PT157.S2.Q7 > Question

SECTION 1 · rc

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SECTION 3 · lr

SECTION 4 · rc

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Let’s learn about mu mesons! These mesons originate just outside Earth’s atmosphere, and shoot to Earth nearly at light speed. There are also some lab-generated mesons, which are at rest, but decay faster than the time it takes for an atmospheric meson to travel to Earth. If atmospheric mesons decayed that fast, we would expect to only pick up about 1/100th as many as we do using equipment on Earth (because they would almost all decay during the journey).

Based on the actual number of mu mesons detected, we can infer that mesons moving near light speed decay more slowly than mesons generated in the lab at rest.

This is anti-supported. The stimulus makes us think that mu mesons might actually decay very fast, so if they took longer to reach Earth, we would be seeing fewer than expected. Instead, we’re seeing more.

This is not supported. The stimulus never mentions any difficulty with detecting mesons. Quite the opposite, we’re actually detecting many more than we would expect based on how fast they decay in the lab!

This is anti-supported. The stimulus never questions the number of mu mesons, and even talks about how we’re actually seeing way more mesons than lab results would suggest. If anything, there might be more of them, not fewer.

This is strongly supported. The stimulus says that we detect way too many mesons based on how fast they decay when at rest, but never questions the original number of mesons. This leaves us the explanation that fast-moving mesons just don’t decay that fast.

This is anti-supported. The stimulus states as a fact that mu mesons in the atmosphere are generated by cosmic rays, and never contradicts that or gives us a reason to think otherwise.

PrepTest 157 - Section 2 - Question 7

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