PrepTest 106 - Section 4 - Passage 2 - Question 7

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Long after the lava has cooled, the effects of a major volcanic eruption may linger on. ██ ███ ██████████ █ ████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ████████ ████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ███ ██████ ███████████ ████ █████████ ███████ ████ ████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ████████ ██ ████ █ ████████ █████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███

Researcher's perspective · Effects of a major volcanic eruption can chill Earth by blocking sunlight

Researcher's example · Tambora volcano eruption in 1815

Some think this caused colder weather in parts of North American the next year.

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Mass and Portman (M and P) perspective · Volcano effect on climate not as strong as previously believed

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Complicating factor · El Nino can magnify the apparent cooling effect of a volcano

El Nino causes temporary warming, which fades away. If eruption happens during warming, that might hide the actual effect of the volcano. But, if eruption happens while El Nino warming is fading away, that makes effect of eruption seem larger than it is.

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Correcting for complicating factor · Show volcanos don't cause as much cooling as previously thought

After M and P subtracted effect of El Nino, found (1) minor eruptions have no discernible effect on temperature; (2) major eruptions cause smaller drop than expected in hemisphere of the eruption, and an even smaller drop in the other hemisphere.

Other researchers' perspective · Climatic feedback loops can make small cooling effect turn into larger one

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Climatic feedback loop · Small temperature drop leads to causal chain of effects that could lead to major cooling in a region

Delayed melting of snow leads to more sunlight reflected, which affect jet stream...at this point I'm not focusing too much on the details. We can come back to this paragraph if we're asked about the climatic feedback loop.

Passage Style

Critique or debate

Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)

Not taking the effects of ██ █████ ████ ███████ ████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ █████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ███████ ███

Question Type

Analogy (RC)

In P2, the author notes that El Nino can mask or mimic the effect of a volcano on temperature, because El Nino is a weather phenomenon that can temporarily increase temperature. For example, overall temperature might appear to increase significantly, but a large portion of that increase might be due to El Nino rather than a volcanic eruption. If we don’t take the effect of El Nino into account, then we might mistakenly attribute the entire increase to the volcanic eruption. Let’s look for an answer that involves failing to take into account one factor (El Nino) that contributes to part of a change (global temperature increase).

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This involves failing to take into account the whole (weight of a package) rather than the weight of a part. (A) would have been correct if it had said “weight of the packing material when determining the weight of the contents of a package based on the weight of the package as a whole.”

21%

monetary value of ███ █████ ██ █ ████ ████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████

This doesn’t involve failing to take into account a part. The monetary value of the coins in a pile is similar to the whole — so (B) is more similar to failing to take into account the whole.

magnification of a ████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████ ██ ██ ██████ ████ ███████ ███ ████

This doesn’t involve failing to take into account a part. The magnification of a lens isn’t something that can be subtracted from a whole in the way that the effect of El Nino can be subtracted from the change in global temperature.

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(D) involves the potential use of false data as part of determining the average annual number of crimes committed. This isn’t analogous, because the temperature change attributable to El Nino isn’t something false or fake — it legitimately affects the temperature, but is something we want to exclude if we’re trying to determine the effect of a volcanic eruption. (D) would have been correct if scientists were trying to exclude false, fake, or unreliable data from our determination of the magnitude of a change in temperature.

29%

ages of new ██████████ ██ █ ███████ ██████ ███████████ █ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██████████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████

To determine whether a change in average age is attributable to a change in number of births, we need to exclude the impact of another potential factor — the ages of new immigrants to the country, which would also affect average age. This is analogous to the need to exclude the impact of El Nino when determining how much of a temperature change is attributable to a volcanic eruption.

43%

PrepTest 106 - Section 4 - Passage 2 - Question 7

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