#17 - Concept Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[andreakun]

I was hesitating between answer choice B and C, but eventually chose C because I was thrown off by the term "pictographic symbols". The passage states "the writing on them uses relatively few pictographs; instead, numerous abstract symbols are used." Just wanted to clarify that 'pictographs' and 'pictographic symbols' are synonymous.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi andreakun,

You are correct. Pictographs are symbols for a word or phrase. We can figure that out from the passage where it compares the pictograph for a sheep, described as an image of a sheep, with the abstract symbol of a circle with a cross. A pictographic symbol would be the same---a picture symbol that means a specific word or phrase.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[Bmas123]

Hi! I see now that the correct answer was pretty explicitly stated, but I'm wondering why C was wrong. Wasnt it that all of the tokens and clay tablets essentially kept improving upon themselves and eventually lead to the more advanced written form? Is C wrong because it says "linguistic" rather than writing? Thanks!

[Robert Carroll]

Bmas123,

Remember that the tablets from Uruk date from roughly 3000 BC. Given the other dates in the passage, these tablets are actually among the later, not earlier, of clay artifacts discussed by the passage. The last paragraph discusses a transition to a system of marks on clay tablets around 3100 BC, and says, at the end of that paragraph, "an abstract and flexible written form had arrived." The tablets that date from 3000 BC, the subject of this question, are just about the end of the process of linguistic evolution, not the beginning.

Robert Carroll