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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding!\u00a0<\/i><\/b>Check out our upcoming courses here<\/i><\/b><\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n In the first installment of this series<\/a>, we deconstructed a Reading Comprehension history passage from the GMATPrep\u00ae free question set. I gave you the full history passage plus one problem. Today, I have the second problem for you.<\/span><\/p>\n Here is the history passage again, plus the problem. (Note: if you haven\u2019t read part 1 yet, I recommend going back there first. If you\u2019d like to do both problems in a row, feel free.)<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTwo recent publications offer different assessments of the career of the famous British nurse Florence Nightingale. A book by Anne Summers seeks to debunk the idealizations and present a reality at odds with Nightingale’s heroic reputation. According to Summers, Nightingale\u2019s importance during the Crimean War has been exaggerated: not until near the war\u2019s end did she become supervisor of the female nurses. Additionally, Summers writes that the contribution of the nurses to the relief of the wounded was at best marginal. The prevailing problems of military medicine were caused by army organizational practices, and the addition of a few nurses to the medical staff could be no more than symbolic. Nightingale\u2019s place in the national pantheon, Summers asserts, is largely due to the propagandistic efforts of contemporary newspaper reporters.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBy contrast, the editors of the new volume of Nightingale\u2019s letters view Nightingale as a person who significantly influenced not only her own age but also subsequent generations. They highlight her ongoing efforts to reform sanitary conditions after the war. For example, when she learned that peacetime living conditions in British barracks were so horrible that the death rate of enlisted men far exceeded that of neighboring civilian populations, she succeeded in persuading the government to establish a Royal Commission on the Health of the Army. She used sums raised through public contributions to found a nurse’s training hospital in London. Even in administrative matters, the editors assert, her practical intelligence was formidable: as recently as 1947 the British Army’s medical services were still using the cost-accounting system she devised in the 1860s.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI believe that the evidence of her letters supports continued respect for Nightingale\u2019s brilliance and creativity. When counseling a village schoolmaster to encourage children to use their faculties of observation, she sounds like a modern educator. Her insistence on classifying the problems of the needy in order to devise appropriate treatments is similar to the approach of modern social workers. In sum, although Nightingale may not have achieved all of her goals during the Crimean War, her breadth of vision and ability to realize ambitious projects have earned her an eminent place among the ranks of social pioneers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe passage suggests which of the following about Nightingale\u2019s relationship with the British public of her day? <\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(A) She was highly respected, her projects receiving popular and governmental support.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(B) She encountered resistance both from the army establishment and the general public.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(C) She was supported by the working classes and opposed by the wealthier classes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(D) She was supported by the military establishment but had to fight the governmental bureaucracy.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(E) After initially being received with enthusiasm, she was quickly forgotten.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s my Map again:<\/span><\/p>\n And here\u2019s my little mental summary of the story:<\/span><\/p>\n Summers thinks FN wasn\u2019t so great and provides reasons why. The \u201ceditors\u201d (whoever they are) disagree\u2014they think FN had a great impact both in her time and in future times. And the author agrees with the second opinion: FN had a big impact both in her own time and later (though, the author acknowledges, Summers may have a small point and maybe some of FN\u2019s achievements were exaggerated).<\/span><\/p>\n Okay, let\u2019s answer this thing!<\/span><\/p>\n The word <\/span>suggests<\/span><\/i> in the question stem indicates that this is an Inference question. Remind yourself briefly what that means.<\/span><\/p>\n On Inference questions, we have to find something that we can definitely deduce from some information in the passage. This inference must be true (according to info from the passage).<\/span><\/p>\n Nightingale is all over the passage, so we need to focus in on the other keywords: <\/span>the British public of her day<\/span><\/i>. Where does the passage talk about how Nightingale\u2019s contemporaries felt about her?<\/span><\/p>\n It does this in multiple places. The first paragraph says that Nightingale has a <\/span>heroic reputation<\/span><\/i>. (Note: even though Summers argues that she doesn\u2019t deserve that reputation, it\u2019s still what people think \u2014and thought in the past.) Summers also thinks <\/span>Nightingale\u2019s importance \u2026 has been exaggerated<\/span><\/i>\u2014so people thought she was really important.<\/span><\/p>\n The second paragraph says Nightingale <\/span>significantly influenced \u2026 her own age<\/span><\/i>. The other examples here talk about her <\/span>persuading the government<\/span><\/i> to do something and raising sums, so the government listened to her and people donated money for her to do things.