Self-study
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.
Temple's hypothesis ·
CM declined because of extinction of dodo
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.
Temple's Support 1 ·
CM seeds could likely survive passing through dodo's stomach
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
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.
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)
25.
The passage indicates which one ██ ███ █████████ █████ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ █████ ███ ██████
Question Type
Stated
This is a Stated question about the abrasion of Calvaria major pit walls. The author discusses the abrasion of Calvaria major pit walls throughout the passage, so we can’t preprahase a specific answer, but remember that the correct answer will be supported by the passage.
a
Thinning through abrasion ██ ███ █████████ ███ ███████████ ██ ████████ █████ ██████
This is
b
In Temple's experiment, ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██████ ████████ ████████ █████ ██████ ██████████ ████ █████ ████ ██████████
Anti-supported. Actually, in P3, we see that many of the pits fed to turkeys were
c
Temple was mistaken ██ █████████ ████ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ █████ █████ ████ ████ ██████████ ██ ████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ███ ███████████ ███████
Unsupported. We know that the author thinks that Temple was probably mistaken about his overall hypothesis, but we don’t know if Temple was mistaken about the claim in (C) specifically. Temple may have been right about the abrasion caused by dodos, even if his overall hypothesis was wrong. We just don’t have the information to claim that Temple was mistaken in this belief specifically.
d
Abrasion of Calvaria █████ ███ █████ ██ ███ █████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████████ ████████ ██ ████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████
Unsupported. The passage doesn’t address the frequency with which this abrasion occurred in past centuries, and we don’t have enough information to make a general comparison between what happened in past centuries and what happens today. We might be able to infer what Temple thinks about this, but remember that the author disagrees with Temple. Either way, (D) is not stated in the passage.
e
Temple overlooked the ████ ████ █████ ███████ █████████████ ██████ ████ ████ ████████ ████████ █████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ █████
Unsupported. The passage doesn’t say that something else has been abrading pit walls since the dodo went extinct, so we can’t say that this is a fact that Temple overlooked. The author does indicate that Temple’s overall hypothesis (that the extinction of the dodo caused the population decline of the trees) is probably incorrect, but the passage never says that Temple was wrong specifically for the reason stated in (E).