PrepTest 149, Section 2, Question 21
The novelist and social theorist Charlotte Perkins Gilman,(435 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- AGilman's activist social(31 more words not shown)
- BAlthough Gilman aligned(27 more words not shown)
- CUnlike most Social(28 more words not shown)
- DGilman's version of(33 more words not shown)
- EGilman, whose important(31 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
We've already predicted the main point: Gilman thinks people can and should help direct social evolution. She applies that idea to women's lives, urging collective efforts to change traditional roles.
What we’re looking for
The final discussion of cooperation and nurturance is part of that program. It should not crowd out the larger connection between her theory and what she wants people to do. Look for an answer that gives us both.
Working the answers
- A
This credits Gilman with contributing the activist camp's central doctrine. We are told she identified with that camp and applied its ideas, not that she supplied the principle that distinguished it from the other camp. A physicist can use Newton's laws without having created them. In the same way, Gilman's use of a theory does not establish that she originated its central doctrine.
- B
Her proposals develop the activist position. We are not told that she rejected some of that group's doctrines. Calling for changes in women's roles is not presented as a break with the camp she joins.
- C
What did most Social Darwinists believe? We are given some theorists in one camp and another group in the other, with no numbers establishing a majority. We cannot make this comparison between Gilman and most of her contemporaries.
- DCorrect
This captures the whole connection: people can and should contribute actively to social evolution, and Gilman urges women to do so by challenging traditional gender roles. The second paragraph supplies the general principle; the third shows how she applies it.
- E
This asks us to give her an additional kind of recognition. That is not the author's conclusion. It also separates her writings on Darwinism from her writings on women's issues, when the point here is how those subjects connect: she uses her social theory in advocating changes for women.
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