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite the fact that Summers doesn\u2019t think Nightingale deserves all this acclaim, it\u2019s still the case that most people think\u2014and thought, back then\u2014that she did great things. So the correct answer should basically say that people thought Nightingale was great.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(A) She was highly respected, her projects receiving popular and governmental support.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n These are all good things; they match what we said above. Leave this one in.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(B) She encountered resistance both from the army establishment and the general public.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n No, she didn\u2019t. Summers doesn\u2019t think Nightingale fully deserves her reputation, but the examples in the passage don\u2019t indicate that anyone back then resisted what she wanted to do. Eliminate.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(C) She was supported by the working classes and opposed by the wealthier classes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The passage doesn\u2019t say that she was opposed by anyone, nor does it make any distinction between working classes and wealthier classes. Eliminate.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(D) She was supported by the military establishment but had to fight the governmental bureaucracy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It does sound like the military supported her\u2014but the government did, too (<\/span>she succeeded in persuading the government<\/span><\/i>\u2026). Eliminate.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c(E) After initially being received with enthusiasm, she was quickly forgotten.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She wasn\u2019t forgotten at all! In fact, that\u2019s Summers\u2019 point: Summers thinks that Nightingale is too highly praised or remembered. Summers probably thinks that Nightingale should have been more forgotten. Eliminate.<\/span><\/p>\n The correct answer is (A).<\/span><\/p>\n (1) Map the passage and articulate the Simple Story to yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n (2) Use the Map and Story to figure out where to look in the passage for specific detail questions. Most of the time, the question will point you to one specific area of the passage. Sometimes, as on this problem, you\u2019ll need to gather information from multiple parts of the passage.<\/span><\/p>\n (3) Inference questions ask you to deduce something that must be true from information given in the passage. Watch out for traps that try to get you to infer something that might plausibly be true but don\u2019t have to be true according to the given information. Also look for traps that try to mix up the information in the passage. In this case, Summers doesn\u2019t think Nightingale deserves her reputation\u2014but the question asks about the opinion of the British public of Nightingale\u2019s day, not Summers\u2019 opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n Ready for more? Let’s move on to Part 3<\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0?<\/span><\/p>\n Can\u2019t get enough of Stacey\u2019s GMAT mastery? Attend the first session of one of\u00a0her upcoming GMAT courses<\/a>\u00a0absolutely free, no strings attached. Seriously.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Did you know that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person GMAT courses absolutely free? We\u2019re not kidding!\u00a0Check out our upcoming courses here. In the first installment of this series, we deconstructed a Reading Comprehension history passage from the GMATPrep\u00ae free question set. I gave you the full history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[873,929,874,52871,930,2,25,10],"tags":[53186,53178],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-14859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-current-studiers","category-gmat-prep","category-gmat-resources","category-gmat-strategies","category-gmat-study-guide","category-how-to-study","category-reading-comprehension","category-verbal-on-gmat","tag-gmatprep-reading-comprehension","tag-history-passage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14859"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14946,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14859\/revisions\/14946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14859"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=14859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"Manhattan](\"https:\/\/www.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2017\/10\/sk-417-image-1.png\")
<\/p>\nStep 1: Identify the Question<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Step 2: Find the Proof
\n<\/i>Step 3: Predict the Answer<\/strong><\/h4>\nStep 4: Eliminate and Find a Match<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Key Takeaways for Tackling a History Passage on GMAT Reading Comprehension<\/b><\/h4>\n
* GMATPrep\u00ae questions courtesy of the Graduate Management Admissions Council. Usage of this question does not imply endorsement by GMAC.<\/span><\/h5>\n
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\n![\"stacey-koprince\"](\"https:\/\/cdn2.manhattanprep.com\/gmat\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2015\/06\/stacey-koprince-150x150.png\")
<\/a>Stacey Koprince<\/a>\u00a0is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California.<\/strong>\u00a0Stacey has been teaching the GMAT, GRE, and LSAT \u00a0for more than 15 years and is one of the most well-known instructors in the industry. Stacey loves to teach and is absolutely fascinated by standardized tests.\u00a0Check out Stacey\u2019s upcoming GMAT courses here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"