Self-study
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Results ·
Intervention works
Flora grew better on the enriched plots.
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.
Solution ·
Sow beneficial microorganisms into soil
Passage Style
Problem-analysis
Single position
22.
The passage offers which one ██ ███ █████████ ██ ██ ███████████ ███ ███ ██████ █████ █████████ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ██ ██████████ ███ ██ █████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ████████ ████ ████ █████ ████ ████ █████
a
Land that has ████ ██████ ███ ████ █████ █████ ███████ ███ ██████████
The author doesn’t suggest that land farmed for many years lacks certain nutrients. The suggested explanation is that this land has too many disease organisms and not enough beneficial microorganisms.
b
Land that has ████ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███████ ████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██████████
Supported. The plots grown using the enriched soil (which is the same land that has been farmed for many years) were likely “
c
Land that has ████ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ █████████ ██ ██████████████████
Overfertilization isn’t presented as the difference between growth patterns on different kinds of land in the study. The suggested explanation is that land that has been farmed for many years has too many disease organisms and not enough beneficial microorganisms.
d
The soil that ███ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ██ ██████████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ██████████ ██████████
This is anti-supported. The land that had been farmed for many years
e
The soil that ███ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ██ ██████████ █████████ ███████ █████████ ████ ██████ █████ ██████
This confuses which land was overrun with harmful organisms. The land that had been farmed for many years was overrun with harmful organisms. The land that had been taken out of production wasn’t overrun with harmful organisms. So the soil that was taken from the land that had been out of production likely didn’t have many harmful organisms.