When ancient oak planks were unearthed during subway construction in Rome, Mauro Bernabei and his team examined the
growth rings in the wood to determine where these planks came from. By comparing the growth rings on the planks to
records of similar rings in oaks from Europe, the team could trace the wood to the Jura region of France, hundreds of
kilometers from Rome. Because timber could only have been transported from distant Jura to Rome by boat, the team’s
ﬁndings suggest the complexity of Roman trade routes.
It presents a conclusion about Roman trade routes based on the team’s ﬁndings.
It questions how the team was able to conclude that the planks were used to build a boat.
It explains why the planks were made from oak rather than a different kind of wood.
It describes common methods used in Roman subway construction.
Choice A is the best answer because it most accurately describes how the underlined sentence functions in the text as a
whole. The ﬁrst sentence explains that Bernabei and his team studied growth rings to obtain information about the ancient
oak planks found during a construction project in Rome. The next sentence presents what the researchers learned: the wood
from the planks came from France’s Jura region, which is far from Rome. The underlined sentence then presents the
implications of the ﬁndings about the planks: the wood must have been brought to Rome by boat, a diﬃcult task that
suggests Roman trade routes were complex. Thus, the underlined sentence mainly functions to present a conclusion about
Roman trade routes based on the team’s ﬁndings.
Choice B is incorrect because the text doesn’t suggest that the team thought the ancient planks were used in the
construction of a boat, nor does the underlined sentence question that conclusion. Instead, the text states that the wood
could only have been transported from Jura to Rome in a boat. Choice C is incorrect because the underlined sentence simply
offers a conclusion drawn from the team’s ﬁndings about the likely place of origin of the ancient planks; the text never
mentions why oak was chosen for the planks instead of other wood. Choice D is incorrect because neither the underlined
sentence nor the text as a whole addresses any methods that Romans used in constructing subways. Instead, the underlined
sentence offers a conclusion drawn from the team’s ﬁndings about the likely place of origin of the ancient wooden planks
discovered.