PrepTest 151 - Section 1 - Passage 2 - Question 12

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Through years of excavations and careful analysis of her finds around Krasnyi Yar in Kazakhstan, archaeologist Sandra Olsen has assembled what may be evidence of the earliest known people to have domesticated and ridden horses, a momentous development in human history. ███

Intro to Topic · Olsen found evidence of earliest domestication of horses for riding?

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Phenomenon · Large number of horse bones in pit houses of the Botai people

Phenomenon · Unclear if horses were domesticated or wild

Cannot tell difference just by looking at the bones.

Method · Statistical tabulations

Olsen used statistics to find patterns that might distinguish between domestication or wild.

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Exclude Alternate Hypothesis · Domesticated horses for food?

Because if domesticated for food, wouldn't find that many fully grown male horses and most of the bones were exactly that.

Alternate Hypothesis · Wild horses hunted for food?

That would explain the large proportion of males since hunters like to hunt bigger animals for more food.

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Exclude Alternate Hypothesis · Proportion of adult males is too high

Because if the Botai hunted horses, they would target families, not groups of males.

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Phenomenon · Why were young males not culled?

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Hypothesis · Because the horses were domesticated for riding

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Evidence for Hypothesis · Remains include full skeletons

This is also inconsistent with the hunting hypothesis because hunters presumably would have only brought the meat and not the full skeletons back.

Evidence for Hypothesis · Burial patterns

Horses were buried in carefully arranged patterns which suggests a closer relationship with the Botai, consistent with the riding hypothesis.

Passage Style

Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)

Single position

12.

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Question Type

Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)

Structure

The author brings up the practices of herders of domesticated animals to help us understand how Olsen reaches her conclusion that horses were domesticated and may have been ridden. We learn that the bones found at the Botai sites don’t match those we’d expect based on herders’ practices; but Olsen takes into account the nature of how wild horses group together in order to reach the conclusion that the Botai horses were still domesticated.

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This best captures the purpose. Herders’ practices help us compare what we’d expect to find based on those practices with what Olsen found at the Botai sites.

93%

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It’s not clear that there are any “accepted hypotheses” about the domestication of horses. In addition, the herders’ practices aren’t an “earlier case” — they are modern practices.

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It’s not clear that there are any traditional beliefs and assumptions about Botai goat herding. The passage never discusses what people typically thought about Botai goat herding practices.

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We have no reason to think the practices of herders are brought up to simplify some broader hypothesis about humans and animals.

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There are no “facts” about the domestication of animals by the Botai. Olsen is hypothesizing that horses were domesticated based on the bones she found. But it’s not a “fact” that they were domesticated. In addition, the herders aren’t brought up as an analogy; the author doesn’t suggest the Botai herders probably had similar practices as the herders mentioned.

PrepTest 151 - Section 1 - Passage 2 - Question 12

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