PrepTest 103, Section 3, Question 1
From the tenth century until around the year(69 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(17 more words not shown)
- AThe drop in(16 more words not shown)
- BThe Norse settlers'(21 more words not shown)
- CThere were settlements(20 more words not shown)
- DThe Inuit and(9 more words not shown)
- EThe Norse community(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
How cold did Greenland get, and why would the change affect these two groups differently? A slight worldwide temperature drop doesn't tell us exactly what living in Greenland became like. Maybe the Norse settlers found it too uncomfortable and left. Maybe they found a better place to live, or their food ran out. Those are possibilities to investigate, not facts established by the passage.
Then the author points to the Inuit, who kept thriving in Greenland. That does challenge the claim that Greenland became impossible for humans to inhabit. But it doesn't establish that colder conditions affected both communities in the same way. Perhaps one group was better able to cope with them. We need to know what differed before treating one group's survival as a complete explanation of the other's disappearance.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to explain those different outcomes. So the answer needs both sides: why the Norse settlements disappeared and why the Inuit settlements survived. Simply saying that the whole island became uninhabitable would leave the surviving Inuit unexplained. Look for a relevant difference between the communities.
Working the answers
- A
A smaller temperature drop than elsewhere doesn't explain the different outcomes within Greenland. Both communities were there. Even if a relatively small change could still cause trouble, A doesn't tell us why it would undermine the Norse settlements while the Inuit continued to thrive.
- BCorrect
The colder conditions destroyed the crops and livestock on which the Norse primarily depended for food. The Inuit did not depend on that same diet. Now the same temperature change can have different consequences: one community loses its main food supply while the other isn't subject to that particular loss.
We don't have to invent a specific Inuit menu. For example, a community using food sources that survive the change could keep going while a community relying on the destroyed crops and livestock could not. The important part is the difference in dependence, which explains why the Inuit's survival doesn't settle what happened to the Norse.
- C
This suggests where some Norse settlers went. It doesn't explain why they left Greenland or why the Inuit stayed. Evidence of a destination is not an explanation of the difference between the two communities.
- D
This gives the settlements a shared feature: both were typically near the coast. We need a difference that explains their different outcomes. The location alone supplies no reason one coastal community would disappear while the other survived.
- E
Norway is a different place. The success of a Norse community there doesn't tell us why the Norse community in Greenland disappeared. We would still need information about conditions affecting the people in Greenland and why those conditions had different effects on the Inuit.
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