Q25

[skapur777]

I picked C here yet am a little confused (as always...). Is this correct because of lines 58-60? But they don't exactly attribute that to the continuous change people...is it implied instead?

[theaether]

Line 14 tells us that the proponents of that hypothesis believe that law had a "marginal impact" on economic progress. This is the same thing as (C) that legislation alone has had little effect.

[slimjimsquinn]

Keeping track of viewpoints would help to understand this paragraph.

You have Viewpoint 1: people who believes the non-discrimination laws were responsible for black economic progress (racial progress comes from government action)

Then you have Viewpoint 2, continuous change theorists: Racial progress did NOT come from government laws but other external conditions (ie. improving quality of school)

Viewpoint 3, the author's point: Rejects both explanations (no to laws affecting change, no to educational improvement affecting change).


Q25 asks us about Viewpoint 2. Abstractly, the answer should show that laws DO NOT affect change (and possibly name some alternate cause)

Correct Answer choice C ) Legislation alone has little effect on discriminatory behavior.
- Aha! It absolutely refutes VP 1 that racial progress comes from government laws. This is what we were looking for.


A) A contender since it shows law's inefficiency BUT it focuses on the individuals who might commit discriminatory practice. We want our focus on the government and its non-effective laws.

B) This is the opposite of what we want. We're trying to shoot down the law's efficiency, remember?

D) Continuous theorists would definitely agree that laws are not sufficient to bring an end to discrimination. But do theorists say laws are necessary? Probably not. They'd more likely say law is neither necessary nor sufficient; they are irrelevant to the discussion altogether.

E) Too strong. We know it does not end racial discrimination. We don't know laws will intensify it.

HTH!

[nflamel69]

I disagree with the scale. While the author does mention that changing attitudes could spark both the policies and the black economic progress, he didn't reject the view that these federal policies did have an important effect on the black economic progress. In fact, left side should be: federal policies had important effects. right side: policies only had marginal effect, it was mainly slow evolving historical forces.
the main point is that the author did not advocate/propose a true explanation separating from the left side

[tommywallach]

Hey Guys,

Great discussion on this one. I agree with nflamel that there is no real third viewpoint here. The author more or less believes the laws have been the prime mover in terms of helping the economic prospects of African-Americans. The continuous change folks more or less don't. The author DOES bring up a possible third explanation, but it would be a real stretch to call that the author's viewpoint, particularly given that the last sentence of the passage is a final defense of the laws' import. From there, I think nflamel took on the answers well, but I'll run through them, too. Just for fun:

A) The continuous theory do not believe that it is IMPOSSIBLE to enact change through laws. Heck, you can do anything you want. The issue is whether the laws IN THIS INSTANCE had the effect cited.

B) This is the opposite of their viewpoint overall, and their general point is about the change in economic prospects, not in educational practices.

C) The answer!

D) The theories at issue here are ways of explaining something that's already happened, not to predict the future. The continuous folks believe that the change in the economic success of African-Americans was more a result of small, constant change, rather than a top-down legalistic kind of thing. That doesn't mean those people believe that legislation cannot achieve changes in racial attitudes. Finally, the main interest is not in changing ATTITUDES, but in changing actual ECONOMIC METRICS.

E) This goes too far. And again, it's about history, not about what might happen in the future.

Hope that helps!

-t