PrepTest 154, Section 2, Question 16
Archaeologist: The people who lived in this area(61 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(18 more words not shown)
- AThe pits contain(11 more words not shown)
- BScavengers routinely salvaged(8 more words not shown)
- CThe soil surrounding(11 more words not shown)
- DThe pits in(17 more words not shown)
- ECertain types of(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
My rubbish isn't a complete inventory of my possessions. Look through it and you might find cardboard and food wrappers, while the things I keep using never appear there. So I can already imagine why studying rubbish might give us a limited picture of what people owned.
But notice the archaeologist's actual reason. The pits have eroded over a long period, damaging what was inside. That's a different concern: even the things these people did throw away may not have survived for us to study.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to strengthen the grounds the archaeologist presents. That wording matters. We should look for something that makes the erosion a stronger reason to distrust the surviving collection, rather than merely adding an unrelated reason that rubbish is an incomplete record. What would make the surviving items less informative about what originally went into the pits?
Working the answers
- A
Finding tools that aren't available at other sites could make the pits a valuable source of information. It doesn't show that erosion left us with a less informative collection. Unique finds aren't evidence that the destructive process supports the archaeologist's conclusion more strongly.
- BCorrect
The items most likely to withstand erosion were routinely taken away. That leaves the remaining contents more vulnerable to the destructive process the archaeologist identifies. Scavengers remove the durable objects; erosion damages what remains. Together, those processes give us stronger reason to think today's rubbish supplies only a limited picture.
This isn't proof that every useful object has disappeared. It strengthens the stated reason for doubting how much we can learn from the pits: the material left behind was less likely to survive intact.
- C
Removing soil surrounding the pits to make bricks doesn't establish what happened to the rubbish inside them. We could invent a story in which that removal damaged the contents, but the answer doesn't supply it. It doesn't directly reinforce the claimed destructive effect on the surviving objects.
- D
An earlier use as burial sites tells us about the pits' history. It doesn't establish that the later rubbish was especially damaged or made uninformative by erosion. We need a connection to the grounds for the conclusion, not simply another fact about the same location.
- E
This is tempting because it matches our opening thought: things people never discard won't show up in their rubbish. It gives a separate reason the pits might not represent all their possessions.
But the question specifically asks us to strengthen the presented grounds. E doesn't make erosion more destructive or explain why it particularly undermines the surviving collection. B does, by telling us the durable objects had already been removed. Distinguish supporting the broad conclusion in another way from strengthening this particular reason for it.
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