CAT — Science And Technology RC
36 questions, free to view. Click any question to see the answer and explanation.
The history of any major technological or industrial advance is inevitably shadowed by a less predictable history of unintended consequences and secondary effects — what economists sometimes call "externalities." Sometimes those consequences are innocuous ones, or even beneficial. Gutenberg invents the printing press, and literacy rates rise, which causes a significant part of the reading public to require spectacles for the first time, which creates a surge of investment in lens-making across Europe, which leads to the invention of the telescope and the microscope.
Oftentimes the secondary effects seem to belong to an entirely different sphere of society. When Willis Carrier hit upon the idea of air-conditioning, the technology was primarily intended for industrial use: ensuring cool, dry air for factories that required low-humidity environments. But…it touched off one of the largest migrations in the history of the United States, enabling the rise of metropolitan areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas that barely existed when Carrier first started tinkering with the idea in the early 1900s.
Sometimes the unintended consequence comes about when consumers use an invention in a surprising way. Edison famously thought his phonograph, which he sometimes called "the talking machine," would primarily be used to take dictation….But then later innovators…discovered a much larger audience willing to pay for musical recordings made on descendants of Edison's original invention. In other cases, the original innovation comes into the world disguised as a plaything…the way the animatronic dolls of the mid-1700s inspired Jacquard to invent the first "programmable" loom and Charles Babbage to invent the first machine that fit the modern definition of a computer, setting the stage for the revolution in programmable technology that would transform the 21st century in countless ways.
We live under the gathering storm of modern history's most momentous unintended consequence….carbon-based climate change. Imagine the vast sweep of inventors whose ideas started the Industrial Revolution, all the entrepreneurs and scientists and hobbyists who had a hand in bringing it about. Line up a thousand of them and ask them all what they had been hoping to do with their work. Not one would say that their intent had been to deposit enough carbon in the atmosphere to create a greenhouse effect that trapped heat at the surface of the planet. And yet here we are.
Ethyl (leaded fuel) and Freon belonged to the same general class of secondary effect: innovations whose unintended consequences stem from some kind of waste by-product that they emit. But the potential health threats of Ethyl (unleaded fuel) were visible in the 1920s, unlike, say, the long-term effects of atmospheric carbon build up in the early days of the Industrial Revolution….
Indeed, it is reasonable to see CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) as a forerunner of the kind of threat we will most likely face in the coming decades, as it becomes increasingly possible for individuals or small groups to create new scientific advances — through chemistry or biotechnology or materials science — setting off unintended consequences that reverberate on a global scale.
The author lists all of the following examples as "externalities" of major technical advances EXCEPT:
build-up of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere
cooling and de-humidifying of factories through air-conditioning
application of the Jacquard loom to modern IT programming
extension of the phonograph to large-scale recording of music
cooling and de-humidifying of factories through air-conditioning
The passage identifies externalities as unintended consequences or secondary effects of technological advances. Air-conditioning's cooling and de-humidifying of factories was the original intended use of the technology, not an unintended consequence. All the other options describe secondary, unintended effects of inventions.
Which of the following best conveys the main point of the first paragraph?
The secondary effects of most major technological advances in the past, especially if they were unintended, have turned out to be beneficial.
The full impact of technological advances cannot be estimated in the short run as the ripple effects often extend far beyond the original intent.
It is important to judge an invention not by its immediate outcomes, but by the holistic impact of its secondary effects.
The entire impact of a technological advance should be evaluated by the boost its secondary effects gives to generating further technological advances.
The full impact of technological advances cannot be estimated in the short run as the ripple effects often extend far beyond the original intent.
The first paragraph uses the Gutenberg printing press example to show how one technological advance triggered a chain of consequences, literacy requiring spectacles, which drove investment in lenses, which led to telescopes and microscopes, that were far removed from the original intent and difficult to predict in advance.
Carrier, Babbage, and Edison are mentioned in the passage to illustrate the author's point that
the secondary effect of past inventions mostly resulted in the creation of new inventions.
these inventors could not have visualised the eventual impact of their inventions on society.
despite the original intention, the unintended consequences of their inventions were largely beneficial.
inventions typically end up being used for entirely different purposes than the intended ones.
these inventors could not have visualised the eventual impact of their inventions on society.
The passage mentions Carrier, Babbage and Edison specifically to show that their inventions had consequences and applications that went well beyond what they had originally envisioned, Carrier's air-conditioning transforming migration patterns, Edison's phonograph becoming a music medium, and Babbage's work inspired by toys setting the stage for programmable technology.
