medium · GMAT Verbal

Which of the following best explains how the oral account can be both accurate and anachronistic?

1. Geologists have separately dated several other ancient floods that struck the same region in prehistory.
2. Each generation retold the flood story but recast its heroes as whichever clan held power at the time of the telling.
3. The community's current ruling clan keeps detailed written genealogical records documenting each of its own two centuries of history.
4. Oral histories passed down purely by word of mouth tend, as a general rule, to be less reliable than carefully kept written ones.
5. The ancient flood was severe enough to permanently reshape the local river system and its banks.

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