PrepTest 132 - Section 1 - Passage 3 - Question 15

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Passage A.

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Dental decay (a/k/a caries) · Can signal when hunter-gatherers transitioned to agriculture

This is because decay is linked to a carbohyrdate-rich diet.

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Research · Confirms connection between eating carbohydrates and dental decay

Leigh showed decay rate differed between populations that mainly ate meat and those that mainly ate maize (a carbohydrate). On average, the more agriculture, the higher the rate of decay.

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Connection not universal · Some nonagricultural populations can have high decay rate

Example: People who ate lots of stone-ground flour had high decay. Some wild plants have high decay-causing potential, too.

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Discovery of Ban Chiang remains · Show that people transitioned from hunter-gatherer to agricultural society

Connection between agriculture and dental health · More agriculture tends to result in more dental caries

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Factors that can affect caries rate · Wearing down of tooth surface can both increase and decrease caries

Ban Chiang diet · Was diverse, but also included carbohydrates

In theory, more rice and yams in the diet should have meant more caries.

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Unexpected result · More caries among early Ban Chiang, even though they had less agriculture than later Ban Chiang

This is probably because even though later people had more agriculture, the diet was still diverse, and there may have been shift from yams to rice, which causes less decay than yams.

Passage Style

15.

Both passages are primarily concerned ████ █████████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████

Question Type

Implied

Purpose of passage

Both passages focus on discussing the relationship between agriculture and tooth decay (caries). If you’re using the Split Approach, start by eliminating answers that aren’t a concern of Passage A. Then, come back after Passage B and eliminate the remaining answers that aren’t a concern of Passage B.

evidence of the ███████████ ██ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████████████ ██████

This is a concern of Passage A, which discusses the relationship between a transition to an agricultural diet and tooth decay. It’s also a concern of Passage B, which discusses the relationship between more dependence on agriculture and human health. You might not like (A), but it’s the best answer. It’s reasonable to think the correct answer should contain some mention of tooth decay, but there’s just no other answer that presents something both passages covered.

34%

the impact of ███████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ █████ ███████████

Passage A doesn’t discuss the impact of agriculture on “overall health.” It does discuss the impact on tooth health, but this isn’t the same as “overall health.”

17%

the effects of █████████████████ █████ ██ ██████ █████████ ██ ████████ ████████████ █████████

Neither passage discusses “strictly” (only) agricultural societies. Just because a society is “dependent” on agriculture does not imply that it obtains food only through agriculture.

44%

the archaeological evidence █████████ ████ ███ █████ ████████████ ███████ █████

Neither passage disusses evidence of when the “first” agricultural society arose.

the extent to █████ ████████████████ ███████████ ████ ████ ██ ██████ █████████████████ █████

Neither passage discusses how much pre-agricultural societies were able to obtain carbohydrate-rich foods.

PrepTest 132 - Section 1 - Passage 3 - Question 15

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