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21.ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS Explanation for Correct Answer B : Choice (B) is correct. The author describes the following problem: "the forms of tribal record preservation available―oral history, tales, mnemonic devices, and religious rituals―strike university-trained academics as inexact, unreliable, and suspect" (lines 63-66). The result, according to the author, is that to Western historians "an absolute void is more acceptable and rigorous than an educated guess" (lines 69-70). The "educated guess" the author proposes would thus be based on the records available: oral histories, tales, mnemonic devices, and religious rituals. Explanation for Incorrect Answer A : Choice (A) is incorrect. The author raises the alternative of an educated guess in the context of talking about developing objective historical accounts of Native American societies. There is no mention of government population statistics in this discussion. Explanation for Incorrect Answer C : Choice (C) is incorrect. The author presents the "educated guess" as an alternative to relying entirely on archaeological evidence, which, as the passage shows, reveals relatively little about Native Americans. Explanation for Incorrect Answer D : Choice (D) is incorrect. "Fossil evidence" is archaeological evidence, and the "educated guess" is presented as an alternative to relying entirely on archaeological evidence. As the passage shows, archaeological evidence reveals relatively little about Native Americans Explanation for Incorrect Answer E : Choice (E) is incorrect. Studies of artifacts fall within the range of archeological evidence. The author proposes the "educated guess" as an alternative to relying solely on archaeological evidence, which, as the passage shows, reveals relatively little about Native Americans. 22
22.ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS Explanation for Correct Answer C : Choice (C) is correct. The geographical references―the South Pacific, Zaire, New Hampshire, Austria―are used to make the point that people all over the world learn certain myths about Native Americans. The author is concerned to show that virtually no students come to the subject of Native American history without some previously learned misconceptions. Explanation for Incorrect Answer A : Choice (A) is incorrect. The passage says that everyone is exposed to folklore about Native Americans. But there is nothing in the passage to indicate that Native American culture itself―as opposed to false beliefs and stereotypes about Native American culture―has had any influence on anyone outside the United States. Explanation for Incorrect Answer B : Choice (B) is incorrect. The passage does not argue that academic training is becoming more uniform or "homogenized." The author seems to think that academic training is rather uniform already. Explanation for Incorrect Answer D : Choice (D) is incorrect. The author does believe that Native Americans have more in common with other peoples than is generally acknowledged. But the geographical references do not serve to emphasize this point. They are there to stress just how widespread the myths and stereotypes about Native Americans are. Explanation for Incorrect Answer E : Choice (E) is incorrect. The author does not mention any differences among scholars of Native American history. Indeed, one of the main points of the passage is that most scholars have the same false or inadequate views about Native American history. So as the author presents it, there are no serious differences to be settled. 23
23.ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS Explanation for Correct Answer B : Choice (B) is correct. In this section of the passage, the author discusses how people all over the world receive their first impressions of Native American culture from a widespread but seriously flawed mythology. "Disillusionment" means disenchantment, or being deprived of a false belief. In the author's view, "most students must be "disillusioned" of their "childhood fantasies"--that is, the folklore of the American West, of "cowboy and Indian" tales--before learning the truth about Native American history and culture. Explanation for Incorrect Answer A : Choice (A) in incorrect. While becoming educated in the truth of Native American history and culture might require a certain "rebelliousness" against, or resistance to, the myth of the American West that most people are exposed to, the author is suggesting here that the process is more one of reluctantly letting go of childhood beliefs than of reacting against them. Explanation for Incorrect Answer C : Choice (C ) is incorrect. While the process that the author refers to--giving up childhood beliefs--might entail a certain amount of disappointment, it is disillusionment rather than hopelessness that the author is speaking of here. Explanation for Incorrect Answer D : Choice (D) is incorrect. In this context, "inertia" means resistance to change. People who were resistant to change or unable to change would never be able to exchange their "childhood fantasies" for the truth about Native American history and culture and thus would be unable to undergo the process that the author sees as necessary. Explanation for Incorrect Answer E : Choice (E) is incorrect. "Self-denial" means a sacrifice of one's own interests. While "most students" need, according to the author, to sacrifice "cherished childhood fantasies" in order to be educated about Native American history and culture, it is not their "selfhood" or their desires that they need to deny, but, rather, only a part of the mythology they have learned in childhood. 24
24.ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS Explanation for Correct Answer A : Choice (A) is correct. The passage suggests that when most students begin studying the history and culture of Native Americans, they not only have a lot to learn, they have a lot to unlearn as well. As the author states in the last sentence: "Most students do not start from point zero, but from minus zero, and in the process are often required to abandon cherished childhood fantasies . . ." (lines 82-84). It's not that beginning scholars know nothing ("point zero"); rather, they have powerful and flawed preconceptions about Native Americans ("minus zero"). Explanation for Incorrect Answer B : Choice (B) is incorrect. The author does not seem to think very highly of the quality of most current, or past, scholarship about Native American cultures. But the expression "minus zero" in line 83 refers to the value of the beliefs held by most beginning students of Native American history. It does not refer to the quality of scholarship of trained historians. Explanation for Incorrect Answer C : Choice (C) is incorrect. Although the author of the passage would likely be considered a progressive scholar of Native American history, the passage does not discuss the reception such scholars have received. Explanation for Incorrect Answer D : Choice (D) is incorrect. The passage does suggest that there are few or no written historical records of Native Americans from the period before and during their early contact with Europeans. But the expression "minus zero" does not occur in the context of the discussion of written records. Instead, it occurs in a discussion about the knowledge of Native American history most students have when they begin their studies. Explanation for Incorrect Answer E : Choice (E) is incorrect. The expression “minus zero” occurs in a discussion about the knowledge of Native American history most students have when they begin their studies. Such students are not in a position to seek grants to conduct original research about Native American history. The passage does not discuss the challenges facing those who do seek such grants. | 
