While “Give Me My Livelihood or Give Me Death” Could Never have been the Slogan GMAT Reading Comprehension

Reading Passage Question

While “give me my livelihood or give me death” could never have been the slogan of the American Revolution, it was its predominant subtext. Elites deeply resented the Navigation Acts and other acts, including the Currency Act of 1764, imposed after the French and Indian War depleted Britain’s treasury. Just as important, if less often acknowledged, a favorable balance of trade and robust profits for numerous merchants, which had existed generally if intermittently since the middle of the eighteenth century, reversed itself immediately after the war, leaving merchants with an oversupply of goods and the prospect, if not the fact, of bankruptcy.

In the South, the tobacco industry had increasingly slipped into the control of factors, who offered credit to the Southern planters for the expansion of their land and slaveholdings. A sudden collapse of credit for planters, as well as reversals for merchants, in 1762 and again in 1772 resulted in an economic panic and a depression in 1772 and 1773. As the wealthy struggled with loss, sailors, laborers, farmers, and shopkeepers either swelled the ranks of the unemployed or went unpaid. With time on their hands and grievances on their lips, they began to participate actively in political life. The rallying cries of elites for such radical economic transformations as nonimportation of British goods and colonial control of currency be- came their rallying cries, too.

‘While “give me my livelihood or give me death” could never have been the slogan’ is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 7 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.

Questions and Solutions

1. The passage mentions all of the following events as causes of conditions that led to the American Revolution EXCEPT:

(A) panic and economic crises in 1762 and 1763.
(B) sudden nonimportation of British goods.
(C) Britain’s need to replenish its treasury after the French and Indian War.
(D) new merchant class that developed between tobacco planter and purchaser.
(E) excess goods on the shelves of merchants.

2. The author implies a cause and effect relationship between which of the following?

(A) An increase in the profits of a merchant class and a decrease in the profits of the planter class.
(B) The enforcement of the Navigation Acts and an oversupply of goods on merchants’ shelves.
(C) The decrease in wealth and profits for the merchant and planter classes and economic hardship for the working classes.
(D) The loss of the French and Indian War and the British imposition of levees on colonial trade.
(E) The rise in domestic taxation rates in England and a commensurate rise in the colonies.

3. Assuming that the causes asserted by the author for the American Revolution are historically representative of wars of independence, which of the following developments would most likely contribute to a national rebellion?

(A) Families who are members of the lower classes in a multitiered economy are suddenly cut off from all government benefits.
(B) A tax increase for large and small businesses alike is used to finance social programs for all.
(C) Democratic ideals combine with economic problems to create a climate of patriotic fervor.
(D) Foreign political interests are suddenly central to the considerations of national policy makers.
(E) Political events create an economic panic and depression and relatively sudden and widespread economic reversals.

Suggested GMAT Reading Comprehension Questions

• Resin is a Plant Secretion that Hardens when Exposed to Air GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Some Historians Contend that Conditions in the United States During the Second World War GMAT Reading Comprehension
• It Was Once Assumed that All Living Things Could be Divided into Two Fundamental and Exhaustive Categories GMAT Reading Comprehension
• A Fundamental Principle of Pharmacology is that all Drugs have Multiple Actions. Actions that are Desirable in the Treatment of Disease are Considered therapeutic GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Scepticism is as Much the Result of Knowledge, as Knowledge is of Scepticism. GMAT Reading Comprehension
• On the surface, the Conquest of the Aztec Empire by Herman Cortes GMAT Reading Comprehension
• A One-Child Policy was Implemented in China in 1979 GMAT Reading Comprehension
• But Man is Not Destined to Vanish. He can be Killed, but he cannot be Destroyed, Because his Soul is Deathless and his Spirit is Irrepressible. GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Coral Reefs Are One of the Most Fragile, Biologically Complex, And Diverse Marine Ecosystems on Earth GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Although Numbers of Animals in a Given Region May Fluctuate From Year to Year GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Antonia Castañeda has Utilized Scholarship from Women's Studies and Mexican-American History to Examine Nineteenth-Century Literary Portrayals of Mexican Women. GMAT Reading Comprehension
• By 1950, The Results of Attempts to Relate Brain Processes to Mental Experience Appeared Rather Discouraging GMAT Reading Comprehension
• In February 1848 the People of Paris Rose in Revolt Against the Constitutional Monarchy of Louis-Philippe GMAT Reading Comprehension
• Over the Last 150 Years, Large Stretches of Salmon Habitat have been Eliminated by Human Activity. GMAT Reading Comprehension
• The Brain Contributes to the Adaptive Success of Animals through the Control and Coordination of Muscle Contractions. GMAT Reading Comprehension
• The Geology of the Grand Canyon Area Exposes One of the Most Complete and Studied Sequences of Rock on Earth. GMAT Reading Comprehension
• The Pioneers of the Teaching of Science Imagined that its Introduction into Education would Remove the Conventionality, Artificiality, and Backward-Lookingness GMAT Reading Comprehension
• The Single-Celled Parasite known as Toxoplasma Gondii Infects more than Half of the World's Human Population GMAT Reading Comprehension
• During the Victorian Period, Women Writers were Measured Against A Social GMAT Reading Comprehension
• In Current Historiography, the Picture of a Consistent, Unequivocal Decline in Women’s Status GMAT Reading Comprehension