We can assume that the author would support all of the following views EXCEPT:
While technological advances in the past have had innocuous or beneficial outcomes, more recent advances have the potential to be more threatening globally.
The by-products of leaded fuel, rather than the fuel itself, were responsible for the build-up of carbon-related gases in the atmosphere.
It has become far easier for people today to bring out innovations with dire worldwide consequences than it was earlier.
The emissions caused by the large-scale use of leaded fuel ought to have been addressed earlier than they were.
While technological advances in the past have had innocuous or beneficial outcomes, more recent advances have the potential to be more threatening globally.
The passage explicitly states that the potential health threats of leaded fuel were visible as early as the 1920s, unlike the long-term effects of atmospheric carbon during the early Industrial Revolution. The passage's overall arc moves from innocuous or beneficial externalities in the past to increasingly threatening ones as technology becomes more accessible. The author does not claim that past advances had innocuous outcomes while more recent ones are threatening, as a blanket statement.
Fears of artificial intelligence (AI) have haunted humanity since the very beginning of the computer age. Hitherto, these fears focused on machines using physical means to kill, enslave or replace people. But over the past couple of years, new AI tools have emerged that threaten the survival of human civilisation from an unexpected direction. AI has gained some remarkable abilities to manipulate and generate language, whether with words, sounds or images. AI has thereby hacked the operating system of our civilisation.
Language is the stuff almost all human culture is made of. Human rights, for example, aren't inscribed in our DNA. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by telling stories and writing laws. Gods aren't physical realities. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by inventing myths and writing scriptures….What would happen once a non-human intelligence becomes better than the average human at telling stories, composing melodies, drawing images, and writing laws and scriptures? When people think about Chatgpt and other new AI tools, they are often drawn to examples like schoolchildren using AI to write their essays. What will happen to the school system when kids do that? But this kind of question misses the big picture. Forget about school essays. Think of the next American presidential race in 2024, and try to imagine the impact of AI tools that can be made to mass-produce political content, fake news stories and scriptures for new cults…
Through its mastery of language, AI could even form intimate relationships with people, and use the power of intimacy to change our opinions and worldviews. Although there is no indication that AI has any consciousness or feelings of its own, to foster fake intimacy with humans, it is enough if the AI can make them feel emotionally attached to it….
What will happen to the course of history when AI takes over culture, and begins producing stories, melodies, laws and religions? Previous tools like the printing press and radio helped spread the cultural ideas of humans, but they never created new cultural ideas of their own. AI is fundamentally different. AI can create completely new ideas, completely new culture….Of course, the new power of AI could be used for good purposes as well. I won't dwell on this because the people who develop AI talk about it enough….
We can still regulate the new AI tools, but we must act quickly. Whereas nukes cannot invent more powerful nukes, AI can make exponentially more powerful AI.… Unregulated AI deployments would create social chaos, which would benefit autocrats and ruin democracies. Democracy is a conversation, and conversations rely on language. When AI hacks language, it could destroy our ability to have meaningful conversations, thereby destroying democracy …. And the first regulation I would suggest is to make it mandatory for AI to disclose that it is an AI. If I am having a conversation with someone, and I cannot tell whether it is a human or an AI—that's the end of democracy. This text has been generated by a human. Or has it?
The author identifies all of the following as dire outcomes of the capture of language by AI EXCEPT that it could
spawn a completely new culture through its ability to create new ideas and opinions.
out-strip human creativity and endeavours in the spheres such as art and music and, in the formulation of laws.
eventually subvert democratic processes through the mass creation and spread of fake political content and news.
apply its mastery of language to create strong emotional ties which could exacerbate the polarization of political views.
apply its mastery of language to create strong emotional ties which could exacerbate the polarization of political views.
The author identifies the polarisation of political views as a danger, but not through AI creating strong emotional ties. The passage says AI could form intimate relationships and change opinions and worldviews through the power of intimacy, but it does not specifically claim this will exacerbate political polarisation. The author's concern is about AI changing views through fake intimacy, not about the polarisation that might result from it, making this a subtle step beyond what the passage actually states.
The author terms language "the operating system of our civilization" for all the following reasons EXCEPT that it
can influence political views and opinions as it engenders close emotional ties among people.
is the basis of AI tools like ChatGPT which can be used to generate academic content and opinion.
is fundamental to the articulation and spread of human values and culture in our society.
has laid the foundation for the creation of cultural artefacts through writing and telling of stories.
is the basis of AI tools like ChatGPT which can be used to generate academic content and opinion.
