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KarishmaB
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Traces of cultivated emmer wheat have been found among the earliest 21 Oct 2021, 22:01
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Vatsal7794
Hi GMATNinja VeritasKarishma chiranjeev chetan2u

Can you please explain me this question?
What i understood is that
1)Traces of Cultivated emmer Wheat(EW) wheat have been found in many archaeological sites
2)WE has been found in a narrow strip
4)Oldest remains is also found in same narrow strip so conclusion is EW was first cultivated in that strip

Now how to connect this information with the options given?

Also my doubt is is there any two variety like - Cultivated emmer wheat and Wild Emmer wheat?
Or wild emmer wheat is the part of cultivated emmer wheat
Show more

Wild emmer wheat means that it grows on its own, in the wild. It is not cultivated by people.
Cultivated emmer wheat is when using the seeds of the wild emmer wheat, people start growing it for food purposes.
This is called domesticating the crop.

We are given that cultivated wheat was found at many places. But wild wheat and oldest cultivated wheat both were found only in that narrow stretch. So it seems that the narrow stretch had wild wheat and people there domesticated it. From there, the cultivated wheat was taken to other societies to cultivate.

(D) says that climactic conditions have not changed since before agriculture. The conditions on that strip were suitable for wild emmer wheat and the same conditions prevailed afterwards too. Hence it would have been feasible to cultivate wheat on that strip.
It improves our argument and hence is the answer.
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Traces of cultivated emmer wheat have been found among the earliest 21 Oct 2021, 22:42
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VeritasKarishma

Thanks a lot for the awesome explanation. I understood the argument completely so here is my explanation. Can you please confirm if what I think is right or wrong?

"Our conclusion is "emmer wheat was first cultivated in that strip" and now wild wheat is in that strip . So if the climatic conditions have not changed since the development of the agriculture it is possible for the wild wheat to grow in that strip.

But this answer choice has nothing to do with the conclusion of the argument. So for strengthen question if any option that strengthens the premise of the argument can also be the correct answer.

Am i right with my reasoning?
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Traces of cultivated emmer wheat have been found among the earliest 20 Oct 2022, 09:17
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Swagatalakshmi
Traces of cultivated emmer wheat have been found among the earliest agricultural remains of many archeological sites in Europe and Asia. The only place where the wild form of emmer wheat has been found growing is a relatively narrow strip of southwest Asia. Since the oldest remains of cultivated emmer wheat yet found are from village sites in the same narrow strip, it is clear that emmer wheat was first domesticated somewhere in that strip.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthen the argument?

(A) The present-day distribution of another wild wheat, einkon, which was also domesticated early in the development of agriculture, covers a much larger area of southwest Asia.

(B) Modern experiments show that wild emmer wheat can easily be domesticated so as to yield nearly as well as traditionally domestic strains (a particular type of plant).

(C) At the time when emmer wheat was first cultivated, it was the most nutritious of all the varieties of grain that were then cultivated.

(D) In the region containing the strip where wild emmer wheat has been found, climatic conditions have changed very little since before the development of agriculture.

(E) It is very difficult, without genetic testing, to differentiate the wild form of emmer wheat from a closely related wild wheat that also grows in southwest Asia.

GMATPREP Code : VCR006844
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why use present perfect tense in passive voice (highlighted in yellow above) where 'is found' would have done the same job? this made it tough for me to visualize what was going on. which tense would be more appropriate here - present perfect or present indefinite?
can pls u help me improve my understanding of tenses?
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Traces of cultivated emmer wheat have been found among the earliest 11 Nov 2022, 17:48
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StandardizedNerd
why use present perfect tense in passive voice (highlighted in yellow above) where 'is found' would have done the same job? this made it tough for me to visualize what was going on. which tense would be more appropriate here - present perfect or present indefinite?
can pls u help me improve my understanding of tenses?
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Disclaimer: this is CR, and CR question-writers aren't worried about how their sentences would hold up in SC. Also, SC is about choosing the BEST of five different options, not analyzing a single sentence in a bubble -- so looking at a single sentence in a CR passage is a very different task from a full SC question.

That said, it's all about the timeline: when did archeologists find those traces?

The phrase "have been found" suggests that the "finding" of the traces happened between some unknown moment in the past and now, and that makes a lot of sense. Obviously the first traces were found at some specific moment in the past, and the archeologists certainly didn't discover all of those traces (throughout Europe and Asia) at the exact same moment in time.

Instead, the traces were found over some (presumably long) period of time that extends between the present moment and some moment in the past when the first traces were found. And that's exactly the timeline we want for a present perfect tense -- the action took place between (1) some moment in the past and (2) right now.

The phrase "traces are found" would imply that ALL of those traces are still there and are still being found. So did the archeologists just leave all that important evidence where they found it? Perhaps that's possible, but it makes a lot more sense to suggest that all of the different traces were found at various moments between now and some unspecified moment in the past.

