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Information and IdeasMediumInference from an unexpected material choice

Information and Ideas practice question

Most of the stone tools recovered from the site were made from a kind of stone that occurs naturally only about 200 kilometres away, even though the site itself sits on a bed of flint that makes perfectly good tools. The people who lived at the site therefore most likely ____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

  1. A. obtained the distant stone through travel or trade rather than because they lacked usable material nearby.Correct
  2. B. did not know that flint could be worked into tools.
  3. C. had never encountered flint before settling at the site.
  4. D. used their tools only for hunting large animals.

Answer: A. obtained the distant stone through travel or trade rather than because they lacked usable material nearby.

Good flint was under their feet, yet they used stone from 200 km away. Necessity is ruled out by the text itself, leaving choice — via travel or trade — as the likely explanation.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. did not know that flint could be worked into tools.
The text says the flint 'makes perfectly good tools'; it doesn't say the people were ignorant of that. Ignorance is a guess the text doesn't support.
C. had never encountered flint before settling at the site.
They lived on a bed of flint; they could hardly have avoided encountering it.
D. used their tools only for hunting large animals.
Nothing in the text concerns what the tools were used for.

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