Self-study
P1
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.
P2
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Question / Phenomenon ·
Why did African Americans grow rice?
After all, the economy was dedicated to maximizing cotton production.
Two Answers ·
One during slavery and one after slavery
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.
P3
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Question / Phenomenon ·
Why, after slavery ended, did African Americans grow rice?
At that point, African Americans preferred to eat corn and their landlords only wanted cotton as payment.
Answer 2 / Explanation ·
Growing rice wasn't the point. It was to transform the land.
P4
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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 (RC)
Single position
22.
Which one of the following ██████ ████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ████████
a
"The Introduction of ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ████████ ███ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ███ █████ ████████
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.
b
"The Origin of ████ ███████████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ██████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ██ █████
The author doesn’t discuss the impact of rice cultivation on the economy of the United States between 1760 and 1920.
c
"Widespread Rice Cultivation ██ ███████ █████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ███ █████████ ██ ████████
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.
e
"African American Tenant ███████ ███ █████ ███████████ ██ ████ ██ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████
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.