Question

There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: And probably much earlier, moving the documentation for kissing back 1,000 years compared to what was acknowledged in the scientific community.
Paragraph: Research has hypothesised that the earliest evidence of human lip kissing originated in a very specific geographical location in South Asia 3,500 years ago.___(1)___. From there it may have spread to other regions, simultaneously accelerating the spread of the herpes simplex virus 1. According to Dr Troels Pank Arbøll and Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen, who in a new article in the journal Science draw on a range of written sources from the earliest Mesopotamian societies, kissing was already a well-established practice 4,500 years ago in the Middle East.___(2)___. In ancient Mesopotamia, people wrote in cuneiform script on clay tablets.___(3)___. Many thousands of these clay tablets have survived to this day, and they contain clear examples that kissing was considered a part of romantic intimacy in ancient times.___(4)___. “Kissing could also have been part of friendships and family members' relations," says Dr Troels Pank Arbøll, an expert on the history of medicine in Mesopotamia.

• A. Option 1
• B. Option 4
• C. Option 3
• D. Option 2

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

The sentence is most appropriate for Blank 2, as its placement enhances the timeline's detail and questions current scientific perspectives, thereby ensuring logical paragraph progression. It is unsuitable for Blank 1 because it fails to build upon the preceding sentence. Inclusion in Blank 3 or Blank 4 would impede the paragraph's coherence due to the established relationship between the sentences surrounding those blanks.

Consequently, the optimal choice is (D): option 2.