The struggle to obtain legal recognition of aboriginal rights is

Question

The following passage was written in the late 1980s.

The struggle to obtain legal recognition of
aboriginal rights is a difficult one, and even if a right
is written into the law there is no guarantee that the
future will not bring changes to the law that
  (5)   undermine the right. For this reason, the federal
government of Canada in 1982 extended
constitutional protection to those aboriginal rights
already recognized under the law. This protection was
extended to the Indian, Inuit, and Métis peoples, the
  (10)   three groups generally thought to comprise the
aboriginal population in Canada. But this decision has
placed on provincial courts the enormous burden of
interpreting and translating the necessarily general
constitutional language into specific rulings. The
  (15)   result has been inconsistent recognition and
establishment of aboriginal rights, despite the
continued efforts of aboriginal peoples to raise issues
concerning their rights.

Aboriginal rights in Canada are defined by the
  (20)   constitution as aboriginal peoples’ rights to ownership
of land and its resources, the inherent right of
aboriginal societies to self-government, and the right
to legal recognition of indigenous customs. But
difficulties arise in applying these broadly conceived
  (25)   rights. For example, while it might appear
straightforward to affirm legal recognition of
indigenous customs, the exact legal meaning of
“indigenous” is extremely difficult to interpret. The
intent of the constitutional protection is to recognize
  (30)   only long-standing traditional customs, not those of
recent origin; provincial courts therefore require
aboriginal peoples to provide legal documentation
that any customs they seek to protect were practiced
sufficiently long ago—a criterion defined in practice
  (35)   to mean prior to the establishment of British
sovereignty over the specific territory. However, this
requirement makes it difficult for aboriginal societies,
which often relied on oral tradition rather than written
records, to support their claims.

(40)   Furthermore, even if aboriginal peoples are
successful in convincing the courts that specific rights
should be recognized, it is frequently difficult to
determine exactly what these rights amount to.
Consider aboriginal land claims. Even when
  (45)   aboriginal ownership of specific lands is fully
established, there remains the problem of interpreting
the meaning of that “ownership.” In a 1984 case in
Ontario, an aboriginal group claimed that its property
rights should be interpreted as full ownership in the
  (50)   contemporary sense of private property, which allows
for the sale of the land or its resources. But the
provincial court instead ruled that the law had
previously recognized only the aboriginal right to use
the land and therefore granted property rights so
  (55)   minimal as to allow only the bare survival of the
community. Here, the provincial court’s ruling was
excessively conservative in its assessment of the
current law. Regrettably, it appears that this group
will not be successful unless it is able to move its
  (60)   case from the provincial courts into the Supreme
Court of Canada, which will be, one hopes, more
insistent upon a satisfactory application of the
constitutional reforms.   1  
 1. Which one of the following most accurately states the main point of the passage?

(A) The overly conservative rulings of Canada's provincial courts have been a barrier to constitutional reforms intended to protect aboriginal rights.
(B) The overwhelming burden placed on provincial courts of interpreting constitutional language in Canada has halted efforts by aboriginal peoples to gain full ownership of land.
(C) Constitutional language aimed at protecting aboriginal rights in Canada has so far left the protection of these rights uncertain due to the difficult task of interpreting this language.
(D) Constitutional reforms meant to protect aboriginal rights in Canada have in fact been used by some provincial courts to limit these rights.
(E) Efforts by aboriginal rights advocates to uphold constitutional reforms in Canada may be more successful if heard by the Supreme Court rather than by the provincial courts.

2  
 2. Which one of the following most accurately describes the author's main purpose in lines 11–14 of the passage?

(A) to demonstrate that the decisions of the provincial courts rarely conform to the goals of the constitutional reforms
(B) to locate the source of a systemic problem in protecting aboriginal rights in Canada
(C) to identify the specific source of problems in enacting constitutional reforms in Canada
(D) to describe one aspect of the process by which constitutional reforms are enacted in Canada
(E) to criticize the use of general language in the Canadian constitution

3  
 3. The passage explicitly states that which one of the following was intended as a consequence of the constitutional protection of aboriginal rights?

