PrepTest 144, Section 1, Question 16
Before contact with Europeans, the Haudenosaune, a group(466 more words not shown)
The last paragraph of the(4 more words not shown)
- Adetail how wampum(7 more words not shown)
- Bdistinguish between wampum(8 more words not shown)
- Cillustrate how wampum(7 more words not shown)
- Doutline the Haudenosaune(8 more words not shown)
- Egive evidence of(15 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The final paragraph shows how wampum could communicate complex political information. A longhouse represented a nation; council fires and lines between figures represented other ideas or relationships. Color arrangements helped readers interpret the images.
What we’re looking for
Those examples explain a system: recognizable symbols stand for ideas. Belts are the means by which that system is illustrated, rather than the paragraph's entire point.
Working the answers
- A
Belts combine strings, but the paragraph does not chiefly trace the construction history of belts. It spends its attention on what the images meant and what they communicated.
- B
A contrast between belts and simpler strings is implicit in the development. The paragraph's main work is explaining the belts' symbols and uses, not cataloging differences between two forms of wampum.
- CCorrect
The specific images make the system of symbolic representation visible. Longhouses stand for nations, and other images convey political relationships or business. That is how the author shows wampum functioning as communication.
- D
The constitution is said to have been encoded, but its provisions are not outlined for us. Mentioning a constitution is different from explaining what its rules actually say.
- E
The final sentence does call the system effective at framing and enforcing law. But the paragraph mainly explains symbols and their communicative functions; it does not chiefly present evidence about how those symbols secured people's compliance. A concluding statement of effectiveness is not the whole paragraph's purpose.
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