PrepTest 102, Section 1, Question 19

Working the answers

• A

  The powwow's resurgence doesn't show Native American customs spreading into Euroamerican society. We would need evidence of that outside influence; growing popularity within Native American culture isn't enough.

• B

  Compatible doesn't mean identical. The final paragraph expressly gives the two kinds of activity different functions: tribal identity on one hand, broader Native American identity on the other. “No difference” erases the distinction the writer just made.

• C
  Correct

  The final sentence says intertribal activities “reinforce native American identity” where it is threatened by “outside influences.” Connect that to the opening: the outside society into which Native Americans supposedly will assimilate is Euroamerican society. Intertribal activity therefore helps preserve a cultural identity distinct from that society.

  Without that help, preserving the distinction would be harder. Think of the broader cooperation as giving individual tribes allies against the same outside pressure. We don't have to predict that their identities would disappear without it; C only says maintaining the difference would be more difficult.

• D

  The opening does describe a “resurgence” of the powwow, but the specified forty-year hiatus belongs to the Lakota Sun Dance. We aren't given the powwow's extended-hiatus history or told it was revived for the purpose this choice assigns to it.

• E

  The writer disputes the sociologists' conclusion, not the extent of urbanization, communication, or political activity they report. Those trends could be exactly as extensive as claimed and still fail to establish that tribal identity will disappear. In fact, paragraph 2 accepts “compelling evidence” of increasing intertribalism. Challenging an interpretation doesn't require accusing its proponents of exaggerating the facts.