(A) definition of the type of property rights that apply to aboriginal societies
(B) establishment of the Supreme Court of Canada as the arbiter of aboriginal rights
(C) recognition of traditional customs but not those of recent origin
(D) clarification of which groups comprise the aboriginal population in Canada
(E) creation of local governments for aboriginal communities

4  
 4. The passage provides the most evidence for the claim that the author has a negative attitude toward which one of the following?

(A) the 1982 constitutional reforms’ burdening the provincial courts with the task of interpretation
(B) the difficulties in interpreting such terms as “indigenous” and “ownership”
(C) the criterion used to determine which customs are too recent to merit constitutional protection
(D) the requirement that aboriginal peoples provide documentation for traditional customs
(E) the definition of ownership imposed by the provincial court in 1984

5  
 5. The passage provides evidence to suggest that the author would be most likely to assent to which one of the following proposals?

(A) Aboriginal peoples in Canada should not be answerable to the federal laws of Canada.
(B) Oral tradition should sometimes be considered legal documentation of certain indigenous customs.
(C) Aboriginal communities should be granted full protection of all of their customs.
(D) Provincial courts should be given no authority to decide cases involving questions of aboriginal rights.
(E) The language of the Canadian constitution should more carefully delineate the instances to which reforms apply.

6  
 6. Which one of the following, if true, would lend the most credence to the author's statement in lines 56–58?

(A) Other Ontario courts had previously interpreted “use” to include sale of the land or its resources.
(B) The ruling created thousands of jobs by opening the land in question to logging by a timber corporation.
(C) Previous court decisions in Ontario have distinguished the right to use land from the right to sell it.
(D) The ruling prompted aboriginal groups in other provinces to pursue land claims in those courts.
(E) Prior to the decision in question, the provincial court had not heard a case concerning the constitutional reforms.

7  
 7. Based on the information in the passage, the author would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements about the 1984 case in Ontario?

(A) The court's ruling directly contravened the language of the constitutional reforms protecting aboriginal land ownership rights in the full modern sense.
(B) The Supreme Court remains the best hope for the recognition of full aboriginal property rights because provincial courts are not authorized to rule on the definition of property rights.
(C) If there had been clear documentary evidence that the group had occupied the land before the establishment of British sovereignty, the court would probably have upheld the aboriginal claims.
(D) The unsatisfactory ruling in the case was the result of pressure from conservative politicians and other conservative interests.
(E) The court correctly understood the intent of the constitutional reforms, but it failed to apply them correctly because it misconstrued their relation to existing law.

8  
 8. The passage as a whole can most accurately be described as

(A) an argument stressing the need for advocates of certain rights to adopt certain strategies
(B) a comprehensive study of efforts to guarantee the protection of certain rights
(C) an examination of problems associated with efforts to protect certain rights
(D) an argument favoring the need for revising the definition of certain rights
(E) an attempt to correct misunderstandings regarding the protection of certain rights

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Passage Summary

As the first sentence implies, the Topic is aboriginal rights and the Scope is the constitutional protection of those rights. It turns out that Canada’s aboriginal tribes had rights, but Canada decided to write them into the constitution so that they couldn’t be taken away. And that raises the problem of having to interpret the general language of the constitutional protections in specific circumstances.

Lines 19–27  tell us what was put into the Canadian constitution, and the rest of the passage gives examples of how  “difficulties arise,”  to quote the transitional phrase in  line 24. “Indigenous”  is hard to interpret  (lines 25–39) , so it’s tough for the tribes to document the origin of many of their customs. And  “ownership”  is hard to interpret  (lines 40–63) , so at least one aboriginal group is having a tough time establishing its property claims. The author pins his hopes for solving all of these problems on the Canadian Supreme Court, but he doesn’t sound too optimistic. Here’s a suggested Roadmap:

Paragraph 1 —Probs. w/ constitutional language
 Paragraph 2 —Example:  “indigenous”  ambig.
 Paragraph 3 — Example:  “ownership”  ambig.

