Passage 1
Since the only 1970's， historians have begun to devote serious attention to the working class in the United State. Yet while we now have studies of working-class communties and culture， we know remarkably little of worklessness， When historians have focused on the Great Depression of the 1930's. The narrowness of this perspective ignores the pervasive recessions and joblessness of the previous decades， as Alexander Keyssar shows in his recent book. Examining the period 1870-1920， Keyssar concentrates on Massachusetts， where teh historical materials are particularly rich， and the findings applicable to other industrial areas.
（The unemployment rates that Keyssar calculates appear to be relatively modest，at least by Great Depression standards： during the worst years， in the 1870's and 1890's， unemployment was around 15 percent）。Yet Keyssar rightly understands that a better way to measure the impact of unemployment is to calculate unemployment frequencies-measuring the percentage of workers who experience any unemployment in the course of a year. Given this perspective， joblessness looms much larger.
Keyssar also scrutinize unemployment patterns according to skill level， ethnicity， race， age， class， and gender. He finds that rates of joblessness differed primarily according to class： those in middle-class and white-collar occupations were far less likely to be unemployed. Yet the impart of unemployment on a specific class was not always the same. Even when dependent on the same trade， adjoining communities could have dramatically different unemployment rates. Keyssar uses these differential rates to help explain a phenomenon that has puzzled historians the startlingly high rate of geo-graphical mobility in the nineteenth-century United States. But mobility was not the dominant working-class strategy for coping with unemployment， nor was assistance from private charites or state agencies. Self-help and the help of kin got most workers through jobless spells.
While Kayssar might have spent more time developing the implications of his finding on joblessness for contemporary public policy， his study， in its thorough research and creative use of quantitative and qualitative evidence， is a model of historical analysis.
1. The passage is primarily concerned with
（A） recommending a new course of investigation
（B） summarizing and assessing a study
（C） making distinctions among categories
（D） criticizing the current state of a field
（E） comparing and contrasting two methods for calculating data
2. The passage suggests that before the early 1970's ， which of the following was true of the study by historians of the working class in the Unite State？
（A） The study was infrequent or superficial， or both.
（B） The study was repeatedly criticized for its allegedly narrow focus.
（C） The study relied more on qualitative than quantitative evidence.
（D） The study focused more on the working-class community than on working-class culture.
（E） The study ignored working-class joblessness during the Great Depression.
3. According to the passage， which of the following is true of Keyssar's findings concerning unemployment in Massachusetts？
（A） They tend to contradict earlier findings about such unemployment.
（B） They are possible because Massachusetts has the most easily accessible historical records.
（C） They are the first to mention the existence of high rates of geographical mobility in the nineteenth century.
（D） They are relevant to a historical understanding of the nature of unemployment in other states.
（E） They have cause historians to reconsider the role of the working class during the Great Depression.
4. According to the passage， which of the follow is true of the unemployment rates mentioned in line 15
（A） They hovered， on averrage， around 15 percent during the period 1870-1920.
（B） They give less than a full sense of the impact of unemployment on working-class people.
（C） They overstimate the importance of middle class and white-collar unemploument
（D） They have been considered by many historians to underestimate the extent of working-class unemploument.
（E） They are more open to question when calculated for years other than those of peak recession.
5. Which of the following statements about the unemployemnt rate during the Great Depression can be inferred from the passage？
（A） It was sometimes higher than 15 percent.
（B） It has been analyzed seriously only since the early 1970's.
（C） It can be calculated more easily than can unemployment frequency
（D） It was never as high as the rate during the 1870's.
（E） It has been shown by Keyssar to be lower than previously thought.
6. According to the passage， Keyssar considers which of the following to be among the important predictors of the likelihood that a particular person would be unemployed in late nineteenth-century Massachusetts？
Ⅰ。 They person's class
Ⅱ。 Where the person lived or worked
Ⅲ。 The person's age
（A） Ⅰonly
（B） Ⅱonly
（C） Ⅰand Ⅱonly
（D） Ⅰand Ⅲonly
（E） Ⅰ，Ⅱ，and Ⅲ
7. The author views Keyssar's study with
（A） impatient disapproval
（B） wary concern
（C） polite skepticism
（D） scrupulous neutrality
（E） qualified admiration
8. Which of the following， if ture， would most strongly support Keyssar's findings as they are descrebed by the author？
（A） Boston， Massachusetts， and Quincy， Massachusetts， adjoining communities， had a higher rate of unemployment for working-class people in 1870 than in 1890.
（B） White-collar professionlars such as attorneys had as much trouble as day laborers in maintaining a steady level of employment throughout the period 1870-1920.
（C） Working-class women living in Cambridge， Massachusetts， were more likely than working-class men living in Cambridge to be unemployed for some period of time during the year 1873.
（D） In the 1890's shoe-factory workers moved away in large numbers from Chelmsford， Massachusetts， where shoe factories wew being replaced by other industries， to adjoining West Chelmsford， where the shoe industry floutished.
（E） In the late nineteenth century， workers of all classes in Massachusetts were more likely than workers of all classes in other staates to move their place of residence from one location to another within the state.
Passage 2
Kazuko Nakane's history of the early Japanese immigrants to central California's Pajaro Valley focuses on the development of farming communities there from 1890 to 1940. The Issei （first-generation immigrants） were brought into the Pajaro valley to raise sugar beets. Like Issei laborers in American cities， Japanese men in rural areas sought employment via the “boss” system. The system comprised three elements； immigrant wage laborers； Issei boardinghouses where laborers stayed； and labor contractors， who gathered workers for a particular job and then negotiated a contract between workers and employer. This same system was originally utilized by the Chinese laborers who had preceded the Japanese. A related institution was the “labor club，” which provided job information and negotiated employment contracts and other legal matters， such as the rental of land， for Issei who chose to belong and paid an annual fee to the cooperative for membership.
When the local sugar beet industry collapsed in 1903， the Issei began to lease land from the valley's strawberry farmers. The Japanese provided the labor and the crop was divided between laborers and landowners. The Issei thus moved quickly from wage-labor employment to sharecrop-ping agreements. A limited amount of economic progress was made as some Issei were able to rent or buy farmland directly， while others joined together to form farming corporations. As the Issei began to operate farms， they began to marry and start families， forming an established Japanese American community. Unfortunately， the Issei's efforts to attain agricultural independence were hampered by government restrictions， such as the Alien Land Law of 1913. But immigrants could circumvent such exclusionary laws by leasing or purchasing land in their American-corn children's names.
Nakane's case study of one rural Japanese American community provides valuable information about the lives and experiences of the Issei. It is， however， too particularistic. This limitation derivers from Nakane's methodology——that of oral history——which cannot substitute for a broader theoretical or comparative perspective. Future research might well consider two issues raised by her study： were the Issei of the Pajaro Valley similar to or different from Issei in urban settings， and what variations existed between rural Japanese American communities？
1. The primary purpose of the passage it to
（A） defend a controversial hypothesis presented in a history of early Japanese immigrants California
（B） dismiss a history of an early Japanese settlement in California as narrow and ill constructed
（C） summarize and critique a history of an early Japanese settlement in California
（D） compare a history of one Japanese American community with studies of Japanese settlements throughout California
（E） examine the differences between Japanese and Chinese immigrants to central California in 1890's
