While historians once propagated the myth that Africans who were brought to the New World as slaves contributed little of value but their labor, a recent study by Amelia Wallace Vernon helps to dispel this notion by showing that Africans introduced rice and the methods of cultivating it into what is now the United States in the early eighteenth century. ███
Conventional View / New View ·African slaves in US contributed only their labor / No, they also introduced rice cultivation
Evidence for New View ·Document with instructions to bring slaves with knowledge of rice cultivation to the New World
Document dates the instructions to 1718, decades before the arrival of the French Acadians who were previously thought to have introduced rice cultivation to the New World.
Answer 1 / Explanation ·Plantation owners also ate rice; growing rice was a relief for slaves
Plantation owners wanted to eat rice so demanded it to be grown. Growing rice was a form of relief for the slaves because they could work without supervision.
Explanation ·They transformed the land to make it their own
They did grow rice but that wasn't the point. They wanted to transform the land because they viewed the land as an extension of themselves and so wanted to take care of it and really make it theirs.
Hypothesis ·Rice cultivation may also have been a political act
Transforming the land to grow rice where previously the land was used to grown cotton is a symbolic and political act to assert their freedom and ownership over the land.
Passage Style
Phenomenon-hypothesis
Single position
22.
Which one of the following ██████ ████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ████████
Question Type
Main point
The author focuses on presenting Vernon’s explanations for the cultivation of rice among African Americans during and after slavery. Let’s look for a title that best captures this focus.
This is the best answer. Although it would be better if it mentioned something related to potential explanations for the practice of rice cultivation, every other title mentions something that isn’t covered in the passage or is otherwise too narrow.
This is too narrow, because the author also addresses rice cultivation during slavery. Also, it’s not clear whether rice cultivation was “widespread” after slavery.
d
"Cultural and Political █████████████ ██ ████████ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████████
Although rice cultivation is arguably one of the contributions of Africans brought to the United States, it’s not clear that this constitutes a cultural or political contribution. In addition, the author doesn’t discuss any other potential cultural or political contributions to the United States.
This is too narrow, because the author also addresses rice cultivation during slavery. Also, it’s not clear that the overall economy was committed to mass production of cotton.
Difficulty
84% of people who answer get this correct
This is a moderately difficult question.
It is somewhat easier than other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%140
150
75%160
Analysis
Main point
Humanities
Phenomenon-hypothesis
Single position
Answer Popularity
PopularityAvg. score
a
84%
167
b
2%
155
c
2%
156
d
4%
161
e
8%
162
Question history
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