Kattu · Answer

Q.6 option (A)....How one can infer from passage that there were other courts in Ontario...?

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Hi Kattu

To the author, in  lines 56–58 , the provincial court’s 1984 ruling on the unnamed group’s full ownership claim was  “excessively conservative,”  a judgment that relies on the assumption that other courts and other decisions were, or could have been, less so. The passage provides no evidence to that effect, but  (A)  does. If  (A)  is true, then there were precedents aplenty that this 1984 court could have followed to grant the group full ownership, but it failed to do so.

Answer: A

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

4. The passage provides the most evidence for the claim that the author has a negative attitude toward which one of the following?

Difficulty Level:   700+

Explanation

Because the right answer concerns an issue that the author is definitely negative about, you can either skim the passage in search of a categorical judgment, or simply work your way through the choices by eliminating those addressing issues about which the author is positive or on which he takes no stand.

(A)  The author regrets the burden of interpretation placed on the courts  (lines 11–14) , but because it has to happen if the tribes’ rights are to be upheld, he must be in favor of it. Eliminate.

(B)  He is aware of the difficulty of interpreting those (and other) terms, but again, the interpretation needs to get done. Eliminate.

(C)  This criterion is straightforwardly reported in  lines 34–36 , without comment or point of view. Eliminate.

(D)  This requirement is straightforwardly reported in  lines 31–34 , again without any editorializing. Eliminate with the confidence that  (E)  must work because it’s the only choice left.

(E)  There you go:  “the provincial court’s ruling was excessively conservative” —an unambiguously negative characterization.  (E)  is correct.

Answer: E

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

7. Based on the information in the passage, the author would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements about the 1984 case in Ontario?

Difficulty Level:   700+

Explanation

Before reading the choices, we need to reread  paragraph 3  to get oriented. In doing so, we recall that the plaintiffs’ claim of ownership was upheld, but too narrowly (in the author’s view), because it failed to grant full rights to the aboriginal group.

(A)’s  too-negative assessment is based on a misunderstanding of what’s going on.  (A)  sounds as if the provincial court’s ruling flew in the face of clear-ascrystal constitutional guidelines, but the whole point is that the issue of ownership is cloudy. That the author disagrees with the court’s too-narrow reading doesn’t rank as a charge of “direct contravention.” The issue is too ambiguous to support such a judgment. Eliminate.

(B)’s  first 18 words are right on target, but instead of ending  “...are not ruling appropriately,”  the choice dribbles away into incoherence. Clearly the provincial court is authorized to rule. It did so. Eliminate.

(C)  drags in  paragraph 2’s  requirement of documentation to prove ownership, which is irrelevant to the 1984 case in which the plaintiffs’ ownership was already a given. In other words, (C)’s documentary evidence was moot by that point. What was at stake was the extent of that ownership. Eliminate.

(D)  In this context,  “excessively conservative”  means  “too narrowly decided,”  and cannot be read as an accusation against those who take a conservative political stance. Eliminate.

(E)  is the only one left and gets it right: the plaintiffs’ ownership was correctly upheld, but in assessing the current law the court took too narrow a view. (E) is correct.

Answer: E

tkorzhan1995 · Answer

Sajjad1994 , I redid this passage two times. I keep picking B for q4. From P2 and P3, we can derive that definition of ownership and indigenous is ambiguous. Therefore, there is a need to revise definition. Since definition is ambiguous, it is an indication that author's attitude is negative. Can you please help me to understand what is wrong with B for q4? What is the good reason to eliminate it right away?

