SAT OwlQuestion bank / Central Ideas and Details
Accounts of the California Gold Rush often focus on the miners who struck it rich. Historian Marcus Hale argues that the most reliable fortunes of the period were made not in the goldfields but in the towns that supplied them. Merchants who sold shovels, boots, and flour at steeply inflated prices faced far less risk than miners, whose earnings depended on luck and dwindled as surface deposits ran out. Hale does not deny that some miners prospered; he contends that their stories, retold endlessly, have obscured where Gold Rush wealth most dependably came from.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Hale argues that no miners profited from the Gold Rush.
Hale claims that merchants in California charged miners fair prices for supplies.
Hale shows that surface gold deposits were exhausted within the first year of the Gold Rush.
Hale contends that supplying miners was a more dependable path to wealth than mining, even though popular accounts emphasize successful miners.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D
Hale's argument is that merchants, who took less risk, made the most reliable fortunes, and that famous miners' stories hide this fact. Choice D includes both the claim and the point about popular accounts.
Choice A is too extreme; the text says Hale "does not deny that some miners prospered."
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