of the period, Brooks rejects outright their romantic prescriptions for the lives of Black women. And in this regard, she serves as a vital link with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s that, while it witnessed the flowering of Black women as poets and social activists as well as the rise of Black feminist aesthetics in the 1970s, brought about a curious revival of romanticism in the Renaissance mode.
Suppose that a recently-discovered collection of Gwendolyn Brooks' poems contained female protagonists that embodied the ideal woman. This information would:

support the author's contention that women poets were self-serving.
negate the author's view that black poets presented women and men with inequality.
contradict the author's opinion that Gwendolyn Brooks allowed readers to experience a more accurate description of the modern Black woman.
neither support nor contradict the author's claim that Brooks served as an integral link between Harlem Renaissance poets and the Black Arts Movement poets.

Answer(s): C

Explanation:

One of the major points of this passage is that Gwendolyn Brooks was one of the first poets to take her readers away from the overidealized Black woman represented as an "Egyptian Queen." Choices A and B are incorrect because the author never indicates women poets to be selfserving, or how men and women were presented differently in the context of poetry. Choice D is a distracter choice because it touches on the theme of Brooks having served as a link between the Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement. However, upon close examination, we see that this would contradict with the author's view that
Brooks did indeed serve as a vital link between the two periods of poetry, seen in her visionary portrayal of women.

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QUESTION: 161

...Until last year many people but not most economists thought that the economic data told a simple tale. On one side, productivity the average output of an average worker was rising. And although the rate of productivity increase was very slow during the 1970's and early 1980's, the official numbers said that it had accelerated significantly in the 1990's. By 1994 an average worker was producing about 20 percent more than his or her counterpart in 1978.
On the other hand, other statistics said that real, inflation- adjusted wages had not been rising at anything like the same rate. In fact, some of the most commonly cited numbers showed real wages actually falling over the last 25 years. Those who did their homework knew that the gloomiest numbers overstated the case...Still, even the most optimistic measure, the total hourly compensation of the average worker, rose only 3 percent between 1978 and 1994...
...But now the experts are telling us that the whole thing may have been a figment of our statistical imaginations... a blue-ribbon panel of economists headed by Michael Boskin of Stanford declared that the Consumer Price Index [C.P.I.] had been systematically overstating inflation, probably by more than 1 percent per year for the last two decades, mainly failing to take account of changes in the patterns of consumption and improvements in product quality...
...The Boskin report, in particular, is not an official document it will be quite a while before the Government actually issues a revised C.P.I., and the eventual revision may be smaller than Boskin and his colleagues propose. Still, the general outline of the resolution is pretty clear. When all the revisions are taken into account, productivity growth will probably look somewhat higher than it did before, because some of the revisions being proposed to the way we measure consumer prices will also affect the way we calculate growth. But the rate of growth of real wages will look much higher and so it will now be roughly in line with productivity, which will therefore reconcile numbers on productivity and wages with data that show a roughly unchanged distribution of income between capital and labor. In other words, the whole story about workers not sharing in productivity gains will turn out to have been based on a statistical illusion.
It is important not to go overboard on this point. There are real problems in America, and our previous concerns were by no means pure hypochondriA. For one thing, it remains true that the rate of economic progress over the past 25 years has been much slower than it was in the previous 25. Even if Boskin's numbers are right, the income of the median family which officially has experienced virtually no gain since 1973 has risen by only about 35 percent over the past 25 years, compared with 100 percent over the previous 25. Furthermore, it is quite likely that if we "Boskinized" the old data that is, if we tried to adjust the C.P.I). for the 50's and 60's to take account of changing consumption patterns and rising product quality we would find that official numbers understated the rate of progress just as much if not more than they did in recent decades...
...Moreover, while workers as a group have shared fully in national productivity gains, they have not done so equally. The overwhelming evidence of a huge increase in income inequality in America has nothing to do with price indexes and is therefore unaffected by recent statistical revelations. It is still true that families in the bottom fifth, who had 5.4 percent of total income in 1970, had only 4.2 percent in 1994; and that over the same period the share of the top 5 percent went from 15.6 to 20.1. And it is still true that corporate C.E.O.'s, who used to make about 35 times as much as their employees, now make 120 times as much or more...
...While these are real and serious problems, however, one thing is now clear: the truth about what is happening in America is more subtle than the simplistic morality play about greedy capitalists and oppressed workers that so many would-be sophisticates accepted only a few months ago. There was little excuse for buying into that simplistic view then; there is no excuse now...
Which of the following can be inferred as the best description of the Boskin report?

A document that clarifies the existing percentage distribution of income to labor and to capital.
A document that exposes the fact that the C.P.I). has overstated inflation for the past twenty years.
A document that reveals that worker productivity has been overstated over the last twenty years.
A document that reveals that wages have significantly decreased over the last twenty years.

