During the Middle of the Nineteenth Century, Youth Activism took Shape in the United States

Reading Passage Question

During the middle of the nineteenth century, youth activism took shape in the United States as more people between the ages of 18 and 25 began organizing themselves politically to protest working conditions, including payment and hours on the job. The youth movement initially separated young people from their adult counterparts as they organized their own labor strikes to draw attention to the exploitation of children working in Appalachia's coal mines. This form of youth-driven activism occurred as young people became the primary movers within a specific area of the labor movement. Young activists remained separated from their adult labor protestors through the 1930s, but in the 1950s and 1960s, youth activists joined adults in the larger movements for civil rights.

Today, young people are more involved in social activism led by adults than they are involved in starting their own youth-led organizations. Adults commonly are the leaders of political movements such as education reform, children's rights, and government reform, but young people are often called upon to participate in these movements by voting to support a particular cause or idea. When young people do participate in this way, their vote is often called the youth voice. Research has shown that recruiting a youth voice is an essential component of successful community development. In particular, the youth voice fosters the development of youth activities including service learning, mentorship, and leadership training. Youth voice critics argue that activism focused on mobilizing young people is shallow because society does not offer young people enough power to make actual changes. Adults have called into question the value of the youth voice by claiming that adult politicians are using young, and possibly impressionable, people to further a political agenda. They claim that adults can exploit young people more easily and that the youth voice may not be as effective as some adults might think.

“During the middle of the nineteenth century, youth activism took shape in the United States as more people between the ages of 18 and 25 began organizing themselves politically to protest working conditions.”- is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 5 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

1. The main purpose of this passage is to:

1. criticize an aspect of American society by showing how young people have historically been denied a voice in the political arena.
2. argue that young people should become more involved in their local communities.
3. explain the youth activism movement, from its beginnings in labor protests to the importance of today's youth voice.
4. show the causes and effects of youth activist involvement in the labor rights movement.
5. contrast how youth and adults participate in the modern social activism.

2. It can be inferred from the passage that young people became involved in protesting working conditions in Appalachia's coal mines because:

1. young people thought that working towards better labor conditions was more important than working towards civil rights.
2. adults were occupied with other labor protests; therefore, young people had to take on leadership roles.
3. young people have more time to devote themselves to social causes than adult activists.
4. adult activists were more concerned with education reform than they were with children's labor exploitation.
5. adults had exploited young people in the past, and the youth activists did not want to see it happen again.

3. Each of the following criticisms of youth activism mentioned in the passage EXCEPT:

1. Young people do not have enough political power to make substantial changes.
2. Activism that focuses on involving young people may be a shallow endeavor.
3. Politicians might be using young people to further their own political ideas.
4. Youth activism will eventually undermine adult activism.
5. The youth voice may not be as effective as some people think.

4. The author uses the phrase “and possibly impressionable” in paragraph 2 (Highlighted) most likely to emphasize the idea that:

1. young people are inherently unsuited as leaders of political movements.
2. young people will likely separate from their adult counterparts in the future.
3. an adult's impression of a youth activist will determine whether or not the two work well together.
4. youth and adult activists are too different to have a successful working relationship.
5. adults may be able to take advantage of young people whose political ideas have not yet solidified.

5. It can be inferred from the passage that today's young activists relate to adult activists in which the following ways?

1. Young activists prefer to remain separate from their adult counterparts.
2. Young people are more likely to become involved in an adult-led organization than they were at the youth activist movement's beginnings.
3. Young activists are wary of taking on leadership roles because they fear that adults will not support the development of youth activities.
4. The relationship between young and adult activists is strained and irreparable.
5. Even though young and adult activists work well together, some organizations would be more productive if they were youth-led.

Suggested GMAT Reading Comprehension Samples

• The Black Death, a Severe Epidemic that Ravaged Fourteenth Century Europe
• The United States Government has a Long-Standing Policy of Using Federal Funds to Keep Small Business Viable.
• Comparable Worth, as a Standard Applied to Eliminate Inequities in Pay
• Some Historians Contend that Conditions in the United States During the Second World War
• More Selective than Most Chemical Pesticides in that they Ordinarily Destroy only Unwanted Species
• Historians have Identified Two Dominant Currents in the Russian Women's Movement of the Late Tsarist Period.
• Citing the Fact that the Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was Higher in 1997
• Traditional Social Science Models of Class Groups in the United States are Based on Economic Status
• Solar Ponds are Bodies of Water in Which Circulation is Incomplete and There is a Very High Salt Concentration that Increases with Depth
• Ethnohistoric Documents from Sixteenth-Century Mexico Suggesting that Weaving and Cooking were the Most Common Productive Activities for Aztec Women
• A Recent Study has Provided Clues to Predator-Prey Dynamics in the Late Pleistocene Era.
• The General Density Dependence Model can be Applied to Explain the Founding of Specialist Firms
• In the 1980's, Astronomer Bohdan Paczynski Proposed a Way of Determining Whether the Enormous Dark Halo Constituting the Outermost Part of the Milky Way Galaxy
• The United States Hospital Industry is an Unusual Market in that Nonprofit and For-Profit Producers Exist Simultaneously.
• Although the Industrial Union Organizations that Emerged Under the Banner of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
• According to P. F. Drucker, The Management Philosophy Known as Total Quality Management
• The Professionalization of the Study of History in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
• Conventional Wisdom has it that Large Deficits in the United States Budget Cause Interest Rates to Rise.
• In a New Book About the Antiparty Feeling of the Early Political Leaders of the United States
• The System of Patent-Granting, Which Confers Temporary Monopolies for the Exploitation of New Technologies