PrepTest 148, Section 2, Question 13

Working the answers

• A

  Longer searches for work do not support the proposed reduction in migration difficulties. They would make that part of the account harder to explain, although they would not by themselves disprove every benefit of an existing network.

• B
  Correct

  Shared Southern origins within Northern communities fit the proposed pattern: earlier migrants from one place establish themselves, then others from that place follow. Imagine people from a particular Southern town joining an existing community in the same Northern city. That is consistent with friends and relatives supplying information and support, rather than everyone choosing a destination independently. It supports the authors’ explanation without having to prove it conclusively.

• C

  Fluctuating housing prices could affect moving decisions, but this does not show earlier migrants reducing uncertainty, travel costs, or the difficulty of settling in. It gives no evidence for the particular mechanism we are strengthening.

• D

  More employer recruitment is different from earlier migrants helping friends and relatives. The authors mention recruiters as an initial catalyst; needing increasingly more of them to sustain recruitment does not support migration becoming easier through the migrants’ own networks. Both could exist, but D does not establish the authors’ proposed source of momentum.

• E

  Later movement back South does not explain why Northward migration continued during the period under discussion. The direction and development we need to support are different.