Reading comp PrepTest 152 · Section 3 · Question 2

Passage

 Along with Egypt and Sumer, the third major early Bronze Age civilization was the Indus Valley civilization, which flourished from Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's correction: New evidence shows that Indus Valley was an unparalleled civilization
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Old belief: Indus Valley was archaeologically uninteresting because it had typical architecture and no palaces or citadels (last sentence)
    • Author's correction: Recent excavations show Indus Valley had a combination of characteristics not present in any other civilization (last sentence)
    • Comparison of Indus Valley to other Bronze Age civilizations:
      • Geographically, it was a larger urban civilization than Egypt or Sumer (first and second sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "without parallel in history" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Support: List of Indus Valley's achievements
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • List of Indus Valley's achievements:
      • Brick cities on flood-proof terraces with long, straight streets (first sentence)
      • First urban sewer system (first sentence)
      • Possibly featured a democratic system of government (second sentence)
      • Thrived without armies (last sentence)
        • Supporting example: No evidence of weapon production
      • Author's attitude: "masters" (first sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Support: Continued list of Indus Valley's achievements
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • List of Indus Valley's achievements (continued from the previous paragraph):
      • First to cultivate rice and cotton (first sentence)
      • Carefully organized agricultural system to produce and distribute food (first sentence)
      • Top trader in the ancient world, introducing standardized weights and trading with Mesopotamia (second through last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "carefully organized" (first sentence), "top traders" (second sentence)

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's correction: Recent evidence suggests the decline of Indus Valley due to environmental reasons, not an invasion
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • History books'/Wheeler's view: Indo-Aryan invaders led to Indus Valley's decline (second sentence)
    • Author's correction:
      • Lack of written or archaeological evidence supporting Wheeler's view (third sentence)
      • Excavations show Indo-Aryans weren't even present in the region at the time alleged invasion (fourth sentence)
      • Archaeological evidence shows relocation south of Indus Valley (fifth sentence)
      • Indus Valley people probably spread out into smaller cultures due to drought/food shortages or an earthquake (sixth through last sentence)
    • Cause-and-effect relationships:
      • Indo-Aryan invaders led to Indus Valley's decline, according to Wheeler and many history books (second sentence)
      • Drought could have caused lands to be unfarmable, which would cause an abandonment of city centers, according to the author (seventh through eighth sentence)
      • An earthquake could have caused rivers to change directions and caused migration to the country, according to the author (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "not certain" (first sentence), "lack of written evidence" (third sentence), "no archaeological evidence" (third sentence), "In fact" (fourth sentence), "most likely" (sixth sentence), "may" (seventh sentence), "may" (last sentence)

Main Point: New archaeological evidence reveals that the Indus Valley was an unparalleled ancient urban civilization and that its decline was more likely due to environmental changes, undermining previously held beliefs about the civilization.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 3 (P1, S3) - Previously held belief and author's correction

P4, S2 - Previously held belief about the decline

P4, S6 - Author's correction about the decline

Meta-Structure?

Correcting the Record: This passage utilizes a Correcting the Record Meta-Structure*. In fact, the author corrects the record twice in this passage. First, the author corrects the mistaken belief that Indus Valley wasn't much to write home about. Over the second and third paragraphs, the author argues that new archaeological evidence shows that Indus Valley was an advanced, expansive, and productive civilization. Then, the author corrects another mistaken belief about Indus Valley's decline in the final paragraph. The author asserts that recent archaeological evidence undermines the long-standing view that an Indo-Aryan invasion led to the fall of the Indus Valley civilization. It's more likely, the author avers, that Indus Valley dispersed into smaller regional societies in response to some environmental change.

When a passage utilizes a Correcting the Record Meta-Structure and the author provides an alternative view to replace the mistaken one, the main point is usually the author's opinion about that alternative view. Unfortunately, the author never summarized their opinion about the new view on Indus Valley, so we'll have to piece together a summary for our author. We wrote that the main point is, "New archaeological evidence reveals that the Indus Valley was an unparalleled ancient urban civilization and that its decline was more likely due to environmental changes, undermining previously held beliefs about the civilization."

*Some may argue that this is a Criticizing a Viewpoint or Rebutting Critics Meta-Structure — understandably so, since there's considerable overlap between these Meta-Structures and the Correcting the Record Meta-Structure. If either of those designations makes more sense to you, then it's totally OK to go with either! Doing so will yield the same main point and broad understanding of the text we came up with by designating this passage a Correcting the Record Meta-Structure. Technically speaking, when the passage frames the view the author rebuts as misunderstood or ill-informed, it's best to consider the passage a Correcting the Record passage. The old view in this passage is ill-informed since those who held the old beliefs about Indus Valley didn't have access to the author's recent archaeological evidence. If the author otherwise argues another view is wrong, unjustified, or misguided, it's best to consider the passage a Criticizing a Viewpoint passage. And when the view the author rebuts is framed as a criticism, it's best to consider the passage a Rebutting Critics passage

List: The predominant minor Meta-Structure in this passage is a list. In the second and third paragraphs, the author list tons of reasons why the ancient Indus Valley civilization was impressive. We summarized each item on the list in the Passage Summary. If you'd like to save yourself some fact-finding missions on the inevitable Minor Point questions, you can try to memorize a few key items. Here's what we recommend memorizing about ancient Indus Valley:

  • Good city planners, with nice roads and sewage systems
  • Good at agriculture, particularly rice and cotton
  • Good at trading, getting as far as the Arabian Sea and Mesopotamia

Of course, if you have trouble memorizing stuff, you don't have to. You can always check the passage to anticipate what the correct answer will say. We'll discuss how you can do this most efficiently in the question explanations.

