Some Native American tribes have had difficulty establishing their land claims because the United States government did not recognize their status as tribes; therefore during the 1970s some Native Americans attempted to obtain such recognition through the medium of U.S. courts. ███
Intro topic ·NA tribes tried to make claims to land through U.S. courts
Recent changes for better ·Similar land claims have been more successful recently
Courts acknowledge that different discourses between cultures can lead to unfair legal results.
Passage Style
Problem-analysis
Single position
4.
Based on the passage, which ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ███ █████████ ████████
Question Type
Implied
Developments since the Mashpee’s lawsuit are touched on at the end of P3: courts are now more aware of the importance of accommodating cultural differences in discourse.
a
The Mashpee have ███ ████████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ████████
Unsupported. The last thing we know about the Mashpee is that their lawsuit failed.
Too strong. We only know that similar claims have met with greater success, not that all claims have met with complete success.
0%
c
U.S. courts no ██████ █████ ██ ███ ███████ █████████ ███████ ████████ ██ ███████ ████ ██████████
Unsupported. All we know about this statute is that, according to the Mashpee, it was in effect in 1976.
0%
d
U.S. courts have ██████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ████ █████████ ██ ████████ ██ ████ █████ ██████
The last sentence of the passage suggests this. Land claim suits involve differences in discourse, and Native American discourse notably includes oral testimony. The Mashpee’s lawsuit failed because their oral testimony wasn’t accepted, but we know similar suits are now meeting with more success. This suggests that oral testimony is being accepted more by courts.
98%
e
U.S. courts have ███████ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ ███████ ███████████ █ ██████
Unsupported. The author doesn’t suggest that definitions themselves have changed, but rather that the reasoning underlying court decisions has changed.
2%
Difficulty
98% of people who answer get this correct
This is a slightly challenging question.
It is slightly harder than the average question in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%131
138
75%146
Analysis
Implied
Implied
Stems asking us to infer an idea implied by the claims in the passage (as opposed to identifying an idea that appears explicitly). Similar to most strongly supported questions in LR.
Passages that present a particular problem and then discuss the implications of that problem. They also often explore one or more solutions to that problem (although they don’t have to).
