PrepTest 122 - Section 3 - Passage 4 - Question 26

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Every culture that has adopted the cultivation of maize—also known as corn—has been radically changed by it. ███

intro topic · Influence of maize

explain significance · of maize

Contributed to development of agrarian and urban societies, and European population growth

hypothesis · Maize's influence is due to its productivity

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phenomenon · Productivity of maize

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Intro to hypothesis · Biochemistry provides the answer

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Context · Explanation of photosynthesis

Water splits into hydrogen and oxygen, hydrogen produces energy. Meanwhile, carbon dioxide builds sugars with help from enzyme (rubisco).

Problem · Too much oxygen interferes with photosynthesis

Enzyme supposed to work with carbon dioxide, but oxygen binds to enzyme instead, meaning less enzyme available to work with carbon dioxide

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Solution (hypothesis) · Different method of photosynthesis

Enzyme (rubisco) is kept separate from atmospheric gases (e.g., oxygen and carbon dioxide)

Complication with hypothesis · Carbon dioxide cannot reach enzyme as gas

Solution: Carbon dioxide becomes nongas molecule (C-4) in order to reach enzyme and drive photosynthesis

Strengthen hypothesis · Other highly productive crops use this method of photosynthesis

Passage Style

Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)

Single position

26.

The author of the passage █████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████

Question Type

Author’s perspective

Implied

This is an inference from the author's perspective question. While we’re not given much direction in the question stem, we should keep in mind the author's main point: maize is so productive because it uses C-4 photosynthesis, which separates oxygen gas from the rubisco enzyme.

Maize's impressive productivity ██████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ██ █████████████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████████

Anti-supported. This gets the relationship backward. It’s not that we need to understand maize’s cultural influences to understand its productivity. Rather, we need to understand its productivity to understand its cultural influences. And the author believes that to understand its productivity, we should look at the biochemistry of its photosynthesis. She never suggests that cultural influences have any part in understanding maize’s productivity.

Maize is an ███████ ██ █ █████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ █ ██████████ ██ ███████████████

Anti-supported. The author states that in all plants, oxygen is produced as a by-product of splitting water during photosynthesis.

Maize's high yields ███ ███ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██ ███ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███████ █████ ██████████ ██ ████████

Unsupported. The author discusses the productivity of maize purely in terms of maize’s use of C-4. She doesn’t give any consideration to the quantities of rubisco produced in maize or any other plant.

Until maize was ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ████████ ███████████ ██████ ███ ████████████ ██████████ ████████ ███ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ ███████

Unsupported. The author simply notes that maize helped drive European population growth after the 15th century. She doesn’t give any consideration to what agricultural techniques Europeans had, or whether Europeans were ever able to grow other C-4 plants besides maize. It’s possible they were growing other C-4 plants long before they encountered maize.

Maize's C-4 photosynthesis ██ ██ ███████ ██ ██ █████████ ████████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ███████

Strongly supported. Maize's C-4 photosynthesis is an evolutionary adaptation that improves crop productivity, thereby benefiting humans.

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PrepTest 122 - Section 3 - Passage 4 - Question 26

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