单选题 . ①From the 1880s to the 1930s, the textile industry in Japan employed over half of all workers, most of them in the three major branches of silk reeling, cotton spinning, and weaving. ②Because the branches were highly diverse—in scale, skill requirements, and technology—historians traditionally have analyzed them separately. ③However, the workforces of all three were drawn primarily from the same population: young, mostly rural women aged 10 to 25. ④Noting this commonality, Hunter argues that a consideration of the three branches of production together is long overdue: examining elements common to the different branches of textile production may, she asserts, permit the identification of gender-based factors that may have influenced the operation of the Japanese female labor market as a whole.

50. Which of the following does the passage cite as an explanation for historians' traditional analysis of the Japanese textile industry? ______

A、 A common workforce population across all branches of textile manufacturing
B、 Similarities in the skills required for silk reeling, cotton spinning, and weaving
C、 The importance of the textile industry to the Japanese economy as a whole.
D、 The high number of female factory workers employed within the textile industry
E、 Differences in the technology used in the three major branches of textile production

【正确答案】 E

【答案解析】 E：根据题干，解释老观点被提出的原因，定位到第②句的原因部分。根据第②句，选项E正确，对应highly diverse—in...technology。
A、B、D：这三个选项解释的是为什么三个部门要放到一起研究。
C：文中未提及。