SAT Question 3fa48bf3: Answer & Explanation

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• British scholar Robert Plot described fossilized dinosaur bones in his 1676 book The Natural History of Oxfordshire.
• Plot earned a reputation for being the first person to have discovered dinosaur remains.
• In 1990, archaeologists in Lesotho, in southern Africa, discovered a fossilized phalanx of a Massospondylus carinatus dinosaur in a cave once inhabited by humans.
• Indigenous Khoesan and Basotho peoples had inhabited the cave beginning around 1100 CE.
• According to paleontologist Julien Benoit, these peoples may have found the phalanx and brought it to the cave centuries before Plot’s descriptions.

Difficulty:Hard

The student wants to emphasize the significance of the 1990 discovery to Plot’s reputation. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

Benoit challenged Plot’s reputation for being the first person to have discovered M. carinatus remains.

Evidence that Khoesan and Basotho peoples may have found an M. carinatus phalanx as long ago as 1100 CE suggests that Plot may not have been the first person to have discovered dinosaur remains.

According to Benoit’s analysis of the 1990 discovery, Indigenous peoples in southern Africa may have brought the fossilized phalanx to the cave as long ago as 1100 CE.

In 1990, more than three centuries after Plot claimed in his book that he had found fossilized dinosaur bones, archaeologists uncovered evidence in southern Africa that disproved his claims.

SAT Question 3fa48bf3: Rhetorical Synthesis answer and explanation

Explanation

Why the other choices are wrong