Question

Informational Text: Historical Text
Read the passage about Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Then, answer the following question(s).

(1) Did you know that a 1906 novel led to a law that changed the way Americans process food? That novel was Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The book exposed harsh working conditions and unsanitary practices in the urban meatpacking plants of Chicago. The Jungle forced light into the dark corners of big business.

(2) Sinclair filled The Jungle with facts to show America how poorly immigrants and the working class were treated by the big companies, which were driven by greed. The Chicago Tribune wrote that Sinclair “set out to write a book that would do for workers what Uncle Tom's Cabin had done for slaves half a century earlier.”

(3) But Sinclair was surprised that it was his horrific description of how meat was processed that caused the bigger uproar. It infuriated Americans. Sinclair remarked, "I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident i hit it in the stomach.” The outrage was heard in the White House. President Theodore Roosevelt ordered an investigation into the book’s claims and found that everything Sinclair wrote was true. The meatpacking companies had tried to keep a lid on their shameful practices. With a single book, Sinclair had exposed them.

(4) Roosevelt pressured Congress to pass the 1906 Pure Food and Drug and Meat Inspection Act, and they did. The acts changed the ways in which food and drugs are handled in the United States.

(5) Sinclair’s book was the catalyst for improvements in sanitary conditions in manufacturing plants. He was an author who would not be silenced. The corrupt businessmen he exposed called Sinclair a “muckraker” (literally someone who rakes “muck”), but the people who benefited from Sinclair’s “muckraking” enjoyed better labor laws and safer food and drugs.

The following question has two parts. Answer Part A first, and then Part B.

Part A
Which central idea is most clearly supported by the ideas in the passage?
A. The best way to enact a legal reform is to use popular books to reach the masses.
B. It is the duty of journalists to anger corporations and the people who run them.
C. A fight for a particular cause may have unintended consequences, bad or good.
D. The only way to enact lasting change in America is to appeal to the president.
Part B
Which piece of evidence best supports the central idea from Part A?
A. The corrupt men who ran businesses did not like Sinclair.
B. Sinclair wanted to write a book similar to Uncle Tom's Cabin.
C. President Roosevelt finally decided to read the book because of the outrage from Americans.
D. Sinclair cared about poor working conditions, but his book led to changes in meat processing.

Answer 1

Part A: C. A fight for a particular cause may have unintended consequences, bad or good.
- Sinclair meant to expose workers’ suffering but accidentally sparked public outrage about meat processing (“I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach”).

Part B: D. Sinclair cared about poor working conditions, but his book led to changes in meat processing.
- This choice shows the unintended result: his focus on labor conditions produced reforms in food safety and meat inspection.