5. The primary purpose of the passage is to

A) to describe the problems the British had with the Germans in World War I.

B) to compare German and British naval power.

C) to classify German naval power in World War I.

D) to describe how the United States came into World War I.


5. The correct choice is C.

The author classifies German naval power; the passage does not describe problems, compare naval power, or describe how the United States entered the war.



This passage is used for Questions 1-5. It has two paragraphs.

The German navy made only one appearance in World War I at the battle of Jutland in 1916 against the British fleet in the North Sea. Even though the German losses were half that of the British, the German navy never came out in battle again during the war. Their sailors even mutinied in 1918, helping to touch off the German revolution that led Germany to seek Armistice in 1918.

Though German ships did not pose a threat, German submarines continued to menace the Allies during the War. In 1915, the British liner Lusitania was torpedoed, and a thousand lives, many of them Americans, were lost. When the Germans declared submarine warfare in 1917, they hoped to starve out the British by sinking all of the ships carrying supplies and food to that island nation. By the time the United States entered the war in 1917, the British were down to a month’s supply of food due to heavy attacks on merchant ships by German submarines. Then the British blockaded German ports, and the German people suffered from the same privations the British had faced earlier.