Reading Comprehension

PT144 · S1 · P3 · Q17 Wampum

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Before contact with Europeans, the Haudenosaune, a group of nations in northeastern North America also known as the Iroquois, had been developing a form of communication, primarily for political purposes, that used wampum, a bead carved from seashell.

Topic

The original purpose and evolution of wampum among the Haudenosaune (Iroquois) people, especially its political and communicative role.

Framework

Challenge Position

Main Point

While most historians have insisted that wampum was mainly used as money, its true significance for the Haudenosaune was as a gradually developed tool for recording and communicating political and social messages, especially in the context of maintaining peace among different nations. **Most Valuable Sentence:** End of the first paragraph:

P1: Challenging the Common View of Wampum

This paragraph introduces the Haudenosaune’s use of wampum, points out the common misconception that it was just "money," and argues that for the Haudenosaune, wampum was far more important as a political and communicative tool to keep the peace between nations.

P2: Early Forms and Symbolic Meanings of Wampum

Here we learn about the characteristics of wampum, its colors, and its early forms (loose beads and string). The paragraph explores the spiritual symbolism behind the colors and how even simple beads held meaning and were used for basic communication with spiritual beings, as well as for simple political messages.

P3: Evolution into a Political Symbol System

After the formation of the Haudenosaune Confederacy, wampum’s use expanded dramatically. Wampum belts with specific icons and symbols were created to encode laws and relationships among the confederacy nations, serving as records and tools for enforcing the law and maintaining peace for centuries. The symbols and arrangements had specific meanings, effectively turning wampum into a limited but durable political and legal communication system.

17.

It can be inferred from the passage that the author would be most likely to agree with which one of the following?

Even if the evolution of
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: compactness Unsupported Causal Relationship This answer correctly admits that the arrival of the Europeans seemed played a pretty important causal role in wampum becoming currency. But it adds a causal relationship on top of that, which we can't support anywhere in the passage. It says that because of how compact wampum was, it was destined to be a currency even if the Europeans had never showed up. The passage never mentions how bulky or compact wampum is, so we can't support the claim that wampum's compactness made it likely to become a currency.
1% picked this
The use of colors in
Opposite
The earliest, simplest wampum came in two colors, and the different colors stood for different basic ideas. So the use of colors in wampum to express meaning arose way before the formation of the Confederacy. It arose in paragraph 2, not paragraph 3.
3% picked this
Correct
The ancient associations of colors
Why this is right
This answer is such a complicated sentence that we should be suspicious that it's correct. The correct answers on What's Implied questions like Opinion and Inference are often aloof, abstract, tortured. Let's try to break apart the multiple claims: 1. the ancient associations of colors with spirits were important precursors to later wampum representations How do we feel about this? Did the author think the stuff in paragraph 2 was an important precursor to the stuff in paragraph 3? Sure! We reminded ourselves that the main point is stressing wampum's "gradual development from objects with religious significance to a method for maintaining peace". If it gradually developed from X to Y, then X was an important precursor to Y. 2. the ancient associations of colors with spirits were important foundations to later wampum representations How do we feel about this? Probably pretty good. Aren't precursors and foundations pretty synonymous? We'd justify this word the same way we justified #1. 3. The later wampum representations (the belt, for example) did not depend directly on the associations of colors with spirits for their meaning. Does that seem right? Sure. The later representations were encoding the freakin' Constitution. It would be hard to believe that the words of the Constitution depended directly on the association between white/Sapling and purple/Flint. In layman's terms, this answer is just saying that "early wampum is crucially connected to later wampum, but later wampum had definitely evolved enough that it was no longer really doing the religious stuff associated with early wampum."
Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
81% picked this
Because the associations with certain
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: associations shifted Unsupported Causal Relationship The passage never indicates that the association with colors changed over time. White was associated with Sapling and purple with Flint. As wampum begins to encode truce messages or more complex political messages, we hear that "the arrangements of the two colors directed interpretation of the symbols". But that doesn't mean that white ever stopped being associated with Sapling or that purple ever stopped being associated with Flint. This answer is making a very specific claim that purple/white beads on string wampum meant something different from what purple/white beads on belt wampum meant, and we have no text to support that claim.
10% picked this
If the Europeans who first
Too Speculative
This is guessing what Europeans would have done in a counterfactual. If they had realized that wampum wasn't actually currency but communication within Haudenosaune, would they have refrained from using it as a medium of exchange? We don't know how the author would feel about that counterfactual. The Europeans might still have tried to trade for wampum, if wampum was pretty/exotic/enticing. They might have still tried to turn wampum into currency because the Europeans were more familiar with a currency based system than a barter system.
5% picked this

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