PT139.S3.P4.Q26

PrepTest 139 - Section 3 - Passage 4 - Question 26

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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
26.

It can be most logically ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ███████ ████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ███████ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████

a

essentially correct, but ██████████ ████ ██████████ ███████

Unsupported. Remember that the author cites research that indicates that Calvaria major actually didn’t lose the ability to reproduce, which contradicts Temple’s hypothesis, so the author wouldn’t think that Temple’s hypothesis is essentially correct.

6%
b

initially implausible, but ██████████ ██ ███ █████████ ████████

Unsupported. Remember that the author cites research that indicates that Calvaria major actually didn’t lose the ability to reproduce, which contradicts Temple’s hypothesis, so the author doesn’t think that Temple’s hypothesis was vindicated.

7%
c

an example of █ ████████ ██████████ ███████████ ███████ █ ████████████ ███████ ████ ██ █████████

Unsupported. Remember that the author cites research that indicates that Calvaria major actually didn’t lose the ability to reproduce, which contradicts Temple’s hypothesis, so the author probably doesn’t think that this is a valuable scientific achievement.

8%
d

laudable for its ███████ ███████████ ███ ███ █████████ ██ ██████████ ██████

Unsupported. Remember that the author cites research that indicates that Calvaria major actually didn’t lose the ability to reproduce, which contradicts Temple’s hypothesis, so the author wouldn’t describe Temple’s hypothesis as laudable for its precision and attention to detail.

11%
e

an attempt to ███████ █ █████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ██ ████ █████

Supported. The author cites research that indicates that Calvaria major actually didn’t lose the ability to reproduce, so the author would think that Temple’s hypothesis about what caused the trees to lose their ability to reproduce would be attempting to explain something that wasn’t actually happening.

69%

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