Reading comp PrepTest 151 · Section 1 · Question 12

Passage

Questions 7-14  .       Through years of excavations and careful analysis  . of her finds around Krasnyi Yar in Kazakhstan,  . Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Olsen: Horse bones among Botai dwellings may be evidence of domestication
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Olson view:
      • Horse bones found in dwellings of the Botai people may be evidence of the earliest known domestication of horses (first and second sentences)
      • This conclusion is based on the horses' sex and age at death rather than morphological analysis (last sentence)
    • Comparison:
      • Wild and domesticated horses have the same bone structure, which is not true for dogs or sheep (third sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "careful analysis" (first sentence); "may be evidence" (first sentence); "momentous development in human history" (first sentence); "not immediately evidence" (third sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Olsen's support: Preponderance of male horses
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparisons, according to Olsen's view:
      • Domesticated animals kept for meat or milk usually are predominantly female, but the Botai horses are mostly males (first and second sentences).
      • If you were to hunt most species, you'd target males; but for horses, you'd target families (which stick together, unlike "bachelor" pods) that are predominantly female (fourth through sixth sentences)
      • In a domesticated herd of goats, you would cull (slaughter) many young males; in the Botai remains, male horses were not culled (eighth sentence)
    • Olsen's view:
      • Since there's a high percentage of male horses, the Botai people probably domesticated horses for riding (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Olsen's support: Horse skeletons were found intact
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Olsen's view:
      • Because many skeletons were fully intact, it stands to reason that at least some of the horses were domesticated (first through third sentences)
      • Skeletons were also carefully arranged near human remains, which suggests a relationship that goes beyond hunting (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "unreasonable to suppose" (second sentence); "further suggests" (last sentence)

Main Point: Olsen's analysis of the horse bones provides evidence that the Botai may be the first known humans to domesticate and ride horses.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 1 (P1, S1) - Olsen's hypothesis

P2, S2 - Support for Olsen's hypothesis

P3, S3-4 - More support for Olsen's hypothesis

Meta-Structure?

Proposing a Hypothesis: We think this passage best fits the Proposing a Hypothesis Meta-Structure*. In such a passage, the author usually offers an unverified explanation of a phenomenon or describes another person's unverified explanation.

That's what happens in this passage, mostly. The author spends much of the passage describing the hypothesis Olsen makes based on her discovery and analysis of horse remains near Botai dwellings. This passage doesn't fit the Proposing a Hypothesis model perfectly, as neither the author nor Olsen posits questions that need to be addressed before the explanation can be accepted or rejected. Still, Olsen's conclusion about the Botai's domestication of horses is not yet accepted, so we think the Proposing a Hypothesis Meta-Structure is the closest fit for this passage.

The main point in a Proposing a Hypothesis passage is the hypothesis and any outstanding questions must be addressed. We've summarized this hypothesis for Olsen and the author: "Olsen's analysis of the horse bones provides evidence that the Botai may be the first known humans to domesticate and ride horses."

*Some test-takers may come to different conclusions about which Meta-Structure this passage uses. Some may view this as a Phenomenon/Explanation or Importance of Subject passage. Either designation would probably result in the same understanding of the passage's structure and main point. Remember, the Meta-Structures are tools that help us think about these issues, and we don't have to agree on the Meta-Structure a passage uses to gain a fruitful understanding of the passage. We also should note the significant overlap between the Proposing a Hypothesis and Reporting a Viewpoint Meta-Structures. Ultimately, we felt that Reporting a Viewpoint didn't fit this passage, as the author weaves in hints that they agree with Olsen's hypothesis throughout the passage (these hints are enumerated in the Author's Attitude section of the Passage Summary). The author in a Reporting a Viewpoint passage will typically remain entirely neutral throughout the passage. However, it would not be a grave error if you categorized this passage as Reporting a Viewpoint.

Comparison: Comparisons are the most prominent minor Meta-Structure in this passage. In fact, the passage makes too many comparisons to enumerate here (they're all included in the Passage Summary above). These comparisons will almost certainly factor into a few questions, so we might need to locate them efficiently. To that end, we recommend highlighting or underlining the comparative words like "unlike" (P1, S3), "not ... different" (P1, S3), "similar" (P2, S1), "slightly outnumber" (P1, S2), and more.

Last Thoughts?

We mentioned this in the Meta-Structure section, but we should follow up with our discussion of the author's attitude. The author hints that they agree with Olsen's conclusions. To notice this, we have to pay special attention to the words the author does and does not use. Several phrases suggest the author is amenable to Olsen's view. The author calls Olsen's analysis "careful" (P1, S1) and says that it is "unreasonable to suppose" that Olsen's evidence wouldn't support her conclusion (P3, S2).

Additionally, the author drops the "attribution" language at several points in the passage. If the author did not want to reveal their opinion of Olsen's work, the author would attribute all of Olsen's conclusions to Olsen. The author would use phrases like "Olsen argues" and "Olsen concludes" throughout the passage and especially when describing conclusions Olsen derives from her evidence. While the author does employ these phrases, the author mostly stops in the final paragraph. The author says the evidence in that paragraph is "another clue" that "further suggests" that Olsen's conclusions are sound (P3, S1, S4). The author doesn't say "Olsen argues this evidence is another clue ..." or "Olsen believes this evidence further suggests ..." in the final paragraph. This also implies that the author agrees with Olsen's findings.

