SAT #14 Reading (Questions 23 & 24)

Question

The passage suggests that some scientists would agree with which statement about the domestication of cats?

Answer 1

Answer Choices C and A are the correct answers because Lines 25-28 say, “There, many scientists suspect, they mostly domesticated themselves, with the friendliest ones able to take advantage of human table scraps and protection,” emphasizing the lack of human involvement in the domestication process. This most closely matches Answer Choice C from Question 23, which says that scientists would agree that the domestication of cats “was not intentionally undertaken by humans.” For Question 24, Answer Choice B is incorrect because it less clearly makes a claim about something “scientists would agree with” and doesn’t match any of the answer choices for Question 23. Answer Choice C is incorrect because it concerns the domestication of other animals, not just that of cats. Answer Choice D is incorrect because it concerns the finding of the research study and not what scientists would think about the domestication of cats. For Question 23, Answer Choice A is incorrect none of the texts compare the relative timeline of domestication for different animals. Answer Choice B is incorrect because the Passage says that cats “shrunk” slightly in size, not that they increased. Answer Choice D is incorrect because the Passage tells us that cats “domesticated themselves” and not that humans needed them as pets. 

How to solve this? Question 23 asks, “The passage suggests that some scientists would agree with which statement about the domestication of cats?” Because this is a Paired Question, to solve it we should begin by going through the answer choices for Question 24, looking for any texts that tell us about a view of scientists on the domestication of cats. Answer Choice A says [...].