PrepTest 144, Section 1, Question 17
Before contact with Europeans, the Haudenosaune, a group(466 more words not shown)
It can be inferred from(17 more words not shown)
- AEven if the(25 more words not shown)
- BThe use of(16 more words not shown)
- CThe ancient associations(25 more words not shown)
- DBecause the associations(21 more words not shown)
- EIf the Europeans(30 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Keep the development straight. Colors already had religious meanings when wampum consisted of loose beads. Later, the belts used colors together with images to represent nations, relationships and governmental business. We should look for an inference that respects both that earlier foundation and the later expansion of what the system could express.
Working the answers
- A
No connection is drawn between compactness and a likely development into currency. The author attributes the exchange use to European contact, but does not tell us what would probably have happened without it. Small size alone is not evidence for that alternate history.
- B
Meaningful colors predated the confederacy. White and purple were already associated with spirits in the earlier loose-bead form, so their use to express meaning did not first arise in response to the confederacy's formation.
- CCorrect
The earlier spiritual associations gave colors a role in representing ideas. The later system built on meaningful beads but represented political subjects, such as nations and relations between peoples, through stylized images and color arrangements. Those later meanings did not directly depend on identifying Sapling or Flint. An earlier foundation need not remain the direct meaning of every later representation.
- D
We are not told that the colors' associations shifted, producing different color meanings in strings and belts. More complex representations can develop without the particular historical shift D asserts.
- E
Knowing that something communicates does not establish that Europeans would refuse to use it in exchange. The author describes their misunderstanding, but does not say that the communicative and exchange functions could not coexist.
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