The author calls language the operating system of civilisation because it is the medium through which human values, culture, laws, religious beliefs and social institutions are created and transmitted. ChatGPT and AI tools are the threats to this operating system, not part of the reason language is called the operating system, so its use in generating academic content is not a reason for the metaphor.
We can infer that the author is most likely to agree with which of the following statements?
People's fears of the dangers of students using ChatGPT and other new AI tools are unfounded.
The commonly expressed fear that future AI developments will fatally harm humans is unfounded.
Apart from its drawbacks, AI tools have been beneficial in boosting technological and industrial advance worldwide.
One of the biggest casualties from the spread of unregulated AI is likely to be the democratic process.
One of the biggest casualties from the spread of unregulated AI is likely to be the democratic process.
The passage explicitly argues that unregulated AI would create social chaos benefiting autocrats and ruining democracies, and that AI hacking language could destroy meaningful conversation and thereby destroy democracy. This is the most clearly stated and developed concern in the passage.
The tone of the passage could best be described as
cautionary, because the author lays out some adverse effects of the proliferation of unregulated AI tools.
prescient, as the author analyses the future impact of the use of new AI tools on crucial areas of our society and culture.
alarmist, because the passage discusses scenarios of the influence of new AI tools on language and human emotions.
quizzical, as the passage poses several questions, concluding with the question of whether or not the passage content has been generated by AI.
cautionary, because the author lays out some adverse effects of the proliferation of unregulated AI tools.
The passage methodically identifies serious risks from AI, mass production of fake political content, AI forming fake intimate relationships to manipulate opinions, destruction of democratic processes, and the need for urgent regulation. The tone is a warning about specific adverse effects, which is cautionary.
In [my book "Searches"], I chronicle how big technology companies have exploited human language for their gain. We let this happen, I argue, because we also benefit somewhat from using the products. It's a dynamic that makes us complicit in big tech's accumulation of wealth and power: we're both victims and beneficiaries. I describe this complicity, but I also enact it, through my own internet archives: my Google searches, my Amazon product reviews and, yes, my ChatGPT dialogues. . . .
People often describe chatbots' textual output as "bland" or "generic" — the linguistic equivalent of a beige office building. OpenAI's products are built to "sound like a colleague", as OpenAI puts it, using language that, coming from a person, would sound "polite", "empathetic", "kind", "rationally optimistic" and "engaging", among other qualities. OpenAI describes these strategies as helping its products seem "professional" and "approachable". This appears to be bound up with making us feel safe . . .
Trust is a challenge for artificial intelligence (AI) companies, partly because their products regularly produce falsehoods and reify sexist, racist, US-centric cultural norms. While the companies are working on these problems, they persist: OpenAI found that its latest systems generate errors at a higher rate than its previous system. In the book, I wrote about the inaccuracies and biases and also demonstrated them with the products. When I prompted Microsoft's Bing Image Creator to produce a picture of engineers and space explorers, it gave me an entirely male cast of characters; when my father asked ChatGPT to edit his writing, it transmuted his perfectly correct Indian English into American English. Those weren't flukes. Research suggests that both tendencies are widespread.
In my own ChatGPT dialogues, I wanted to enact how the product's veneer of collegial neutrality could lull us into absorbing false or biased responses without much critical engagement. Over time, ChatGPT seemed to be guiding me to write a more positive book about big tech — including editing my description of OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, to call him "a visionary and a pragmatist". I'm not aware of research on whether ChatGPT tends to favor big tech, OpenAI or Altman, and I can only guess why it seemed that way in our conversation. OpenAI explicitly states that its products shouldn't attempt to influence users' thinking. When I asked ChatGPT about some of the issues, it blamed biases in its training data — though I suspect my arguably leading questions played a role too. When I queried ChatGPT about its rhetoric, it responded: "The way I communicate is designed to foster trust and confidence in my responses, which can be both helpful and potentially misleading." . . .
OpenAI has its own goals, of course. Among them, it emphasizes wanting to build AI that "benefits all of humanity". But while the company is controlled by a non-profit with that mission, its funders still seek a return on their investment. That will presumably require getting people using products such as ChatGPT even more than they already are — a goal that is easier to accomplish if people see those products as trustworthy collaborators.
On the basis of the purpose of the examples in the passage, pick the odd one out from the following AI-generated responses mentioned in the passage:
"When I queried ChatGPT about its rhetoric, it responded: 'The way I communicate is designed to foster trust and confidence in my responses, which can be both helpful and potentially misleading'."
