#10 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Purpose

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Maggie White]

Hi PowerScore-

I'm reviewing Passage #1 and am having trouble understanding why the answer to Question 10 is D instead of E-I would love any insight that you all would be able to provide!

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for the question, Maggie. I would say the key difference between answers D and E is that answer E reverses the causal relationship that we find in the passage and in answer D.

The passage tells us that early capitalist development creates a demand for low skilled labor, while a more advanced labor market creates a demand for skilled workers. As the market changed from early stages to more advanced stages, the market created a demand for both "streams" - low-skill and skilled. Answer D captures this best - changes in the demand side of the labor market is what created the two streams.

Answer E gets that backwards, describing an influence ON the labor market, rather than an influence OF the labor market. The two streams did not impact the market, but vice versa - the changing market created, or caused, the two streams.

I hope that helps clear it up!

[T.B.Justin]

Trying to understand what the passage could say if answer choice (B) was correct.

Would this be a valid explanation for "it demonstrates the effects of changes in human capital."

Japanese immigrant descendants perform better than Japanese immigrants at skilled professional and technical labor positions.

[Adam Tyson]

I'm not sure how I would have to reconfigure the passage to make answer choice B correct here, T.B., but I can tell you why it's not correct: it's only half the answer.

The bit about two streams of immigration is about high-skilled labor going into the primary labor market and unskilled labor going into the traditional, low-wage immigrant labor market. It's about the operation of the entire advanced capitalist economy, and not just the primary labor market within that economy.

I don't understand the rest of your question, or what it has to do with Japanese immigrants at the first or subsequent generations. It's only about the difference between early capitalist development (one stream of labor, low wage and unskilled) and advanced capitalist economies (two streams, both skilled and unskilled) - demand side issues, rather than supply side.

Perhaps I've misunderstood what you're asking here? If so, please feel free to rephrase the question and give us another crack at it!

[sdb606]

I still don't understand what "two immigrant streams" means. The way I imagined it was one stream of immigrants entering the traditional market and the second stream of immigrant children entering the primary market. One immigrant stream goes into the traditional market. Where is the second immigrant stream? Are immigrant children still considered immigrants for the purposes of this question?

I picked A because I thought two immigrant streams is a way to describe what happens when human capital changes. That is, human capital changes from unskilled to skilled, creating a stream into the traditional market and a second stream into the primary market. Why is this analysis wrong?

[sdb606]

I just did this question again three weeks later and got it wrong a second time. This time, I see why my above comment is incorrect. Lines 57-60 are talking about skilled immigrant labor coming in, not the skilled labor of children of immigrants. But this time, I picked B because I thought BOTH labor streams were going into the primary labor market. Are we supposed to know from the outside what a primary labor market is and that it excludes unskilled labor? Is there any definition in the passage of this? I picked B because according to my understanding of both types of labor going into the primary labor market, info on two labor streams sheds light on the primary labor market, therefore making B correct.

I see why D is correct.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi sdb,

In these function questions it's important to think about what the author is trying to do with the reference. In other words, what's the author's (bigger-picture) "agenda" in this part of the passage, and how does this reference relate to that bigger-picture agenda?

I just can't find any evidence that the author's bigger-picture agenda in this part of the passage has anything to do with helping the reader to understand the operation of the "primary labor market" (either by giving an illustration of it, or even in any other way). The author just isn't interested in trying to help us understand that. Rather, this part of the passage (from lines 50 to the end) is where the author discusses the "demand-side" explanation of the achievements of Chinese and Japanese immigrants. We've been expecting that explanation since the beginning of the last paragraph, where the author said that "only an analysis of supply-side and demand-side factors together, in the context of historical events, will suffice." The mention of "two immigrant streams" fits into the demand-side explanation of success, because it explains demand-side factors that impacted both the first and the second generations of these immigrants.

I hope this helps!