For cross-text questions, divide the first author’s conclusion into its component claims, such as timing, location, cause, and scope. Then determine exactly which components the second text supports, weakens, or leaves unresolved; the best answer will preserve supported inferences without retaining claims that exceed the evidence.
Hints
- Hint 1
Break the conclusion into parts
Identify what Calder claims about the type, location, and timing of the agricultural change.
- Hint 2
Match each kind of evidence to its limits
Consider separately what the sedimentation models, airflow simulations, and beetle remains can establish.
- Hint 3
Avoid one-sided responses
Look for a choice that accounts for both the challenges to the pollen inference and the independent evidence found near the wells.
Step-by-step
- Step 1
Separate Calder’s claims
Calder infers several things from the evidence: the change was immediate, it occurred near the western wells, it involved olive groves, and the later levy formalized it.
- Step 2
Apply the dating evidence
Baner’s sedimentation models show that the relevant layers accumulated over twenty to fifty years. The layers therefore cannot establish that a local agricultural change occurred immediately after the earthquake.
- Step 3
Apply the evidence about pollen movement
The airflow simulations indicate that much of the olive pollen could have traveled from eastern terraces. Thus, the pollen does not securely show that olives were grown near the western wells.
- Step 4
Account for the beetle remains
The beetle species requires irrigation channels and usually remains within two hundred meters. Its presence supports irrigation near the wells during the layers’ broad accumulation period, so Baner would not reject every claim of local agricultural change.
- Step 5
Select the fully qualified response
The best response rejects Calder’s unsupported precision about crop and timing while preserving the narrower local inference supported by the beetle evidence.