Passage 13
Many scholars have argued that government investment in manufacturing in the southern United States during the Second World War spurred a regional economic boom that lasted into the postwar period. But much of this investment went to specialized plants, many of them unsuitable for postwar production. Large-scale, wartime government funding led to a massive increase in the number and scale of munitions facilities. By the war’s end, 216 munitions establishment costing more than $3.5 billion had been built, many of them located in the south. Indeed, according to one estimate, more than 70 percent of federally financed manufacturing construction capital in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee went into munitions plants.
Even in the northern regions with strong prewar manufacturing economics, these plants were difficult to deal with once the imperative of war had been removed. In the south few industrialists had the capacity or desire to transform these factories to a peacetime function. Accordingly, at war’s end almost all of the southern munitions facilities were shut down, placed on standby, operated at a very low capacity, or converted to nonmanufacturing functions, usually storage. Although some reopened a few years later for use during the Korean War, the impact of the special plants on the South’s postwar economy was marginal at best.
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
A. propose an alternative explanation
B. challenge a widely held position
C. contrast two views of a phenomenon
D. explain why a particular claim has been influential
E. evaluate evidence used to support a particular view
Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
2. According to the passage, some southern munitions plants built in the South during the Second World War were
A. later reopened and used once more as munitions plants
B. used for nonmanufacturing purposes after the war
C. originally envisioned as continuing to manufacture munitions at high capacity even after the war had ended
3. In the passage, the mention of “Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee” serves primarily to
A. suggest that some states were better than others at anticipating postwar economic needs
B. identify evidence used to support a view held by scholars mentioned at the beginning of the passage
C. suggest that federal investment in some kinds of manufacturing was excessive
D. identify the states that received the largest allocations of federal funds
E. provide information to support a point about the nature of government investment made earlier in the paragraph
答案：B AB E
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