PT135.S3.P4.Q24

PrepTest 135 - Section 3 - Passage 4 - Question 24

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P1

As part of an international effort to address environmental problems resulting from agricultural overproduction, hundreds of thousands of acres of surplus farmland throughout Europe will be taken out of production in coming years. ███

Problem and Solution · Problem: overproduction / solution: let farms lie fallow
We're farming too hard and that's harming the environment. Solution is to let farms sit there and don't plant anything.
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Problem Details · Too few nutrients; too much fertilizer
Farming depleted nutrients and introduced fertilizers. That makes it difficult to restore the land to "natural balance of flora." In particular, thistles (a weed) will crowd out other flora.
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Impractical Solution · Remove and replace the topsoil
Impractical because we're not talking about my backyard garden. We're talking at the scale of hundreds of thousands of acres.
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Potential Solution · Artificially accelerate recovery
Netherlands is doing a study to see if they can speed up natural recovery.
P2

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Experimental Setup · Control v. intervention groups
Two control groups: (C1) lie fallow and (C2) grow corn. Two intervention groups: (I1) grow mixture of native flora and (I2) grow native flora plus clover and toadflax.
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Results · Intervention works
Both intervention groups forced out thistles (a weed). The fallow control group (C1) was overtaken by thistles.
P3

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Experiment setup · Another intervention group
(C3) grow mixture of native flora and mix in 20 years recovered soil. This intervention group is meant to test whether microorganisms in the soil would have beneficial effects.
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Results · Intervention works
Flora grew better on the enriched plots.
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Conclusion · Microorganisms in the soil are important for restoring natural flora
Researchers conclude (hypothesize with supporting evidence) that over farmed land contain too many disease organisms and too few beneficial organisms.
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Solution · Sow beneficial microorganisms into soil
Passage Style
Problem-analysis
Single position
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24.

The author's reference to the ██████ ████ ████████ ██████████ ███████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ████ █████████ ████ █████ █████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ██████████ █████████ ██████ ██

a

introduce a long-held ██████ ████ ███ ███████████ █████ ██ ██████████ ██ █████████

The study isn’t trying to discredit the idea that damaged systems can eventually restore themselves.

8%
b

cite the justification █████████ ████ ██ ██████ ████████ ███████ ████████████ ██████████

The doesn’t mention people favoring intense agricultural production or why they want intense agricultural production.

5%
c

suggest that the ████████████ ██ ████████████ ██████████████ ███ ███ ██ ████ ██ ██████ █████████ ███████

The author never tries to minimize the consequences of agricultural overproduction. She never suggests they’re exaggerated. Rather, the author tells us about the belief to provide context for the Netherlands study.

6%
d

present the most ██████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████████ ██████████████ ██ ███████████

The author never describes the “most common” perception of why agricultural overproduction is problematic. In addition, the belief referenced relates to how ecosystems can recover, not to why overproduction is a problem.

4%
e

describe the circumstances ███████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███████████ █████

This best captures the purpose of mentioning the belief. It’s context for the study. People accept that damaged ecological systems will eventually heal. But we want it to heal faster. The Netherlands study is investigating a potential way to help the ecological systems heal faster.

78%

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