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Which statement best describes the function of the highlighted sentence?
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The question of the antecedent causes of the Industrial Revolution in nineteenth-century Europe has been of much concern to historians during the last four decades. According to W. W. Rostow's deceptively simple but once widely accepted model of an economic process of "takeoff' led by the textile mills, rates of investment and output increased so dramatically in the period preceding the Industrial Revolution that new production techniques became inevitable and sustained economic growth became automatic. Having rejected Rostow's model, historians were still at a loss for an explanation of how the stage was set for the massive shift from an agricultural-based to a manufacturing-based economy.
In the early 1970s, such German historians as Peter Kriedte and Hans Medick stepped in with a new hypothesis and a new word: "proto-industrialization," by which they meant the eighteenth-century development of small, rural-based industries--usually the manufacture of textiles by rural laborers in their homes-that they saw as a precursor to urban factory-based mass production. In this model, other laborers were drawn from subsistence farming into commercial agriculture in order to feed those workers engaged in manufacturing; nearby towns supplied the market for the manufactured goods produced and furnished a population of capitalist entrepreneurs who financed the whole enterprise; and the products themselves were exported, as well as sold locally. The results, these historians argue, effectively set the stage for an industrial revolution: increased population growth due to the need for more laborers in home-based businesses; an eventual shift from home labor to workshops organized for greater efficiency and cost reduction; the development of a cadre of export- oriented merchants; and a commercial agricultural sector. However, research focusing on England leads to the conclusion that proto-industrialization flourished here and there at various times from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century, but in most cases it eventually just petered out. Proto- industrialization, at least in England, seems not to have been a sufficient, or even a necessary, cause of industrial revolution. The suggestion has even been made that the Industrial Revolution in England was more closely related to locale than to the general economic, psychological, and social modernizing processes that were admittedly going on in eighteenth-century England. For example, there appears to have been an inverse correlation between literacy, the key indicator of modernization, and industrialization, the former actually at its maximum in remote and barren Westmorland and declining in the areas of high industrial growth from 1760 to 1840. On the other hand, the geographical accidents of a plentiful water supply or the close proximity of underground iron and coal do seem to be necessary causes, although certainly not sufficient causes, of the development of such symbols of the Industrial Revolution as mills and mines.
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The passage mentions all of the following as elements that the proponents of the hypothesis of proto-industrialization consider to have set the stage for the Industrial Revolution EXCEPT a
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Which of the following best describes the view of the author of the passage about proto- industrialization in England?
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It can be inferred from the passage that the originators of the theory of proto- industrialization considered which of the following to be characteristic of modern factory-based mass production?
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In the last sentence of the passage, the author is primarily concerned with which of the following?
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The province of Larando has abolished fixed speed limits on highways and instead has mandated that highway police issue speeding citations only for motorists driving faster than a prudent person would drive under the same road conditions. The flexible standard is bound to prompt a higher proportion of motorists who have been issued a speeding citation to contest the citation in court. Hence, highway police will surely have to spend more time in court.
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Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
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A basic assumption in contemporary models of primate behavioral ecology is that the social patterns we observe in wild subjects are adaptations, or the products of past evolutionary selection pressures. Yet, both ecological and demographic conditions can change during the course of an individual's life span, resulting in selection pressures that fluctuate on shorter time scales than the generations over which evolutionary processes occur. The varying fitness consequences of particular social patterns under different conditions can result in behavioral polymorphisms within populations and in high levels of intraspecific behavioral variation between populations. Social behavior is especially sensitive to local conditions, which reflect the demographic histories of groups and populations in addition to the phylogenetic histories of species. If evolution has favored "expedience," or "the ability to select whatever tactic is necessary to solve an immediate problem, regardless of the possible long-term consequences of such action," as Barrett and Henzi have suggested, then a great deal of primate social behavior may not be adaptive in a genetically determined, evolutionary sense.
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The primary purpose of the passage is to
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According to the passage, which of the following is true about primate social behavior?
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As suggested by the passage, Barrett and Henzi would probably agree that
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Snow algae, the most prolific and colorful microbial species colonizing snow and ice surfaces, have been studied in many polar and alpine settings. As part of their life cycle and as a mechanism of protection from high irradiation, snow algal species produce red pigments (carotenoids). Through this protective reaction, algal blooms color snow and ice surfaces and cause a darkening of glacial surfaces, which in turn leads to a decrease in surface albedo (a measure of the reflectivity of the Earth's surface). Such a decrease of albedo may speed up melting processes and is of special interest in Iceland, where glaciers are retreating fast and where albedo is also affected by the presence of volcanic dust and ash on snow and ice surfaces.
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It can be inferred that the presence of volcanic dust and ash on snow surfaces in Iceland is likely to
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According to the passage, snow algal species produce red pigments for which of the following reasons?
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Despite the magnitude of his accomplishments and praise from certain later philosophers, philosopher and scientist Charles Peirce (1839-1914) remains largely ignored in modern philosophy. This neglect stems from the inherent difficulty of his theories, the chaotic state of his voluminous writings, and the dissonance of his doctrines, which range from an insistence on rigorous scientific methodology to a cosmological metaphysics of "evolutionary love."
Certainly much of Peirce's work is of mere historical interest, and many of his discoveries are partial anticipations of work done better by others. Still, he had a wider range of interests, a deeper knowledge of the history of philosophy, and a greater command of scientific culture than any philosopher of his day. Although Peirce never welded his views into a system and his writing is often slapdash, its tangled quality results directly from his immense erudition and his refusal to oversimplify. What he offers the patient reader is great breadth and complexity.
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The primary purpose of the passage as a whole is to
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The author suggests that which of the following was a flaw in Peirce's work?
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The author mentions Peirce's theory of ^evolutionary love” most likely in order to
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