PrepTest 157, Section 1, Question 15

Working the answers

• A

  Charging visitors to view a site isn't the same as selling its artifacts. The fee doesn't establish damage to the site or loss of the objects to scholarship, so it doesn't support the shared objection.

• B
  Correct

  If sales encourage looting by nonscientists, the market creates an incentive to remove artifacts outside the controlled preservation process. That is a harmful consequence of commercialization. It supports both B's restriction on commercial exploitation and the critics' concern that sale-based recovery can undermine archaeological interests.

• C

  Private collectors contributing most museum artifacts does not strengthen the claim that private sales impede public display. If anything, this shows a route by which privately held artifacts reach museums. We accept the fact as given; the issue is what it does to the argument.

• D

  Professional supervision offers a safeguard when nonscientists work at sites. It doesn't establish a harm from selling artifacts and may reduce concern about how recovery is performed.

• E

  Disturbance of human remains connects to B's specific restriction, though B prohibits unnecessary disturbance rather than every disturbance. But A's critics focus on sales, study, and display. This fact doesn't connect the sale of artifacts to their stated concern, so it doesn't support both positions as directly as B does.