SAT OwlQuestion bank / Cross-Text Connections
Text 1: Many ecologists support "rewilding," the return of large animals such as wolves or bison to landscapes where they once lived. Bringing these animals back, they argue, can restore the natural processes, such as grazing and hunting, that shaped those ecosystems.
Text 2: Ecologist Ines Barros supports rewilding in principle. But she warns that many landscapes have changed so much since the animals vanished, through farming, roads, and newly arrived species, that returning a single animal rarely recreates the old ecosystem. Reintroductions, she argues, should aim for ecosystems that work well today rather than for copies of the past.
Based on the texts, how would Barros most likely respond to the argument in Text 1?
She would oppose any return of large animals to their former ranges.
She would argue that wolves and bison never shaped the landscapes where they once lived.
She would value reintroductions while doubting that they can recreate past ecosystems as they were.
She would agree that returning a single species to a landscape reliably restores the ecosystem's former condition.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C
Barros "supports rewilding in principle," so she agrees with Text 1 that reintroductions are worthwhile. But she doubts that returning animals can recreate the old ecosystems because the landscapes have changed. That mix of support and doubt is choice C.
Choice A ignores that Barros supports rewilding in principle; her objection is to the goal of copying the past.
Why the other choices are wrong
- A. Barros supports rewilding in principle, so she wouldn't oppose all reintroductions.
- B. Barros doesn't question the animals' past role. She argues the landscapes have changed since then.
- D. Barros says returning a single animal rarely recreates the old ecosystem, the opposite of this.
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