Reading Comprehension

PT144 · S1 · P3 · Q18 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.

18.

The passage provides the most support for inferring which one of the following?

Wampum was probably used on
Too Strong: probably Opposite, if anything
The only discussion of wampum being used as money has the author saying, "Wampum certainly did become a medium of exchange among Europeans and Haudenosaune, [but] this was due to the Europeans." So the passage is giving off the vibe that Europeans were the causal factor that turned wampum into money.
4% picked this
Correct
The formation of the Haudenosaune
Why this is right
This is both causal and comparative. The formation of the Confederacy called for (causal) a more complex (comparative) method of communication than how wampum had been used up until that point. We can support the causal connection with the first sentence of the final paragraph: It was the formation of the Confederacy that supplied the major impetus for making wampum a deliberate system of both arbitrary and pictorially derived symbols designed primarily for political purposes. We can support the comparative part with the details of the 2nd vs. 3rd paragraphs. Wampum was originally loose beads of two different colors. Then it got more complex with the advent of string wampum, which combined loose beads together. Naturally, belt wampum (in the 3rd) is more complex that string wampum because belt wampum involves combining string wampum together. Also the rows of beads now allowed someone to see pictures, icons that had symbolic meaning. Perhaps a more lovable rephrasing of this answer choice would sound like, "The way they used wampum to encode the Confederacy's constitution was more complex than wampum in its previous forms of loose beads or string."
Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
75% picked this
Once wampum came to be
Out of Scope: recodified
We never hear anything about the Haudenosaune having to change their constitution because the Europeans turned wampum into money.
2% picked this
Prior to Haudenosaune contact with
Too Specific: promulgating edicts
The first sentence of the passage does say that the Haudenosaune were developing a wampum-based communication system primarily for political purposes. But "political purposes" is a wide net. It would include such things as the truce requests made using string wampum. It's too much of a leap to go from "primarily for political purposes" to "primarily to promulgate edicts and policies of the Confederacy".
17% picked this
As belt wampum superseded string
Out of Scope: subtler shadings
We never hear about the colors taking on subtler shades. The 3rd to last sentence of the passage is still talking about only two hues: The arrangements of the two colors also directed interpretation of the symbols.
3% picked this

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