read a reading and answer the questions.

"The phenomenon of humans adopting a category as pivotal and scrutinizing all other categories in terms of their consistency with it, implies in practice, that whatever is taken as pivotal is Actor--is his essential nature or core being. If a human's correlative categories are discerned be inconsistent with this presumed essential nature, then investigation and manipulation must be undertaken to determine what kind of person he is— “really.” Sometimes it may be possible to define such discrepancies as especially excusable, ‘actually’ irrelevant, ‘really’ unimportant or justified as the exception which proves the rule. When such strategies fail, however, it becomes necessary to assign Actor to a different pivotal category with which his complement of categorical placements is more practically, if not ideally, consistent. This is the case because, as noted, pivotal categories and their consistent correlatives appear to be viewed by humans not simply as convenient and frequently erroneous simplifications indulged in for the purposes of maintaining a workable social order, but rather as depictions of what people 'really’ and ‘in fact’ are. ‘He tries very hard but he is really only a B student.’ ‘Despite what he says, he is in fact a thief and a murderer.’ ‘I know she seems OK, but she's actually a whore.’ Such statements make the assumption that, in the case of personal claims to some other pivotal category or in the case of conduct that would suggest definition as some other kind of social object, there is actually (or after all or really or in fact) a something, a core, a category that the person is despite any indications to the contrary. There is an underlying or even hidden consistency that is at least potentially discernable; there is a special core being, as it were, that will and does manifest itself. This core being is not simply common humanity but some much more restricted category that differentiates the person from others. Discovery of the person's 'actual' core or pivotal category, his true essentiality, may require, especially in modern times, a detailed life history and even a battery of psychological tests, but it can be found. Witch trials with dunking tests and psychiatric examinations with psychological tests are alike in their assumption that although very esoteric and complicated detection devices may sometimes be required to turn up personal essentiality, it can, nonetheless, be discovered, and assignment to a ‘true’ pivotal category be made".