PrepTest 103, Section 3, Question 12
The Levant—the area that borders the eastern Mediterranean—was(47 more words not shown)
If the statements above are(15 more words not shown)
- AThe sheep and(24 more words not shown)
- BTrees were used(19 more words not shown)
- COrganic remains from(22 more words not shown)
- DCarbon dating of(22 more words not shown)
- ESince there are(36 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
People left the southern Levant, but why?
The northern area kept a large population despite sharing the same climate. That makes a simple story about a uniquely bad southern climate less convincing. The archaeologists instead propose a chain: deforestation caused an economic collapse, which caused the southern population to disappear.
I'd want evidence for that chain. Do we know forests disappeared? Do we know an economic collapse followed? Evidence that people left would only repeat the outcome we're trying to explain; it wouldn't establish the proposed cause.
But the question changes our job. It tells us to accept the statements and the archaeologists' hypothesis, then asks what cannot be true. So we must accept that losing forests caused the economic collapse and depopulation, rather than keep demanding proof of the hypothesis.
What we’re looking for
I don't have a precise answer predicted. A claim incompatible with losing forests would be a place to look, but each choice needs to be tested against what we're now accepting. An unsupported detail can still be possible; we need a contradiction.
Working the answers
- A
Grazing on young trees could interfere with their growth and fit a story in which forests disappear. We aren't told what the animals ate, but nothing in the accepted account rules this out. A doesn't have to be established by the passage to remain possible.
- B
Trees could have been used to make the building material. That would be compatible with extensive use of forest resources and with their loss causing an economic problem. The passage doesn't specify how the trees supported the economy, so this particular use isn't excluded.
- C
The claim concerns the northern Levant. Forests could have continued to flourish there while disappearing in the south. A shared climate doesn't require the same use or destruction of trees in both places. C fits the different population outcomes without contradicting the accepted southern deforestation.
- DCorrect
If there were no forests in the southern Levant before the population left, losing those forests couldn't have caused the economic collapse that drove the departure. D removes something the accepted explanation requires to have existed. You can't explain the collapse by deforestation if there was no forest to lose.
- E
Buildings made largely of timber could fit the proposed account. It would give trees an important use, and the passage doesn't rule that use out. Whether the excavation evidence actually establishes timber construction is not the task here; the description is compatible with the facts and hypothesis we have been told to accept.
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