Practice Test: Reading Comprehension - 77 | 100 RCs for GMAT PDF Download

The passage does not mention the unemployment rate during the Great Depression specifically, but it does mention that the unemployment rate during the worst years in the 1870s and 1890s was around 15 percent. Therefore, it is reasonable to infer that the unemployment rate during the Great Depression was sometimes higher than 15 percent.

The passage is primarily concerned with summarizing and assessing a study of unemployment rates in the United States from 1870-1920. The study's author, Alexander Keyssar, examines unemployment rates according to different factors such as skill level, ethnicity, race, age, class, and gender. Keyssar's findings show that unemployment rates differed primarily according to class, with those in middle-class and white-collar occupations being far less likely to be unemployed. The passage praises Keyssar's study for its thorough research and creative use of quantitative and qualitative evidence.

The best answer to this question is D. Keyssar's findings indicate that workers were more likely to move to an area where their particular trade was in demand in order to find work. This is exactly what happened in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, when the shoe factories began to close and the workers moved to West Chelmsford, where the shoe industry was still thriving.

While Keyssar's findings may not be directly applicable to other states, they do provide valuable insight into the nature of unemployment during the period in question. By examining unemployment rates, frequencies, and patterns, Keyssar is able to paint a more complete picture of the issue than previous studies. As a result, his findings are relevant to a historical understanding of unemployment in other states.

The author views Keyssar's study with qualified admiration. While the author acknowledges the thorough research and creative use of quantitative and qualitative evidence, the author also notes that Keyssar might have spent more time developing the implications of his findings on joblessness for contemporary public policy.

This is supported by the fact that historians have only begun to devote serious attention to the working class in the United States since the early 1970’s. This suggests that before this time, the study of the working class was either infrequent or not given enough depth, or both.

According to the passage, Keyssar considers class and where a person lived or worked to be among the important predictors of the likelihood that a particular person would be unemployed in late nineteenth-century Massachusetts. He does not mention age as a predictor.

The most correct answer is B. The unemployment rates mentioned in line 15 are relatively modest, but they don't give a full sense of the impact of unemployment because they don't take into account the percentage of workers who experience any unemployment in the course of a year.