PrepTest 154, Section 3, Question 2

Working the answers

• A

  Royalty owned cattle, but we aren't told that grazing areas were divided among different royals. Nothing says the movement followed an arrangement in which, for example, one ruler got the high pasture and another got the low pasture.

• B

  A shortage of grain might help explain why grass-fed cattle were useful. It doesn't explain the seasonal change in grazing elevation described here. The author identifies a disease risk, not a grain shortage, as the relevant consideration.

• C
  Correct

  Avoiding disease protects the cattle's health. The second paragraph specifically says the lower regions were unsuitable in summer because of disease carried by the tsetse fly. That connects the seasonal movement directly to this answer.

• D

  Different elevations are involved, but the author doesn't say difficult terrain itself required the movement. Don't substitute the landscape for the reason the cattle used different parts of it at different times.

• E

  This is tempting because resting a grazed area could let its grass recover. But that explanation is ours, not the author's. The long fallow periods concern crop cultivation; the explanation for changing grazing elevation concerns disease. A plausible benefit isn't enough on an “according to the passage” question.