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Since in  line 13  the author referred to the general language as  “necessary,”  and it is that language that led to burdening the court, it is unlikely that the author has an extremely negative attitude toward burdening the provincial courts. The author may wish for a better scenario, but it is not logical to conclude that his or her attitude toward the burden on the court is negative. Hence we can eliminate  (B)

While if you pay close attention to  (E)  this answer is easily justified because the author spent a good portion of the final paragraph condemning the provincial court’s  “excessively conservative”  interpretation, and implying that the provincial courts had done an unsatisfactory job (“Regrettably”). Based on these statements, it is clear that the author makes a negative evaluation of the provincial court’s decision.

E is the answer

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

5. The passage provides evidence to suggest that the author would be most likely to assent to which one of the following proposals?

Difficulty Level:   700+

Explanation

Even after reviewing the passage it might be tough to predict which one of the many possible proposals the author would favor, which one the testmaker chose as the right answer. But each of the five choices is vulnerable to careful analysis.

(A)  Because the author is depending on Canada’s laws to protect aborigines’ rights, he would be hard-pressed to say that the aborigines shouldn’t be answerable to those laws. Eliminate.

(B)  The end of  paragraph 2  suggests that a society that has relied on oral tradition is at a disadvantage under the constitution’s requirement (lines 31–36) that customs be documented, so (B) is certainly a proposal that the author would favor, and is in fact the correct answer.  (B)  would remedy one of the problems that the author describes at length.

(C)  goes further than the passage can support. After all, the constitution has been written to protect  “only long-standing traditional customs” (line 30) , and the fact that the author doesn’t protest that limitation is evidence that he doesn’t favor protecting  “all”  customs.

(D)  That the author is unhappy with some of the provincial courts’ recent rulings cannot be construed as support for taking those courts out of the equation entirely.  (D)  is hoping that we generalize from one specific case in  lines 58–63  (which does want the Canadian Supreme Court to overrule the provincial court) to all cases.

(E)  Although the author would certainly be in favor of the clearest possible constitutional language, (E)’s proposal relates instead to the language that details the application of reforms; and that language—described in  lines 19–23 —seems, as far as the author is concerned, abundantly clear.

Answer: B

nokoar92 · Answer

Hello, hope you guys are ok.

Can someone please explain why in number 2, correct answer is

"(B) to locate the source of a systemic problem in protecting aboriginal rights in Canada"

and not

"(C) to identify the specific source of problems in enacting constitutional reforms in Canada" ?

Thanks

guddo · Answer

2. Which one of the following most accurately describes the author's main purpose in lines 11–14 of the passage?

These lines explain why constitutional protection has not produced consistent results:  general constitutional language must be interpreted by provincial courts in individual cases . The author is therefore identifying  the source of a broader problem in protecting aboriginal rights .

(A) to demonstrate that the decisions of the provincial courts rarely conform to the goals of the constitutional reforms

Incorrect. These lines do not say that provincial court decisions rarely conform to the reforms. They identify the difficult interpretive burden placed on the courts.

(B) to locate the source of a systemic problem in protecting aboriginal rights in Canada

Correct.   The lines identify the source of the problem developed throughout the passage: broad constitutional rights must be translated by provincial courts into specific rulings, leading to inconsistent protection of those rights.

(C) to identify the specific source of problems in enacting constitutional reforms in Canada

Incorrect. The constitutional reforms have already been enacted. The problem concerns their interpretation and application, not their enactment.

(D) to describe one aspect of the process by which constitutional reforms are enacted in Canada

Incorrect. The lines concern what happens after the constitutional protection has been established, not how reforms are enacted.

(E) to criticize the use of general language in the Canadian constitution

Incorrect. The author calls the constitutional language “necessarily general,” so the point is not to criticize that language itself. The problem is the burden of translating it into specific legal rulings.

Answer: (B)

The struggle to obtain legal recognition of aboriginal rights is

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The struggle to obtain legal recognition of aboriginal rights is

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