PrepTest 159, Section 4, Question 19
The following passage was adapted from an article(439 more words not shown)
The author would be most(14 more words not shown)
- Ais indicative of(8 more words not shown)
- Bcould not happen(5 more words not shown)
- Cmight be a(10 more words not shown)
- Dis a direct(15 more words not shown)
- Edemonstrates that the(11 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The logging concessions have already prompted a lawsuit over indigenous rights, an issue Belize's courts haven't yet decided. That makes the dispute potentially important beyond these particular trees: it could lead the courts to develop law governing such rights.
What we’re looking for
We don't know how the suit will turn out. An important turning point needn't mean that the Maya have already won—or lost.
Working the answers
- A
The account concerns one legal dispute. It doesn't establish a worldwide pattern of excessive resource exploitation or present the concessions as evidence for such a pattern.
- B
Recognizing indigenous rights in other countries doesn't show that comparable concessions could not be granted there. We aren't given that prohibition across most other common-law jurisdictions.
- CCorrect
Watershed means a significant turning point. Because the concessions generated a suit that raises an unresolved area of Belize's law, they could become the occasion for an important development in indigenous rights. Might fits that possibility without inventing the court's future decision.
- D
Nothing says the Maya's exploitation of logging opportunities caused the government to grant these concessions. The text gives their legal response to the concessions, not this proposed economic cause of the government's action.
- E
The government granted the concessions, and the Maya challenged them. That doesn't establish that the Maya have little influence in the courts. No outcome in the suit is reported, and the author argues that their claim has merit.
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