Last Thoughts?

The author expresses a lot of attitude in this passage. Way more than we usually see in social science passages. The author apparently admires the Indus Valley civilization for its accomplishments. The author seemingly doesn't care for Wheeler's ill-informed take on the Indus Valley civilization's decline. Because the author expresses this many opinions in this passage, expect at least a few Tone questions.

Question prompt

Which one of the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: C

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

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Remind ourselves of the main point of the passage, then head to the answers, focusing on those that line up with the main point and then using our notes/the passage to eliminate the incorrect answer choices

Answer Anticipation

For these Bizarro Must Be True questions, the correct answer will either present a topic not discussed by the passage or assert a claim contradicted by information in the passage. For the former, we'll generally use a process of elimination to get rid of each answer that does show up in the passage.For the latter — we're in luck — as we can find a line citation to prove that the passage contradicts the correct answer. In that case, we can feel a lot more comfortable about picking it — while also likely getting it correct faster. But we won't know if this is the case for the correct answer until after we analyze it, so we should expect to use a process of elimination.

Answer choices

  1. A
    It was geographically the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Do you remember reading that the Indus Valley was the largest of the major Bronze Age civilizations.

    Possibly. If not, table this answer choice and look at the remaining. Try to use the main point and your memory to eliminate as many answer choices as possible before checking the passage. Sometimes, you get lucky and can eliminate all four or find a choice that clearly contradicts the passage, allowing you to select the correct answer without checking the passage once.

    If we need to review the passage to confirm that this answer choice is supported, we could use CTRL/Command + F to search for "geograph-" or "large" to find the supporting text. In the first paragraph, the author says that the Indus Valley civilization was "in geographic size ... the largest ancient urban civilization" (P1, S2). This means it's larger than the other two major Bronze Age civilizations, Egypt and Sumer (P1, S1). So, we can cross this one off.

  2. B
    Its people cultivated rice.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Do you remember reading that the people in Indus Valley cultivated rice?

    Possibly. If not, table this answer choice and look at the remaining. Try to use the main point and your memory to eliminate as many answer choices as possible before checking the passage. Sometimes, you get lucky and can eliminate all four or find a choice that clearly contradicts the passage, allowing you to select the correct answer without checking the passage once.

    If it comes time to review the passage to confirm that this answer choice is supported, we could use CTRL/Command + F to search for "rice" to find the supporting text. In the third paragraph, the author says that people in Indus Valley civilization were "the first to cultivate rice" (P1, S2). So, we can eliminate this one.

  3. C
    Its people were generally Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem

    (C) Do you remember reading that the people in Indus Valley were generally nomadic?

    Almost certainly not. There are multiple references to the fact the ancient Indus Valley was an urban civilization (P1, S2) with settlements (P1, S3), roads (P2, S1), and agriculture (P3, S2). Nomadic people, by definition, do not inhabit large settlements like these. This answer choice so thoroughly conflicts with the depiction of the Indus Valley civilization that we can justifiably select it and move on to the next question, giving the remaining options an at-most cursory reading.

  4. D
    It was a major Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Do you remember reading that the Indus Valley civilization was a major trader?

    Possibly. If not, table this answer choice and look at the remaining. Try to use the main point and your memory to eliminate as many answer choices as possible before checking the passage. Sometimes, you get lucky and can eliminate all four or find a choice that clearly contradicts the passage, allowing you to select the correct answer without checking the passage once.

    If you need to check the passage to verify whether this answer choice is supported, we could use CTRL/Command + F to search for "trade" to find the supporting text. In the third paragraph, the author says that "the Indus Valley civilization was one of the ancient world's top traders" (P3, S2). It's an open and shut case, (D) is supported.

  5. E
    It was spread across Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Do you remember reading that the Indus Valley civilization was spread across an area that is now part of three nations?

    Possibly. If not, table this answer choice and look at the remaining. Try to use the main point and your memory to eliminate as many answer choices as possible before checking the passage. Sometimes, you get lucky and can eliminate all four or find a choice that clearly contradicts the passage, allowing you to select the correct answer without checking the passage once.

    If you need to check the passage to verify whether this answer choice is supported, it's hard to use the CTRL/Command + F search function, since "nation" may not appear in the text. Instead, we can recognize that this sounds like background info on the Indus Valley civilization, and such background info is likely in the first paragraph. We can scan the first paragraph for modern countries' names. We'll see that the passage states that the Indus Valley settlements were spread across "what is now Pakistan, Afghanistan, and northwestern India" (P1, S3). Those are three nations, so (E) is supported.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 2%
  2. B 1%
  3. C Credited 94%
  4. D 1%
  5. E 2%

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