Passage 23
At the end of the nineteenth century, a rising interest in Native American customs and an increasing desire to understand Native American culture prompted ethnologists to begin recording1 the life stories of Native Amer ican. Ethnologists had a distinct reason for wanting to hear the stories: they were after linguistic2 or anthropological3 data that would supplement their own field observations, and they believed that the personal stories, even of a single inpidual, could increase their understanding of the cultures that they had been observing from without. In addition many ethnologists at the turn of the century believed that Native American manners and customs were rapidly disappearing,and that it was important to preserve for posterity5 as much information as could be adequately recorded before the cultures disappeared forever.
There were, however, arguments against this method as a way of acquiring accurate and complete information. Franz Boas, for example, described autobiogra phies as being of limited value, and useful chiefly for the study of the perversion6 of truth by memory, whilePaul Radin contended that investigators8 rarely spent enough time with the tribes they were observing, and inevitably9 derived10 results too tinged11 by the investi gators own emotional tone to be reliable.
Even more importantly, as these life stories moved from the traditional oral mode to recorded written form, much was inevitably lost. Editors often decided12 what elements were significant to the field research on a given tribe. Native Americans recognized that the essence of their lives could not be communicated in English and that events that they thought significant were often deemed unimportant by their interviewers.Indeed, the very act of telling their stories could force Native American narrators to distort their cultures, astaboos had to be broken to speak the names of deadrelatives crucial to their family stories.
Despite all of this, autobiography13 remains14 a useful tool for ethnological research: such personal reminis cences and impressions, incomplete as they may be, arelikely to throw more light on the working of the mindand emotions than any amount of speculation15 from an ethnologist or ethnological theorist from another culture.
1. Which of the following best describes the organization of the passage?
The historical backgrounds of two currently used research methods are chronicled.
The validity of the data collected by using two different research methods is compared.
The usefulness of a research method is questioned and then a new method is proposed.
The use of a research method is described and the limitations of the results obtained are discussed.
A research method is evaluated and the changes necessary for its adaptation to other subject areas are discussed.
2. Which of the following is most similar to the actions of nineteenth-century ethnologists in their editing of the life stories of Native Americans?
A witness in a jury trial invokes16 the Fifth Amendment17 in order to avoid relating personally incriminating evidence.
A stockbroker18 refuses to pulge19 the source of her information on the possible future increase in a stocks value.
A sports announcer describes the action in a team sport with which he is unfamiliar20.
A chef purposely excludes the special ingredient from the recipe of his prizewinning dessert.
A politician fails to mention in a campaign speech the similarities in the positions held by her opponent for political office and by herself.
3. According to the passage, collecting life stories can be a useful methodology because
life stories provide deeper insights into a culture than the hypothesizing of academics who are not members of that culture
life stories can be collected easily and they are not subject to invalid21 interpretations23
ethnologists have a limited number of research methods from which to choose
life stories make it easy to distinguish between the important and unimportant features of a culture
the collection of life stories does not require a culturally knowledgeable24 investigator7
4. Information in the passage suggests that which of the following may be a possible way to eliminate bias25 in the editing of life stories?
Basing all inferences made about the culture on an ethnological theory
Eliminating all of the emotion-laden information reported by the informant
Translating the informants words into the researchers language
Reducing the number of questions and carefully specifying26 the content of the questions that the investigator can ask the informant
Reporting all of the information that the informant provides regardless of the investigators personal opinion about its intrinsic value
5. The primary purpose of the passage as a whole is to
question an explanation
correct a misconception
critique a methodology
discredit27 an idea
clarify an ambiguity28
6. It can be inferred from the passage that a characteristic of the ethnological research on Native Americans conducted during the nineteenth century was the use of which of the following?
Investigators familiar with the culture under study
A language other than the informants for recording life stories
Life stories as the ethnologists primary source of information
Complete transcriptions of informants descriptions of tribal29 beliefs
Stringent30 guidelines for the preservation31 of cultural data
7. The passage mentions which of the following as a factor that can affect the accuracy of ethnologists transcriptions of life stories?
The informants social standing4 within the culture
The inclusiveness of the theory that provided the basis for the research
The length of time the researchers spent in the culture under study
The number of life stories collected by the researchers
The verifiability of the information provided by the research informants
8. It can be inferred from the passage that the author would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements about the usefulness of life stories as a source of ethnographic information?
They can be a source of information about how people in a culture view the world.
They are most useful as a source of linguistic information.
They require editing and interpretation22 before they can be useful.
They are most useful as a source of information about ancestry32.
They provide incidental information rather than significant insights into a way of life
