PrepTest 139 - Section 3 - Passage 4 - Question 22

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Calvaria major. ██ █ ████ ███ █████████████ ████ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ █████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████ █ █████ ██████████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████ █████ █████ █████████ ████ ███

Intro topic / phenomenon · Calvaria major (CM)

CM is rare today, but used to be abundant. Found on an island that used to have dodos.

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Temple's hypothesis · CM declined because of extinction of dodo

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Temple's findings · Found very few CM trees, all old

The trees produced apparently fertile fruit. Temple thought the fruits couldn't germinate (sprout new CM trees).

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Temple's proposed causal mechanism · CM seeds in fruit adapted to dodo

Dodos ate CM fruits. Seeds in fruit became thick to withstand passing through dodos' stomachs. But seeds were so thick they couldn't germinate without passing through dodos' stomachs. When dodos went extinct, seeds couldn't germinate.

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Temple's Support · No direct proof, but some supporting findings

"Semblance of rigor" means argument looked rigorous. But, suggests not actually rigorous.

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Temple's Support 1 · CM seeds could likely survive passing through dodo's stomach

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Temple's support 2 · Some CM seeds germinated after passing through turkey stomachs

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Critique of Temple's hypothesis · Leading specialists challenge Temple

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Challenge 1 · There are lots of young CM trees

This shows CM seeds have continued to germinate after dodo went extinct. Inconsistent with Temple's hypothesis.

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Challenge 2 · Enough CM seeds germinate to sustain CM species

Other hypotheses · CM decline could be due to disease or introduction of non-native animals

Passage Style

Critique or debate

Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)

22.

Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ███ ████████

Question Type

Main point

The main point of this Phenomenon-Hypothesis passage is the criticism of Stanley Temple’s hypothesis explaining the population decline of Calvaria major trees. Temple thinks that the extinction of the dodo birds caused the population decline of the trees; in response, the author cites challenges from other specialists and suggests potential alternative hypotheses.

Calvaria major germination, ██████ █████ ██ ████████ ████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████

While this is stated by the author, this is not the main point. The main point is the author’s criticism of Temple’s hypothesis; (A) gives information that supports the main point.

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The author’s main point is that Temple’s hypothesis is probably wrong––that is, the population decline of Calvaria major trees probably wasn’t caused by the extinction of the dodo.

78%

Temple's experimentation with ████████ █████ █████ ██████ ████████████████ ████████ ████████████ ███ ██ █ ████████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████

The author’s point is actually that Temple’s experimentation probably didn’t solve the mystery. The author’s main point is that Temple is probably wrong.

Temple's dramatic but ███████████ ███████████ ██████ █████████ ███████ ██████████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ████████████ ██ ████████

The main point is that Temple is probably wrong, not that he may be correct.

Calvaria major would ████████ █████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███ ██████ ████████

Unsupported. The main point of the passage is to criticize Temple’s hypothesis, not to make predictions about what would happen to the Calvaria major trees under different conditions.

PrepTest 139 - Section 3 - Passage 4 - Question 22

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