PrepTest 144, Section 1, Question 14

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A

  The account begins with loose beads, not combinations of strings. Strings and then belts came later. Even though the later movement toward more complex political messages is relevant, the opening misstates the development the answer is trying to summarize.

• B
  Correct

  This gives the full development: wampum originally communicated meaning through colors and later symbols, eventually encoding constitutional provisions. It also preserves the correction of the money-centered view without denying that wampum later served as a medium of exchange.

• C

  Exclusively is the problem. European trade did not turn wampum into nothing but currency. The author explains its continuing communicative and governmental functions, including its use in framing and enforcing law for hundreds of years.

• D

  The confederacy helped make the system more elaborate; it did not originate meaningful communication through wampum. The earlier religious associations and simple political messages already demonstrate communicative uses.

• E

  The opening criticism of historians helps introduce the topic, but this answer makes their neglect the central claim. Most of the account instead explains how wampum's communicative uses developed, culminating in political belts. E leaves that development out.