Q21

[ohthatpatrick]

It was asked:
"Question on 21 to me most is too strong in choice c
I choose e"

It's good to be aware and wary of "most", especially in Reading Comp.

But it is justified here such phrases as "long dominated anthropology" - line 2 (something that dominates a field can fairly be said to apply to most people in that field) and "traditional hypothesis" - line 23 (again, by being labeled the 'traditional' thinking, it is implied that this thinking is held by the majority).

Neither one of these is so specifically quantitative as "most" is, but they both give us the means of supporting "most" pretty well. (Remember, in the end, the question stem says "which answer choice most accurately expresses the main idea", so we sometimes have to live with the best, imperfect answer).

The problem with (E) is that the recent discoveries that are most pertinent to this question are not about early hominids' environment, they are about looking at the markings on fossils and ascertaining whether they were caused by tools or animal teeth.

In other words, it's not like scientists have discovered new animals, plants, climate, etc. about early hominids (their environment) ... they've discovered that early hominids were scavenging meat from dead animals rather than killing live animals with tools. So (E) just doesn't match up well enough with the important discovery being presented.

Additionally, the focus on the relationship between humans and large animal predators is too specific. The revised picture is whether early hominids were "clever hunter-gatherers who killed live prey" or "scavengers".

Hope this helps.