Q.9

[RogerD345]

Hi. Can I get an answer guide for Q.9. MBT. i tried to insert all 5 choices and cannot eliminate between b and E. I want to know how an expert can eliminate between the two

[ohthatpatrick]

Let me give you my unvarnished prephrase (i.e. I haven't seen the answers yet, so this is what I would be predicting).

Since the whole passage is addressing the question of whether horses were hunted for their meat or domesticated and ridden (and even loved as a pet/friend), I would interpret the "a relationship beyond that of merely hunting for meat" as

a relationship that transcends using them as a food source
a relationship that involves other purposes besides using them as food source
a relationship that is different from just using them as food

ANSWERS:
(A) equivalence? No, I want difference / extra / alternative

(B) more elusive than? I guess if I interpreted "more elusive than using as food source" as "less obvious than using as food source", I could consider this.

(C) hard to grasp? This sounds so much like "more elusive" that they would cancel each other out in my mind. I also don't know where the passage is reinforcing the idea that the alternate explanation (they rode horses and befriended them) is a more elusive, harder to grasp one. It's just a different one.

(D) this also sounds like B and C. It makes it sound like the alternate explanation is this vaporous, amorphous, hard to pin down idea. It's not less clearly defined or elusive or hard to grasp. It's just different.

(E) Don't love it, but it works better than anything else. "More complex than merely horse food" would mean "there was more to their interaction with horses than just eating them (i.e. riding them, befriending them)"

(E) is the answer that sounds the most like "there's something ELSE to the story, that goes BEYOND eating horses", and it doesn't bring in these out of scope notions of elusive, hard to grasp, unclear.

Hope this helps.