PrepTest 151, Section 1, Question 12
Through years of excavations and careful analysis of(461 more words not shown)
The reference by the author(20 more words not shown)
- Aa point of(12 more words not shown)
- Ban example of(18 more words not shown)
- Ca refutation of(8 more words not shown)
- Da simplification of(14 more words not shown)
- Ean analogy meant(16 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Why tell us how herders manage animals used for meat or milk? We need an expectation to compare with the Botai evidence. Those herders usually kill most males before maturity, so the abundance of adult male horse remains raises a question: why were these males kept alive?
What we’re looking for
Riding then provides a possible answer. The herding practice starts that chain of reasoning; it isn't just an interesting fact about goats.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The typical practice provides a baseline for interpreting the horse remains. The Botai pattern differs, and Olsen considers whether another use of domesticated animals—riding—explains the difference. The comparison helps us reach a conclusion about what the horses were used for.
- B
The cited prehistoric example concerns goat herding. It is evidence of a typical management pattern, not an earlier case that conflicts with accepted hypotheses about horse domestication. B gives the comparison the wrong subject and the wrong argumentative role.
- C
No traditional belief about Botai goat herding is being refuted. The goat example helps establish the ordinary pattern against which the horse evidence is assessed.
- D
The sentence supplies a management practice to reason from. It doesn't simplify a hypothesis about all human-animal relationships 6,000 years ago.
- E
The comparison isn't merely illustrating already-known facts about Botai domestication. Whether and why these horses were domesticated is what Olsen is trying to infer. The ordinary herding practice supplies evidence for that reasoning, rather than an analogy used to explain a conclusion already established.
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