Passage 28
Joseph Glarthaar’s Forged in Battle is not the first excel-
lent study of Black soldiers and their White officers in the
Civil War, but it uses more soldiers’ letters and diaries—
including rare material from Black soldiers—and concen-
(5) rates more intensely on Black-White relations in Black
regiments¹ than do any of its predecessors². Glathaar’s title
expresses his thesis: loyalty³, friendship, and respect among
White officers and Black soldiers were fostered by the
mutual dangers they faced in combat.
(10 ) Glarthaar accurately⁴ describes the government’s discrim-
inatory treatment of Black soldiers in pay, promotion⁵, medi
cal care, and job assignments, appropriately emphasizing
the campaign by Black soldiers and their officers to get the
opportunity to fight. That chance remained limited through
(15) out the war by army policies that kept most Black units
serving in rear-echelon assignments and working in labor
battalions. Thus, while their combat death rate was only
one-third that of White units, their mortality rate from
disease, a major killer⁶ in his war, was twice as great.
(20) Despite these obstacles, the courage and effectiveness of
several Black units in combat won increasing respect from
initially⁷ skeptical⁸ or hostile White soldiers. As one White
officer put it, “they have fought their way into the respect
of all the army.”
(25) In trying to demonstrate the magnitude of this attitudi-
nal change, however, Glarthaar seems to exaggerate the
prewar racism⁹ of the White men who became officers in
Black regiments. “Prior to the war,” he writes of these
men, “virtually all of them held powerful racial prejudices.”
(30) While perhaps true of those officers who joined Black
units for promotion or other self-serving motives¹⁰, this state-
ment misrepresents the attitudes of the many abolitionists
who became officers in Black regiments. Having spent
years fighting against the race prejudice endemic in Ameri-
(35) can society; they participated eagerly in this military
experiment, which they hoped would help African Americans
achieve freedom and postwar civil equality. By current
standards of racial egalitarianism, these men’s paternalism
toward African Americans was racist¹¹. But to call their
(40) feelings “powerful racial prejudices” is to indulge in
generational chauvinism—to judge past eras by present standards.
 
167. The passage as a whole can best be characterized as which of the following?
(A)   An evaluation¹² of a scholarly study
(B)   A description of an attitudinal change
(C)   A discussion of an analytical¹³ defect
(D)  An analysis of the causes of a phenomenon (A)
(E)   An argument in favor of revising a view
 
168. According to the author, which of the following is true of Glarthaar’s Forged in Battle compared with previous studies on the same topic?
(A)   It is more reliable and presents a more complete picture of the historical events on which it concentrates than do previous studies.
(B)   It uses more of a particular kind of source material and focuses more closely on a particular aspect of the topic than do previous studies.
(C)   It contains some unsupported generalizations¹⁴, but it rightly emphasizes a theme ignored by most previous studies.
(D)  It surpasses previous studies on the same topic in that it accurately describes conditions often neglected by those studies. (B)
(E)   It makes skillful use of supporting evidence to illustrate¹⁵ a subtle trend that previous studies have failed to detect.
 
169. The author implies that the title of Glatthaar’s book refers specifically to which of the following?
(A)   The sense of pride and accomplishment¹⁶ that Black soldiers increasingly felt as a result of their Civil War experiences
(B)   The civil equality that African Americans achieved after the Civil War, partly as a result of their use of organizational skills honed by combat
(C)   The changes in discriminatory army policies that were made as a direct result of the performance of Black combat units during the Civil War
(D)  The improved interracial relations that were formed by the races’ facing of common dangers and their waging of a common fight during the Civil War (D)
(E)   The standards of racial egalitarianism that came to be adopted as a result of White Civil War veterans’ repudiation¹⁷ of the previous racism
 
170. The passage mentions which of the following as an important theme that receives special emphasis in Glarthaar’s book?
(A)   The attitudes of abolitionist officers in Black units
(B)   The struggle of Black units to get combat assignments
(C)   The consequences of the poor medical care received by Black soldiers
(D)  The motives of officers serving in Black units (B)
(E)   The discrimination that Black soldiers faced when trying for promotions
 
171. The passage suggests that which of the following was true of Black units’ disease mortality rates in the Civil War?
(A)   They were almost as high as the combat mortality rates of White units.
(B)   They resulted in part from the relative inexperience of these units when in combat.
(C)   They were especially high because of the nature of these units’ usual duty assignments.
(D)  They resulted in extremely high overall casualty rates in Black combat units. (C)
(E)   They exacerbated¹⁸ the morale¹⁹ problems that were caused by the army’s discriminatory policies.
 
172. The author of the passage quotes the White officer in lines 23-24 primarily in order to provide evidence to support the contention²⁰ that
(A)   virtually all White officers initially had hostile attitudes toward Black soldiers
(B)   Black soldiers were often forced to defend themselves from physical attacks initiated²¹ by soldiers from White units
(C)   the combat performance of Black units changed the attitudes of White soldiers toward Black soldiers
(D)  White units paid especially careful attention to the performance of Black units in battle (C)
(E)   respect in the army as a whole was accorded only to those units, whether Black or White, that performed well in battle
 
173. Which of the following best describes the kind of error attributed to Glarthaar in lines 25-28?
(A)   Insisting on an unwarranted distinction between two groups of individuals in order to render an argument concerning them internally consistent
(B)   Supporting an argument in favor of a given interpretation²² of a situation with evidence that is not particularly relevant to the situation
(C)   Presenting a distorted view of the motives of certain individuals in order to provide grounds for a negative evaluation of their actions
(D)  Describing the conditions prevailing²³ before a given event in such a way that the contrast with those prevailing after the event appears more striking than it actually is (D)
(E)   Asserting that a given event is caused by another event merely because the other event occurred before the given event occurred
 
174. Which of the following actions can best be described as indulging in “generational chauvinism” (lines 40-41) as that practice is defined in the passage?
(A)   Condemning²⁴ a present-day monarch²⁵ merely because many monarchs²⁶ have been tyrannical in the past.
(B)   Clinging to the formal standards of politeness common in one’s youth to such a degree that any relaxation²⁷ of those standards is intolerable
(C)   Questioning the accuracy of a report written by an employee merely because of the employee’s gender²⁸.
(D)  Deriding²⁹ the superstitions³⁰ accepted as “science” in past eras without acknowledging the prevalence of irrational³¹ beliefs today. (E)
(E)   Labeling a nineteenth-century politician as “corrupt” for engaging in once-acceptable practices considered intolerable today.

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