Hi experts GMATNinja egmat and others

I have question about this question

From what I understand in the passage, should be option (C) rather than (B)?

I think it should be (C) because the word "realize that .... = misinterpret sth and then just know that it is what they think" meaning that what Archaeologist had noticed previously is the significant evidence.

Question 4

The word "realized" doesn't necessarily mean that something was misinterpreted.

For example, I could discover that food is disappearing from my fridge. Later, I could realize that a stranger had been living in my attic for years and sneaking out at night to eat some of my beloved snacks.

There is no misinterpretation in the above example -- there's just a baffling situation, and then a realization about why that situation is happening. For the "realization" to correct a previous misinterpretation, there would need to be a previous interpretation. That previous interpretation just isn't there.

Similarly, the passage just tells us about a certain fact: "sixteenth-century Native American sites were strewn with iron bolts and metal pins." There is no interpretation offered to explain this situation.

Then, in lines 11-16, the author tells us about the archeologists' interpretation of the situation: "Only later, upon reading Nicolas Denys’s 1672 account of seventeenth-century European settlements in North America, did archaeologists realize that sixteenth-century European fishing crews had dismantled and exchanged parts of their ships for furs."

Because there's no misinterpretation of the significance of the iron bolts/metal pins, (C) is out for question 4.

(B) is a much better fit: how did archeologists find out that Europeans fishing crews had dismantled and exchanged parts of their ships? By reading Nicolas Denys’s 1672 account of seventeenth-century European settlements in North America.

Lines 11-16 reveal how archeologists arrived at their interpretation of the iron bolts/metal pins, so (B) is the answer to question 4.

I hope that helps!
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