Q25 to 28
In mid-February 1917 a
women’s movement independent
of political affiliation erupted in
Line New York City, the stronghold of
(5) the Socialist party in the United
states. Protesting against the high
cost of living, thousands of women
refused to buy chickens, fish, and
vegetables. The boycott shut.
(10) down much of the City’s foodstuffs
marketing for two weeks, riveting
public attention on the issue of
food prices, which had increased
partly as a result of increased
(15) exports of food to Europe that had
been occurring since the outbreak
of the First World War.
By early 1917 the Socialist
party had established itself as a
(20) major political presence in New
York City. New York Socialists,
whose customary spheres of
struggle were electoral work and
trade union organizing, seized the
(25) opportunity and quickly organized
an extensive series of cost-of-
living protests designed to direct
the women’s movement toward
Socialist goals. Underneath the
(30) Socialists’ brief commitment to
cost-of-living organizing lay a
basic indifference to the issue
itself. While some Socialists did
view price protests as a direct
(35) step toward socialism, most
Socialists ultimately sought to
divert the cost-of-living movement
into alternative channels of protest.
Union organizing, they argued,
(40) was the best method through which
to combat the high cost of living.
For others, cost-of-living or oganiz-
ing was valuable insofar as it led
women into the struggle for suf-
(45) frage, and similarly, the suffrage
struggle was valuable insofar as
it moved United States society
one step closer to socialism.
Although New York’s Social-
(50) ists saw the cost-of-living issue
as, at best ,secondary or tertiary
to the real task at hand, the boy-
cotters, by sharp contrast, joined
the price protest movement out of
(55) an urgent and deeply felt commit-
ment to the cost-of-living issue.
A shared experience of swiftly
declining living standards caused
by rising food prices drove these
(60) women to protest. Consumer
organizing spoke directly to their
daily lives and concerns; they
saw cheaper food as a valuable
end in itself. Food price protests
(65) were these women’s way of orga-
nizing at their own workplace, as
workers whose occupation was
shopping and preparing food for
their families.
Q27
Which of the following best states the function of the
passage as a whole?
A. To contrast the views held by the Socialist party
and by the boycotting women of New York City
on the cost-of-living issue
B. To analyze the assumptions underlying oppos-
ing viewpoints within the New York Socialist
party of 1917
C. To provide a historical perspective on different
approaches to the resolution of the cost-of-
living issue.
D. To chronicle the sequence of events that led
to the New York Socialist party’s emergence
as a political power
E. To analyze the motivations behind the Socialist
party’s involvement in the women’s suffrage
movement.
Answer:C. Why not A?
Many thanks!
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