SAT OwlQuestion bank / Cross-Text Connections
Text 1: Historians have long debated whether the Industrial Revolution improved living standards for British workers between 1780 and 1850. So-called optimists point to rising average real wages, especially after 1820, as evidence that ordinary people's lives grew better.
Text 2: Economic historian Owen Pryce argues that wage data alone cannot settle the question. Workers moving to industrial cities often earned more, but they also faced crowded housing, polluted water, and higher death rates. Average height among army recruits, a rough measure of childhood nutrition and health, actually fell for some groups born during the period. Rising wages, Pryce contends, may have been partly compensation for worse living conditions.
Based on the texts, how would Pryce most likely respond to the optimists' argument in Text 1?
He would deny that average real wages rose after 1820.
He would argue that workers in industrial cities earned less than rural workers did.
He would contend that height measures income more accurately than wages do.
He would argue that rising wages, though real, may not reflect improved overall well-being, because other measures of living conditions worsened.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D
Pryce accepts that city workers "often earned more," but he points to worse housing, water, death rates, and falling heights. He argues that wages alone do not show whether life improved. Choice D captures his response.
Choice A is tempting because Pryce disagrees with the optimists, but he never disputes the wage data; he disputes what it proves.
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