PrepTest 151, Section 1, Question 7

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A

  Statistical comparison is one method Olsen uses, but the discussion isn't primarily a lesson about what archaeologists can accomplish with statistics. It develops a particular claim about the Botai and horses. Whole skeletons and burial arrangements also contribute to that claim.

• B

  Horses could play a critical role in a culture simply by supplying most of its meat. That broad description leaves out the distinction the writer spends so much time developing: were these animals domesticated and ridden, rather than merely hunted? B stops short of the specific conclusion.

• C
  Correct

  This states the hypothesis supported by the excavated bones, including the possibility of riding. It matches both the opening claim and the reasoning that follows without turning the evidence into certainty.

• D

  The opening calls domestication momentous, but the analysis doesn't investigate whether it was important to human history. The question is whether the Botai domesticated and rode horses. This changes what the findings are supposed to establish.

• E

  Carefully arranged horse and human remains suggest a relationship beyond hunting for meat. They don't establish that horses were revered, and that narrower interpretation of the final clue isn't the central conclusion about domestication and riding.