Q15

[monicajamaluddin]

In the question they ask the author's attitude toward "earlier scholarship" and I wasn't sure what group that was referring to because I thought the entire passage was about just one type of scholarship by the Europeans? That is what tripped me up and I ended up picking D because I thought the earlier scholarship was referring to how Native Americans created their own autobiographies.

Help with understanding what I missed would be greatly appreciated.

[ohthatpatrick]

I agree, the wording of the question stem is annoyingly confusing. By "earlier scholarship", it's referring to the scholarship that is at the heart of the author's central complaint/point. It is the type of study described (and criticized) in the first paragraph.

The first sentence mentions these scholars, non-Native Americans who helped Native Americans "write their autobiographies" by soliciting, translating, recording, and editing their spoken life histories.

The author clearly thinks this method is flawed, since he says in line 7 it "overlooks" important stuff and in line 9 that it "fails to address" important stuff about the Native American self-identity and the various modes of self-expression that Native Americans employed.

They are getting away with calling this "earlier" scholarship because it took place in the past, and the last two paragraphs describe the author's suggestions for what a proper autobiography would include (going forward).

Ultimately, though, we might be able to get that (A) is the answer simply by "one of these things is not like the other" logic.

The fundamental divide of this passage is:

Scholars who helped Native Americans record autobiographies
vs.
The author who thinks the scholars' methods were flawed and failed to encapsulate many aspects of Native American culture.

(A) conveys the attitude the author has for those scholars.

(B), (C), (D), and (E) are all references to aspects of the Native American culture that those scholars failed to capture/appreciate.

Hope that helps.