Complicating factor ·El Nino can magnify the apparent cooling effect of a volcano
El Nino causes temporary warming, which fades away. If eruption happens during warming, that might hide the actual effect of the volcano. But, if eruption happens while El Nino warming is fading away, that makes effect of eruption seem larger than it is.
Correcting for complicating factor ·Show volcanos don't cause as much cooling as previously thought
After M and P subtracted effect of El Nino, found (1) minor eruptions have no discernible effect on temperature; (2) major eruptions cause smaller drop than expected in hemisphere of the eruption, and an even smaller drop in the other hemisphere.
Climatic feedback loop ·Small temperature drop leads to causal chain of effects that could lead to major cooling in a region
Delayed melting of snow leads to more sunlight reflected, which affect jet stream...at this point I'm not focusing too much on the details. We can come back to this paragraph if we're asked about the climatic feedback loop.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)
12.
The information in the passage ████████ ███ █████ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████
Question Type
Implied
The four wrong answers will have support. The correct answer will not have support, because we’re looking for what is LEAST supported.
a
Major volcanic eruptions ████ █ ███████████ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████████
Supported. If we can tell that the temperature decreases by only up to half a degree centigrade in one hemisphere, and less in the other hemisphere, then we are able to detect (discern) an effect on global temperature.
15%
b
The effect of █████ ████████ █████████ ██ ██████ ███████████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ██████████ ████████
Supported.
2%
c
Major volcanic eruptions ████ ██ ███████████ ██████ ██ ████████ ████████████
Anti-supported. If we know major volcanic eruptions can decrease average temperature by up to half a degree centigrade in a hemisphere, that’s evidence we can detect (discern) an effect on regional temperature.
This is a difficult question.
It is similar in difficulty to other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%149
159
75%168
Analysis
Implied
Implied
Stems asking us to infer an idea implied by the claims in the passage (as opposed to identifying an idea that appears explicitly). Similar to most strongly supported questions in LR.
Critique or debate passages contain multiple points of view on a particular subject. Sometimes the author takes sides and participates in the critique or debate, other times the author merely reports the debate.
Passages that focus on describing or evaluating potential explanations for a given phenomenon. Causal reasoning features prominently in these passages.