Q19

[cyg3]

I do not understand how (B) is the correct answer for this question.

[noah]

This question hinges on your understanding of the author's basic point about pre-contact Native American identities: identity
was not just individual, but they were also built in relation to the world and people around them.

(B) makes sense because the name involves the world around the person.

(A) is contradicted - the name doesn't reflect the new group around the person.

(C) is out of scope - there's no discussion of similarities between rituals.

(D) is unsupported.

(E) is contradicted/unsupported - since the shield probably includes information about the world and group around the owner, there's a good chance we could link it back to that group (though in the end, there's a lot that goes into doing that, and since we don't know about those other factors, I'm saying it's unsupported).

[cyg3]

Thanks! That was a really good explanation.

[b16]

The passage on "identity" is "identity was not merely individual, but also relational to a society, a specific landscape, and the cosmos."

LSAT writers indicate that the correct answer is (B) "A pictograph that represents a specific person incorporates the symbol for a constellation."

This appears to be a huge jump in logic to connect "cosmos" to "symbol for a constellation." There is no evidence in the passage that Native Americans identified constellations, let alone had symbols for them.

How are others justifying this answer? Thank you.

[logicfiend]

This is an old thread, but I thought I would give it a shot to further my learning.

I think you're getting hung up on finding the answer directly in the passage, when the inference just needs to be supported, not taken word for word.

The way I see (B), a constellation is representative of the world around him/her, which is an essential part of their identity. If you see the constellation as the general concept of community, the answer choice works well. It doesn't matter whether or not they had the symbols for constellations. We're looking for which answer choice embodies their idea of identity.

The issue I had was with (D), which seems to be an issue that I have with RC and I'm sure others may have noticed it as well. I like to make answers fit in with what I already know in the text.

So for (D) I saw that the same name can't be given to another member of the community as a reflection of how your identity is connected to the community. It's not that you individually have this name/identity, but what does in mean in relation to the larger world around? That you can't have the same name as another person in that community.

Can we eliminate (D) because the passage never gives us any information on how names correlate to identity, so it's unsupported?

[emily315]

yeah, from my view, D could be eliminated cuz it's not supported in the passage. Same as A.