Answer(s): B

Explanation:

Paragraph three implies that the Boskin report must regard an adjustment of the C.P.I). to account for changing consumption patterns and rising product quality. Kaplan strategy: you should have been immediately drawn to choice B, as it is the only one that mentions C.P.I.
Choice A is incorrect. There is no indication that the Boskin report directly addressed income distribution.
Rather, analysts have used the Boskin report to reconcile productivity rates, wage rates, and income distribution percentages.
Choice C is incorrect, as the Boskin report never directly addressed productivity. It can also be argued that the result of the Boskin report was to indicate that worker wages had been understated in relationship to productivity for the last twenty years. This can be inferred from paragraph two, in which the author states that although Boskin's estimates for a revised C.P.I). may not be taken completely into account, a revised C.P.I). will still reflect the result of Boskin's theory, that "the rate of growth of real wages will look much higher and so it will now be roughly in line with productivity."
Choice D is incorrect, as the Boskin report never directly addressed wages; it addressed C.P.I). In addition, as indicated in the explanation to choice C, it can be argued that the result of the Boskin report was to reveal that worker wages had been understated in relationship to productivity for the last twenty years.

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QUESTION: 162

...Until last year many people but not most economists thought that the economic data told a simple tale. On one side, productivity the average output of an average worker was rising. And although the rate of productivity increase was very slow during the 1970's and early 1980's, the official numbers said that it had accelerated significantly in the 1990's. By 1994 an average worker was producing about 20 percent more than his or her counterpart in 1978.
On the other hand, other statistics said that real, inflation- adjusted wages had not been rising at anything like the same rate. In fact, some of the most commonly cited numbers showed real wages actually falling over the last 25 years. Those who did their homework knew that the gloomiest numbers overstated the case...Still, even the most optimistic measure, the total hourly compensation of the average worker, rose only 3 percent between 1978 and 1994...
...But now the experts are telling us that the whole thing may have been a figment of our statistical imaginations... a blue-ribbon panel of economists headed by Michael Boskin of Stanford declared that the Consumer Price Index [C.P.I.] had been systematically overstating inflation, probably by more than 1 percent per year for the last two decades, mainly failing to take account of changes in the patterns of consumption and improvements in product quality...
...The Boskin report, in particular, is not an official document it will be quite a while before the Government actually issues a revised C.P.I., and the eventual revision may be smaller than Boskin and his colleagues propose. Still, the general outline of the resolution is pretty clear. When all the revisions are taken into account, productivity growth will probably look somewhat higher than it did before, because some of the revisions being proposed to the way we measure consumer prices will also affect the way we calculate growth. But the rate of growth of real wages will look much higher and so it will now be roughly in line with productivity, which will therefore reconcile numbers on productivity and wages with data that show a roughly unchanged distribution of income between capital and labor. In other words, the whole story about workers not sharing in productivity gains will turn out to have been based on a statistical illusion.
It is important not to go overboard on this point. There are real problems in America, and our previous concerns were by no means pure hypochondriA. For one thing, it remains true that the rate of economic progress over the past 25 years has been much slower than it was in the previous 25. Even if Boskin's numbers are right, the income of the median family which officially has experienced virtually no gain since 1973 has risen by only about 35 percent over the past 25 years, compared with 100 percent over the previous 25. Furthermore, it is quite likely that if we "Boskinized" the old data that is, if we tried to adjust the C.P.I). for the 50's and 60's to take account of changing consumption patterns and rising product quality we would find that official numbers understated the rate of progress just as much if not more than they did in recent decades...
...Moreover, while workers as a group have shared fully in national productivity gains, they have not done so equally. The overwhelming evidence of a huge increase in income inequality in America has nothing to do with price indexes and is therefore unaffected by recent statistical revelations. It is still true that families in the bottom fifth, who had 5.4 percent of total income in 1970, had only 4.2 percent in 1994; and that over the same period the share of the top 5 percent went from 15.6 to 20.1. And it is still true that corporate C.E.O.'s, who used to make about 35 times as much as their employees, now make 120 times as much or more...
...While these are real and serious problems, however, one thing is now clear: the truth about what is happening in America is more subtle than the simplistic morality play about greedy capitalists and oppressed workers that so many would-be sophisticates accepted only a few months ago. There was little excuse for buying into that simplistic view then; there is no excuse now...
What is the effect of revising the C.P.I). on the calculation of labor's percentage share of national income?

A greater disparity will be apparent between the highest and lowest incomes.
The percentage share will appear the same.
The percentage share will appear smaller.
The percentage share will appear larger.

Answer(s): B

Explanation:

In the last half of paragraph four, the author notes that a revision of the C.P.I). will "reconcile numbers on productivity and wages with data that show a roughly unchanged distribution of income between capital and labor." Thus, even after a revision of the C.P.I., labor's percentage share of the national income will appear the same.
Choice A is incorrect. The passage discusses revision of the C.P.I). in terms of labor's percentage as a whole, not in terms of the breakdown of income within labor itself (e.g., into highest and lowest income brackets).
Choice C is incorrect. There is no indication in the passage that the percentage share will appear smaller as a result of a revision of the C.P.I.
Choice D is incorrect, as paragraph two of the passage reveals that a revision of the C.P.I). will not affect the calculation of labor's percentage share of the national income.
Kaplan strategy: When passages seem to go in circles, make annotations in the margins to keep track of the issues being discussed.

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QUESTION: 159

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