PT139.S3.P4.Q23

PrepTest 139 - Section 3 - Passage 4 - Question 23

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P1

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).
P2

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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.
P3

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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
P4

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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
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Other hypotheses · CM decline could be due to disease or introduction of non-native animals
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)
Show answer
23.

The author indicates that Temple's ████████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ █████████

a

was largely concerned ████ ███████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████

This is stated in P1––Temple researched endangered birds in Mauritius.

57%
b

furnished him with ███ █████ ███ ███ ██████ ████████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████████ ████████ ██ ████████ █████ ████

Unsupported. We see that his estimates of the crush-resistant strength of the Calvaria major pits came from test results, but the author doesn’t say that these test results yielded highly accurate estimates. Also, P3 doesn’t specify that these test results came from Temple’s research on birds from Mauritius specifically. Remember, for this question, we are looking for something that the author states about Temple’s research on birds from Mauritius.

6%
c

provided experimental evidence ████ ████ ██████ ██████ ████████ █████ ███████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ █████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ████████

Unsupported. We see that Temple estimated the abrasive force generated by the dodo’s gizzard from studies of other birds. However, direct proof was unattainable, so we don’t know the actual abrasive force generated by the dodo’s gizzard. Because of this, there is not support for the claim that modern birds’ gizzards exert roughly the same amount of abrasive force as the dodos’ gizzards did––the author says that Temple made estimates, but we don’t know if these estimates were accurate.

14%
d

was comprehensive in █████ ███ █████████ ████ ██████████████ █████████

Unsupported. The author doesn’t provide any judgement on how comprehensive or precise Temple’s research on the birds of Mauritius was.

3%
e

was originally inspired ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ██████████ ███████ ████████ █████ ████ ████ ████████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ █████████

Unsupported. We know that Temple’s investigation of Calvaria major was a sidelight to his research on the endangered birds of Mauritius; the author doesn’t say that his research on the birds of Mauritus was inspired by observations of the Calvaria major pits.

20%

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