Why painting the face and perfuming the body should have

b/w C and B. I go with B
(A) to me, should have is strange.
(D) seems change the meaning. we are talking about the persistence not painting and perfuming.
(E) persistence would be better than persisting

OA, please

I would go with B

A distorts the meaning

B sounds good

C, D and E can be rejected rightaway

OA is "A"....I too chose "B"....no OE, can anyone explain why A is better.

My thought is that we are not talking about how face painting is persistent (meaning last for two or three days or something), but why would people do face painting all the time until today.

Hong, I think "B" talks abt the action "painting" being persistent, it is talking abt verb painting not the paint being persistent.

Yes, but the thing is the action itself can't be persistent. It is the fact that people do fact painting that has persisted over time.

It indeed is (A)

Maybe a bit warped, but here's my analysis:

IMO, the crucial bit of information is in the part "...anthropological and psychological speculation..". Anthorpologist and Psychologists would be more interested in knowing why a certain practice or trend continued over such a long time in mankind's history. They surely wouldn't be interested in how people continued doing it (whether using brush or bone or feather.. etc)

But I'm still very doubtful.

How sometimes can replace why.

Ex: Home come? How so?

Is it not meant to why?

There's another very subtle difference in "should" and "could" that's used respectively in the two options.

My answer is also A. D and E are obviously wrong so I will not attempt to explain why.

The reasons why B and C are wrong. (please correct me if I am wrong).

"Should have" indicates that it persisted for sure in the past while "could be" indicates that it might or might not be persistent. Could indicates a probability or a possibility only. Should have persisted also indicates something that has continued from the past to the present. Could be persistent indicates something that is might have the possibility of still persisting or not.

- Yet we are talking about recorded history - hence something that was prevalent in the past and has been SURELY prevalent. So we should think in terms of the past and there is only a probability = 1 present.

- How is also wrong. "How" is normally used when one wants to know the manner in which something happened. When you want to know the cause or reason, then you say "Why".

For the above reasons B is wrong.

Again "are persisting" refers to present. However this forgets persistence of the recorded history and history which has been recorded indicates that painting and perfuming was persistent in the recording of history in the past also.

Hence C is wrong.