LSAT 147 | Section 2 | Reading Comprehension: Q16

RC Question 16 Explanation

DISCUSSION: The resource development model is described in lines 1-8. It states that humans used clearings in order to hunt grazing animals.

Note that a grazing animal isn’t the same thing as a farm animal. Most of our farm animals graze, but that’s because those animals grazed in the wild. Many wild animals graze. For example, the hippopotamus is a grazing animal. *

Also, two of the wrong answers describe the author’s theory of woodland clearings. This question isn’t asking about that. It’s asking about the resource procurement model, which is a theory that the author disagrees with.

* (I originally chose deer as an example, but it turns out deer “browse” rather than “graze”. I suspect the passage meant to include both types of eating however.)

___________

1. This is the author’s theory, not the resource procurement theory.
2. CORRECT. See lines 5-8. The idea is that animals were attracted to clearings, and could be hunted there.
3. This is a trap. You might have assumed that grazing = farming, but that’s not what grazing means. Grazing just refers to any animal that eats grass and plants from the ground. The hippopotamus is a grazing animal, for example.
    
   The author doesn’t say that Mesolithic people used domesticated grazing animals in woodland clearings. They could have waited for wild grazing animals to graze in those clearings.
4. This answer is the author’s theory of woodland clearings. But this question asks about what the resource-procurement theory says. That’s the theory the author disagrees with.
5. The passage doesn’t mention crops. You may have picked this because you saw the word “vegetation” in line 12. But vegetation just refers to plant life – this answer is likely referring to forest plants.