Question prompt

The reference by the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Review the herders of domesticated animals reference in the passage, consult notes, and choose an answer choice based on your understanding of that reference in the passage's overall argument.

Answer Anticipation

This question asks us why the author inserted the discussion of herders of domesticated animals into the second paragraph. Unless a detail conflicts with the paragraph's purpose, the author probably mentioned that detail to advance the paragraph's role. So reviewing the second paragraph's role, which we hopefully wrote down in the notes on our scratch paper, will generally reveal why the author included that detail.In this case, our note for the second paragraph is, "Olsen's support: Preponderance of male horses." Based on that note, we can recall that the second paragraph supports Olsen's hypothesis: the preponderance of male horses found near Botai dwellings suggests that the Botai domesticated and potentially rode the horses. How does the reference to herders of domesticated animals fit in then? That detail provides an example of what the Botai people did not do. Unlike these herders who kept domesticated animals for meat and milk, who would keep mostly female animals, the Botai kept primarily adult male horses (P2, S1). This suggests that the Botai's horses weren't domesticated for milk and meat, which in turn supports the claim that Botai potentially rode the horses. So, we'll look for an answer choice that says the reference to the herders suggests that the Botai didn't domesticate horses for the horses' meat and milk but instead potentially rode the horses.

Answer choices

  1. A
    a point of comparison Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem

    (A) We're looking for an answer choice that says the reference to the herders suggests that the Botai didn't domesticate horses for the horses' meat and milk but instead potentially rode the horses. Does this answer choice fit our anticipation?

    Yes, this matches the anticipation nicely. Although this answer choice doesn't describe Olsen's specific conclusion on how the Botai used horses, it accurately represents why the author brought up herders. The reference to herders certainly factors into a comparison (between the proportion of male and female animals in a typical herders' lot and the proportion of male and female horses found near Botai dwellings) used to reach a conclusion about the use of horses by the Botai (they weren't kept for meat and milk). This answer choice fits our anticipation and doesn't mischaracterize anything in the passage, so we'd be justified in selecting it and moving on to the next question.

  2. B
    an example of an Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) We're looking for an answer choice that says the reference to the herders suggests that the Botai didn't domesticate horses for the horses' meat and milk but instead potentially rode the horses. Does this answer choice fit our anticipation?

    Not at all. Experienced test-takers would eliminate this once they saw it deviated from their anticipation — if they hadn't already selected the correct answer and moved on.

    Upon a closer examination, we'll see several issues with (B). The reference to herders at the beginning of the second paragraph is not an "example of an earlier case." It describes what is generally true of animals domesticated for their meat and milk (P2, S1). Moreover, the passage never describes "accepted hypotheses" concerning horses' domestication. We only have Olsen's hypothesis, which is not yet accepted, as discussed in the Meta-Structure section in the Passage Summary.

  3. C
    a refutation of traditional Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) We're looking for an answer choice that says the reference to the herders suggests that the Botai didn't domesticate horses for the horses' meat and milk but instead potentially rode the horses. Does this answer choice fit our anticipation?

    Negative. Expert test-takers would quickly remove this option from contention once they saw it didn't match their anticipation (assuming they hadn't already selected the correct answer and moved on to the following question).

    If we had to review (C) more thoroughly, we'd see that it mentions "traditional beliefs and assumptions about Botai goat herding." This misrepresents why the author brought up goat-herders. The author mentions goat-herders to compare the proportion of males and females they kept to the proportion of male and female horse remains found near Botai dwelling. No one ever claims that the Botai herded goats, so there are no "traditional beliefs and assumptions about Botai goat herding."

  4. D
    a simplification of a Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) We're looking for an answer choice that says the reference to the herders suggests that the Botai didn't domesticate horses for the horses' meat and milk but instead potentially rode the horses. Does this answer choice fit our anticipation?

    Nope. Decisive test-takers would quickly eliminate this option (if they hadn't already selected the correct answer and advanced to the following question).

    If we had to review (D) more closely, we'd see that it's not supported. The passage's only "hypothesis about the relationship between humans and animals in cultures 6,000 years ago" is Olsen's hypothesis about the Botai and horses. The second paragraph's reference to animal herders doesn't simplify that hypothesis — it describes what we know is true about domesticating animals for meat and milk and is used to draw a distinction between typical herders and the Botai.

  5. E
    an analogy meant to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) We're looking for an answer choice that says the reference to the herders suggests that the Botai didn't domesticate horses for the horses' meat and milk but instead potentially rode the horses. Does this answer choice fit our anticipation?

    Not quite, although this doesn't seem terrible at first glance. However, upon a closer inspection, the reference to herders doesn't clarify the factsknown about the Botai. The reference to herders describes the practices of other groups of people, namely herders of domestic animals used for meat and milk. These facts are used to draw a distinction to help Olsen form a hypothesis about what she thinks was true of the Botai. Therefore, the details of this answer choice don't match the passage.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 86%
  2. B 5%
  3. C 1%
  4. D 4%
  5. E 4%

Deeper help

Ask follow-ups on any step

Optional AI tutor mode will let you interrogate assumptions, compare answers, and drill weak patterns without leaving the page.

Human-written explanations stay primary; AI is an add-on when you want it.

Discussion

No threads yet—be the first to ask a question or share an approach.

View all discussions Start a discussion