A recent excavation of a site at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles from the nearest coastline, uncovered a variety of animal bones, including those from chickens and pigs. Neither chickens nor pigs could fly or swim so far out into the ocean, and the bones are approximately two hundred years old.

Combined with the information to the left, which of the following, if true, would best support the conclusion that the bones were rubbish dumped overboard by a passing boat?

A. Chickens and pigs are usually transported overseas today by air freight.
B. Bones from chickens and pigs were sometimes carried as good luck charms by colonial-era travelers.
C Scientists were able to locate the skeletons of at least 15 chickens in the underwater site.
D Another underwater location in the Atlantic Ocean contained similar bones dating from approximately 100 years ago.
E Mixed with the animal bones, there were also items like pottery shards and broken tools.

IMO answer is B.

Since there is no such information been given whether travelers carried those bones in pottery. Its a mere assumption.

OA Please.

"...... uncovered a variety of animal bones, including those from chickens and pigs."

(B) Bones from chickens and pigs were sometimes carried as good luck charms by colonial-era travelers.

If chicken and pigs were the good luck charm then why a variety of animal bones got found?

They must have many animals as good luck charm ?
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Between B & E, I chose E.
In B: if the bones are good luck charms, why do they want to throw away? This is not to mention that we don't know anything about the colonial-era travelers.

E on the other hands says there are other tools too.. so it's more likely that people used the tools to do something with the animals.

I'll go with E

OA Please?

bones are good luck charms, why do they want to throw away?
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Its your duty to post OA afterwards; some one must be waiting for that...

My intuition is that this problem is not a GMAT problem (LSAT, perhaps?). One obvious clue is the phrase "information to the left" in the question itself (GMAT passages are always above the question). But the stronger clue is the fact that two answers (B and E) can be construed as supporting answers. This is actually pretty rare on GMAT CR but quite common on the LSAT.

Anyway, several other posters have already done an excellent job of narrowing down to (B) and (E), so I'll focus on those two.

As I said before, (B) can probably be construed as supporting. The logic goes like this: "Colonial-era travelers kept chicken and pig bones as good luck charms. They carried the bones with them on boats in the Pacific Ocean. Somehow the bones ended up off the boats (tossed overboard, sunk boat, etc.) Certainly a plausible real-world explanation. But on the GMAT, you're not allowed to construct a story around the given answer – a correct answer should directly support the conclusion.

With (E), it seems natural that pottery shards and broken tools would be tossed overboard, and so this supports the idea that the bones found with the shards and tools had been tossed overboard as well. There's still a small link missing here – we don't have absolute evidence that the pottery shards and broken tools were tossed overboard from a ship. Maybe it's all from a landfill that washed out to sea 200 years ago?

In the end, I'm not a big fan of either of these answer choices. If I saw this question on the GMAT, I'd go with (E) because I do think the support is a little more direct there. But the big takeaway is that this is not the kind of CR question you'll be seeing on the GMAT!

Cheers,
Mark
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I think it is E. If sailors carried it for good luck then why would anyone throw it. If the ship sunk or the crew thre stuff then the bones should be found along with some other wreckage like pottery in this case
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