|Question 12Verbal

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The percent of cities and towns in a given period that persist from a prior period (backward continuity) and the percent that persist into a later period (forward continuity) are known to correlate positively with economic and political stability in a region. Researchers studying demographic trends in the Indigenous societies of ancient Mexico determined both continuity measures for the Yautepec Valley, which lay within the macroregional hegemony of the city-state of Teotihuacan from roughly 100 BCE until roughly 450 CE, after which point Teotihuacan declined. The team concluded that ______
Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the text?
Teotihuacan's hegemony imposed stability on the Yautepec Valley, mitigating the decrease in the compound average annual growth rate of the valley's population as well as the decrease in the number of cities and towns there in the Early Classic and Middle Classic.
A
the marginal decrease in the compound average annual growth rate of the Yautepec Valley's population in the Early Classic was likely associated with the widespread abandonment of cities and towns established in the Terminal Formative.
B
values for both backward and forward continuity in the Yautepec Valley were consistently higher during the centuries of Teotihuacan's hegemony than they were in the period following the collapse of the hegemony.
C
although the forward continuity data suggest that the decline of Teotihuacan occasioned economic and political instability in the Yautepec Valley, these developments were nonetheless associated with a net increase in the valley's population.
D