#18 - Concept Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[chian9010]

Could anyone tell me why answer choice A is incorrect?

[Vaidehi Joshi]

(A) is wrong because we are told that the system was replaced, sure, but not really WHY--and certainly not that it "was eventually abandoned because it was not capable of representing quantity and other abstractions." The only thing we are told about it's replacement comes from:

The token system, essentially a system of three dimensional

nouns, was replaced in about 3100 B.C.

by a system of marks on clay tablets.

On the other hand, (B) is supported by:

Many forms are figurative, such as bowls or

jars with handles, suggesting that villagers’ crafts

were becoming more diversified and sophisticated.

[alex.r.berson@gmail.com]

Hi there,

I'm not sure why (B) is correct over (C) - the author mentions in the second paragraph "Noting that these inscriptions are clearly traceable to later, known inscriptions of farm products" and nowhere else in the passage is it mentioned how these tokens are understood.

I see some evidence for (B) namely the growth of industry part of the passage but it doesn't feel as strong as (C) here.

Please advise.

[Dana D]

Hey Alex,

This type of question is a MBT, meaning the correct answer will be one which must be true based on what the passage says. In order to test whether your answer is correct for a MBT, you can ask yourself whether the information could be false. In this case, is it possible that there was another way the tokens came to be understood? The passage says the fact that the tokens had agricultural symbols on them allowed Schmandt-Besserat to hypothesize about what the tokens were used for, but we don't know that this is the only way historians came to understand what the tokens meant. It's possible they came to understand the tokens another way (thus negating answer choice (C)) but that it was the agricultural tokens which let Schmandt-Besserat make their hypothesis.

In contrast, answer choice (B) MBT. We are told the villager's crafts became more sophisticated and diverse (line 37) and we are told that the tokens evolved to represent additional items (line 33-35).

Hope that helps!