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- ohthatpatrick
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q11
Ultimately, this will go down as (D) is at least somewhat supported, even if it's not adequately supported.
Whereas all the other answers will have less / no / opposite support.
(A) "always required" is much too strong.
(B) The "not necessarily conclusive" is soft, but the "unless" is strong. This says,
'If you can't corroborate an analysis of evidence at one site with evidence from a similar site from the same era, then an analysis is not necessarily conclusive".
There just aren't any parts of the passage where the author is trying to establish that Olsen's analysis is not conclusive, based on a lack of corroboration from similar sites of the same age.
(C) "ANY culture that was X should be considered Y" is much too strong.
(D) lines 9 - 15 establish that the bones of these horses do not make immediately evident whether they were wild or domesticated ... SO ... Olsen has to rely heavily on statistical tabulations that may or may not correlate with expectations for wild vs. domestic populations. The "expectations regarding domesticated herds / wild victims of hunting" are the consideration of facts beyond those at the site. Also included there would be the idea that humans wouldn't have lugged home a 1000 pound carcass.
Essentially, this answer is playing off the idea that from lines 13 - end of passage, we're basically bringing up all these external considerations that help us refine our guess about whether these bones were from domesticated or wild horses, and whether these horses may have been ridden / loved.
Since the author seems implicitly to accept Olsen's analysis and speculations, the author would probably agree to the idea that it's okay, even necessary, to consider the remote concerns when interpreting the stack of horse bones we found at the archeological site.
The question stem just says "based on the discussion, which of these would the author be most likely to agree with", not "which of these can we infer the author would agree with, based on the discussion".
The former has a lower bar to clear than the latter.
With the former, we just have to pick whichever answer, from those possibly-all-crappy choices, we feel most comfortable saying the author would endorse, even if we're unsure of whether the author would endorse it.
So correct answers can be frustratingly distant from "proof sentences" in the passage. They just have to be a smaller jump / a more reasonable speculation from what was said in the passage than would be any other available answer choice.
Whereas all the other answers will have less / no / opposite support.
(A) "always required" is much too strong.
(B) The "not necessarily conclusive" is soft, but the "unless" is strong. This says,
'If you can't corroborate an analysis of evidence at one site with evidence from a similar site from the same era, then an analysis is not necessarily conclusive".
There just aren't any parts of the passage where the author is trying to establish that Olsen's analysis is not conclusive, based on a lack of corroboration from similar sites of the same age.
(C) "ANY culture that was X should be considered Y" is much too strong.
(D) lines 9 - 15 establish that the bones of these horses do not make immediately evident whether they were wild or domesticated ... SO ... Olsen has to rely heavily on statistical tabulations that may or may not correlate with expectations for wild vs. domestic populations. The "expectations regarding domesticated herds / wild victims of hunting" are the consideration of facts beyond those at the site. Also included there would be the idea that humans wouldn't have lugged home a 1000 pound carcass.
Essentially, this answer is playing off the idea that from lines 13 - end of passage, we're basically bringing up all these external considerations that help us refine our guess about whether these bones were from domesticated or wild horses, and whether these horses may have been ridden / loved.
Since the author seems implicitly to accept Olsen's analysis and speculations, the author would probably agree to the idea that it's okay, even necessary, to consider the remote concerns when interpreting the stack of horse bones we found at the archeological site.
The question stem just says "based on the discussion, which of these would the author be most likely to agree with", not "which of these can we infer the author would agree with, based on the discussion".
The former has a lower bar to clear than the latter.
With the former, we just have to pick whichever answer, from those possibly-all-crappy choices, we feel most comfortable saying the author would endorse, even if we're unsure of whether the author would endorse it.
So correct answers can be frustratingly distant from "proof sentences" in the passage. They just have to be a smaller jump / a more reasonable speculation from what was said in the passage than would be any other available answer choice.
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