Some Native American tribes have had difficulty establishing their lan

1. Which one of the following most completely and accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

(A) Land claim suits such as the Mashpee’s establish that such suits must be bolstered by written documentation if they are to succeed in U.S. courts. X
(B) Land claim suits such as the Mashpee’s underscore the need for U.S. courts to modify their definition of “tribe.” X
(C) Land claim suits such as the Mashpee’s illustrate the complications that can result when cultures with different systems of discourse attempt to resolve disputes. CORRECT

The author of the passage goes at length to illustrate by means of an example how the Native Americans had to adhere to the confines of the US legal system whenever lawsuits were brought up. It is precisely the 'restrictiveness' of the governing the system that creates the divergence b/w the cultures of the Native Americans and the system itself. So the system was considered unfair.

(D) Land claim suits such the Mashpee’s point out discrepancies between what U.S. courts claim they will recognize as evidence and what forms of evidence they actually accept. X
(E) Land claim suits such as the Mashpee’s bring to light the problems faced by Native American tribes attempting to establish their claims within a legal system governed by the application of precedent. X

2. According to the passage, the Mashpee’s lawsuit was based on their objection to

(A) the increase in the non-Mashpee population of the town during the 1960s X
(B) the repeal of a statute forbidding land transfers without U.S. government approval X
(C) the loss of Mashpee control over land use immediately after the town’s incorporation X
(D) the town’s refusal to recognize the Mashpee’s deed to the land in dispute X
(E) the sale of Mashpee-controlled land to non Mashpee residents without U.S. government approval CORRECT

"But in the 1960’s after an influx of non-Mashpee people shifted the balance of political power in the town, the new residents were able to buy Mashpee-controlled land from the town and develop it for commercial or private use"

3. The author’s attitude toward the court’s decision in the Mashpee’s lawsuit is most clearly revealed by the author’s use of which one of the following phrases?

(A) “operate within a particular sphere” (lines 7-8) X
(B) “continued to have control” (line 20) X
(C) “required to demonstrate” (line 32) X
(D) “precisely delineated its boundaries” (line 42) X
(E) “failure to accommodate” (line 54) CORRECT

See the response to question 1. The US government could not accommodate the Native Americans precisely because of how it operated:

"In presenting these suits, Native Americans had to operate within a particular sphere of U.S. government procedure, that of its legal system, and their arguments were necessarily interpreted by the courts in terms the law could understand: e.g., through application of precedent or review of evidence"

4. Based on the passage, which one of the following can most reasonably be said to have occurred in the years since the Mashpee’s lawsuit?

(A) The Mashpee have now regained control over the land they inhabit. X
(B) Native American tribes have won all of their land claim suits in U.S. courts. X
(C) U.S. courts no longer abide by the statute requiring federal approval of certain land transfers. X
(D) U.S. courts have become more likely to accept oral testimony as evidence in land claim suits. CORRECT

The last sentence of the passage : "Similar claims have recently met with greater success, however, as U.S. courts have begun to acknowledge
that the failure to accommodate differences in discourse between cultures can sometimes stand in the way of guaranteeing the fairness of legal decisions"

(E) U.S. courts have changed their definition of what legally constitutes a tribe. X

5. The passage is primarily concerned with

(A) evaluating various approaches to solving a problem X
(B) illuminating a general problem by discussing a specific example CORRECT

Problem: US government is unfair because they fail to accommodate the cultural idiosynracies of the Native American culture. The specific example is in paragraph 2 - the Mashpee culture.

(C) reconciling the differences in how two opposing sides approach a problem
(D) critiquing an earlier solution to a problem in light of new information
(E) reinterpreting an earlier analysis and proposing a new solution to the problem.

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