Reading Comprehension

PT147 · S3 · P2 · Q12 Artistic and Cultural Patrimony in Mali

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The government of Mali passed a law against excavating and exporting the wonderful terra-cotta sculptures from the old city of Djenne-jeno, but it could not enforce it.

Topic

The problem of looting Djenne-jeno's ancient sculptures, restrictive cultural property laws, and whether a more practical, regulated approach could have protected Mali’s heritage more effectively.

Framework

Problem / Solution

Main Point

Efforts to protect Mali's Djenne-jeno antiquities through restrictive laws and international doctrines (like UNESCO’s) unintentionally led to damaging looting and loss of information, and a more flexible, regulated approach might have been more effective. Most Valuable Sentence: The final paragraph’s rhetorical question () most directly captures the author’s main point.

P1: The Scope of the Looting Problem

Mali made laws to protect its historic sculptures, but these laws couldn't be enforced, so many valuable pieces were illegally taken and sold, resulting in lost archaeological knowledge.

P2: UNESCO and Protective Cultural Property Laws

International condemnation and UNESCO-led doctrine have emphasized that artifacts should be the property of the nation/culture they come from, prompting many countries to ban export and claim antiquities as state property.

P3: Unintended Consequences of Strict Regulation

While it’s rational for Mali to want control, these strict regulatory systems can ironically prevent proper recording and preservation of artifacts because people want to avoid creating documentation that could incriminate them or lead to confiscation.

12.

The author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements about cultural antiquities?

  1. They must be owned and

    Too Strong: must

    The author never says that every single antiquity should be in a museum. To the contrary, her position in the last paragraph is softer, more pragmatic, more realistic. She mentions charging a tax in order to fund "acquisitions of important pieces for the national museum", but she doesn't insist that all pieces go to a national museum.

    2% picked this

  2. They must remain within the

    Too Strong: must

    The author never says that every single antiquity should stay in its original country. To the contrary, her position in the last paragraph is softer, more pragmatic, more realistic. She mentions charging a tax "on exported objects", so she's definitely tolerant of the idea that some of these antiquities, once removed carefully from the earth with accurate records, will then be exported to other countries.

    13% picked this

  3. They are too valuable to

    Too Strong: too valuable

    This answer barely makes sense. If something is super valuable, we should make sure the state doesn't own it? We want private citizens to own the things that are of utmost value? To support this answer, we'd need to find the author expressing concern (based on their value) that artifacts would end up entirely under state control. There's nothing like that in the passage. The author is tolerant of the private ownership of these antiquities (because she thinks when you aspire towards exclusive state ownership, it backfires and you end up with worse results). But she's never insisting on private ownership as a worthy end in and of itself.

    3% picked this

  4. Correct

    They should be excavated by

    Why this is right

    The author is tolerant of amateurs digging stuff up, if the excavation is licensed and the excavators are educated that these antiquities have greater value when they're removed carefully from the earth with accurate records of location. But she's certainly more comfortable with the idea of professionals doing the digging, if possible, since they are the experts when it come to removing things carefully from the earth with accurate records of location. At the end of the final paragraph, she's saying, the excavation encouraged by such a system [that would allow regular people to excavate] may have been less well conducted and less informative than proper, professionally administered excavations. That line supports the notion that she thinks professional archaeologists will do a better job with excavations.

    Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    76% picked this

  5. They belong to whoever finds

    Too Strong: finders keepers

    The author never says something as strong as, "If you find it and register it, it automatically belongs to you".

    5% picked this

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