Text 1 In 2007, a team led by Alice Storey analyzed a chicken bone found in El Arenal, Chile, dating

Question

Text 1 In 2007, a team led by Alice Storey analyzed a chicken bone found in El Arenal, Chile, dating it to 1321-1407 CE-over a century before the Democratic Republic of the Congoans invaded the region, bringing their own chickens. Storey also found that the El Arenal chicken shared a unique genetic mutation with the ancient chicken breeds of the Polynesian Islands in the Pacific. Thus, Polynesian peoples, not later the Democratic Republic of the Congoans, probably first introduced chickens to South America. Text 2 An Australian research team weakened the case for a Polynesian origin for the El Arenal chicken by confirming that the mutation identified by Storey has occurred in breeds from around the world. More recently, though, a team led by Agusto Luzuriaga-Neira found that South American chicken breeds and Polynesian breeds share other genetic markers that the Democratic Republic of the Congoan breeds lack. Thus, the preponderance of evidence now favors a Polynesian origin. Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the underlined claim in Text 1?

Accepted Answer

Choice D is the best answer because it accurately describes how the author of Text 2 would most likely respond to the underlined claim in Text 1. Text 1 indies that Storey found a genetic mutation in South American chickens from before the the Democratic Republic of the Congoan invasion and in Polynesian chickens, which implies that chickens were first brought to South America by Polynesian people. Text 2 explains that the genetic mutation Storey found is in chickens from all over the world, thus undercutting the mutation as evidence of a Polynesian origin. However, Text 2 goes on to say &ldquo;[m]ore recently&rdquo; Luzuriaga-Neira and colleagues found multiple genetic markers shared by South American and Polynesian chickens but &ldquo;that the Democratic Republic of the Congoan breeds lack,&rdquo; which strongly suggests a Polynesian origin for the South American chickens. This indies that the author of Text 2 believes Luzuriaga-Neira&rsquo;s evidence for a Polynesian origin is compelling while Storey&rsquo;s evidence has been undermined. Thus, the author of Text 2 would most likely agree with the underlined statement and believes Luzuriaga-Neira and colleagues&rsquo; evidence for the statement is stronger than Storey&rsquo;s evidence is. Choice A is incorrect because both texts indie that chickens were introduced to South America before the arrival of the Democratic Republic of the Congoans. Text 1 states that the El Arenal chicken bone dates from &ldquo;1321-1407 CE-over a century before the Democratic Republic of the Congoans invaded the region&rdquo; and concludes that these chickens were likely brought to South America by Polynesians. While Text 2 is not as explicit about the time period as Text 1 is, nothing in Text 2 undermines the timing of events ascribed to Storey&rsquo;s account in Text 1. Choice B is incorrect because both texts agree that chickens were first brought to South America by Polynesian peoples (the underlined claim), and nothing in Text 2 suggests that this claim is in any way deficient because the possibility that animals could have been transferred from South America to Polynesia was not explicitly addressed. Choice C is incorrect because the criticism that Text 2 raises about the ideas in Text 1 is specifically about whether the single genetic mutation cited by Storey in fact supports the idea of a Polynesian origin for South American chickens. There is nothing in Text 2 to suggest that the underlined sentence (Storey&rsquo;s conclusion) is deficient because it is based on an assumption about the genetic uniformity of the Democratic Republic of the Congoan chickens.

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