I hope that helps!
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Traces of cultivated emmer wheat have been found among the earliest 19 Feb 2025, 03:25
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Hi,

Option D is supporting by protecting the authors reasoning.> well understood.
However, Option A is an exact analogy of the situation, Same location, similar domestication and then how it can be out of scope ? As in some strengthen question options with analogy was correct. Does it means that analogy options are always incorrect ?

pls help to understand.

KarishmaB
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Karisma, I appreciate your reply. But can you show the assumption which D increases the belief in. Kaplan classic method said that a strengthener is an assumption or new information which increases the belief in an assumption. that is the way a strengthener increases the belief in conclusion.

When you want to find the option that strengthens the argument, you need to find the option which strengthens the conclusion of the argument. Mind you, the given arguments are not perfect. You can always make them stronger/weaker. You have to identify the conclusion and then focus on strengthening it. The correct option makes the conclusion more believable. The conclusion is the main idea of the stimulus - it is the author's opinion based on the facts (the premises)

Here the conclusion is "emmer wheat was first domesticated somewhere in that strip."
We are given that wild emmer wheat has been growing in that strip and oldest remains of cultivated wheat have also been found in that strip itself.
An assumption here is that wild emmer wheat flourished in that region before the development of agriculture too. (that is how it could have been domesticated there)
By saying that the "climatic conditions have changed very little since before the development of agriculture", we are increasing the chances that wild emmer wheat flourished in that strip since before the development of agriculture. (The climatic conditions are favorable today and were the same at that time too.)
This strengthens the conclusion that emmer wheat was first domesticated somewhere in that strip. We don't establish the conclusion, we just make it more probable.
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Traces of cultivated emmer wheat have been found among the earliest 25 Feb 2025, 10:48
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ADNGMAT
Hi,

Option D is supporting by protecting the authors reasoning.> well understood.

However, Option A is an exact analogy of the situation, Same location, similar domestication and then how it can be out of scope ? As in some strengthen question options with analogy was correct. Does it means that analogy options are always incorrect ?

pls help to understand.
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(A) doesn't actually present an analogous situation.

The passage tells us that the narrow strip of southwest Asia is the only place where the wild form of emmer wheat has (recently) been found. That same strip is also where the oldest remains of cultivated emmer wheat have been found. So the author concludes that emmer wheat was first domesticated somewhere in that strip.

All we know from (A) is that there's some other wheat (einkon) that currently can be found in its wild form in a large area of southwest Asia -- an area much larger than the narrow strip. We are told that einkon was domesticated early on, but we have no idea where that domestication first occurred.

If that domestication occurred in the same large area of southwest Asia, then (A) would be analogous to the emmer example. But even if that were the case, (A) would still suffer from the same weakness as the emmer example. If the climate has changed drastically in that large area of southwest Asia, then it's possible that the einkon was NOT able to grow in its wild form in that same area many years ago.

In short, (A) is not analogous to the passage. Even if it were, that analogy would not actually strengthen the argument.

But that does NOT mean that analogy options are always wrong. Each example is different, so you have to carefully consider each unique option and decide whether the analogy actually strengthens the argument.

I hope that helps!
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Traces of cultivated emmer wheat have been found among the earliest 21 Oct 2025, 09:14
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Let's break down what the argument is actually saying:

The author concludes that emmer wheat was first domesticated in a narrow strip of southwest Asia. Why? Because:
  1. Wild emmer wheat only grows in that narrow strip today
  2. The oldest cultivated remains were also found in that same strip

Here's the key question you need to ask yourself:

What assumption is the author making about the distribution of wild wheat? Think about it—the author sees wild wheat growing in a narrow strip today and concludes that's where domestication first happened thousands of years ago.

Notice the logical gap? The argument assumes that where wild wheat grows now is where it grew back then. If that's not true, the whole argument falls apart.

Let's see why answer choice (D) strengthens this:

Choice (D) tells us that "climatic conditions have changed very little since before the development of agriculture."

This is exactly what we need! Here's why: If the climate had changed dramatically over thousands of years, wild emmer wheat might have originally grown across a much larger area but only survived in the current narrow strip due to climate shifts. In that case, we couldn't confidently say domestication first happened in the narrow strip—it could have happened elsewhere when wheat grew more widely.

By confirming climate stability, choice (D) validates the assumption that the current narrow distribution reflects the ancient distribution. This makes us more confident the narrow strip was indeed where domestication first occurred.

Quick check on wrong answers:

(A) Information about a different type of wheat (einkorn) doesn't affect our reasoning about emmer wheat's origin
(B) & (C) These explain why people might have domesticated emmer wheat, but don't strengthen where it was first domesticated
(E) This actually weakens by introducing doubt about whether the remains are even emmer wheat

The answer is (D).

Want to master the systematic approach for all Strengthen questions? You can check out the comprehensive breakdown on Neuron by e-GMAT here, where you'll find the complete framework for identifying assumptions, pre-thinking strategies, and how to recognize these patterns across different CR question types. You can also practice with detailed solutions for hundreds of other official GMAT questions on Neuron with personalized analytics to track your progress.

Hope this helps!
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