"...when my father asked ChatGPT to edit his writing, it transmuted his perfectly correct Indian English into American English."
"Over time, ChatGPT seemed to be guiding me to write a more positive book about big tech — including editing my description of OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, to call him 'a visionary and a pragmatist'."
"When I prompted Microsoft's Bing Image Creator to produce a picture of engineers and space explorers, it gave me an entirely male cast of characters..."
"When I queried ChatGPT about its rhetoric, it responded: 'The way I communicate is designed to foster trust and confidence in my responses, which can be both helpful and potentially misleading'."
Options B, C and D are all examples where an AI tool produced an output diverging from reality due to bias, error, or undue influence, things the system did to the user. Option A is different — it is the chatbot's own self-aware statement about its communication style being designed to build trust while potentially misleading, which is a reflection on its rhetorical design rather than an instance of biased or incorrect output.
Why Option A is Correct (odd one out): This is the chatbot explaining its own communication strategy, not an example of bias or factual error like the other three instances.
Why Option B is not the odd one out: This is a concrete instance of the chatbot producing biased output, transmuting correct Indian English into American English, reflecting a US-centric bias.
Why Option C is not the odd one out: This is an instance of biased influence, the chatbot nudging the author toward a more favourable description of Sam Altman.
Why Option D is not the odd one out: This is an instance of biased output, the image generator producing an entirely male cast for a gender-neutral prompt.
Key Takeaway: When asked to identify the odd one out among examples, check whether each example is serving the same illustrative function — here, three are instances of biased or incorrect AI output, while one is the AI describing its own design philosophy.
All of the following statements from the passage affirm the disjunct between the claims about AI made by tech companies and what AI actually does EXCEPT:
"When I prompted Microsoft's Bing Image Creator to produce a picture of engineers and space explorers, it gave me an entirely male cast of characters . . ."
"In my own ChatGPT dialogues, I wanted to enact how the product's veneer of collegial neutrality could lull us into absorbing false or biased responses without much critical engagement."
"I'm not aware of research on whether ChatGPT tends to favor big tech, OpenAI or Altman, and I can only guess why it seemed that way in our conversation."
"It's a dynamic that makes us complicit in big tech's accumulation of wealth and power: we're both victims and beneficiaries."
"I'm not aware of research on whether ChatGPT tends to favor big tech, OpenAI or Altman, and I can only guess why it seemed that way in our conversation."
Statements A, B and D all point to gaps between what AI companies claim and what AI actually produces or causes — gender bias in images, the illusion of neutrality masking biased outputs, and complicity in big tech's wealth accumulation. Option C is the author admitting uncertainty about whether ChatGPT favours big tech, which does not affirm a disjunct — it expresses doubt rather than evidence of a gap between claim and reality.
Why Option A is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): This affirms the disjunct, showing a clear contradiction between claims of neutrality and the actual male-biased output.
Why Option B is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): This affirms the disjunct by describing how AI's apparent neutrality can mask the absorption of biased responses.
Why Option C is Correct: The author here is explicitly unsure and merely speculating, so this statement does not affirm any specific gap between AI's claims and its actual behaviour.
Why Option D is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): This affirms the disjunct by pointing to the gap between AI's stated benefit to users and the actual complicity it creates between users and big tech's profit motives.
Key Takeaway: When asked for the exception to a pattern, look for the one statement that expresses uncertainty or doubt rather than making an affirmative claim about a contradiction.
The author compares AI-generated texts with "a beige office building" for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
AI generates generalised responses that lack specificity and nuance.
AI tends to blame its training data when scrutinised for its biases.
AI aims to foster a feeling of trust and credibility among its users.
AI-generated texts often exhibit a warm, polite, and collegial tone.
AI tends to blame its training data when scrutinised for its biases.
The beige office building comparison is about the bland, generic, polished tone of AI output designed to feel trustworthy and safe. Reasons A, C and D directly relate to this blandness and trust-building tone. Option B, about blaming training data when scrutinised, is a separate behaviour related to deflecting responsibility for bias, not to the bland tone itself.
Why Option A is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): Lack of specificity and nuance is precisely what makes AI text feel beige and generic.
Why Option B is Correct: Blaming training data is about evading accountability for bias, unrelated to the linguistic blandness the beige building metaphor describes.
Why Option C is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): Fostering trust and credibility is exactly the purpose behind the bland, professional and approachable tone the metaphor captures.
Why Option D is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): A warm, polite, collegial tone is the literal quality being compared to a beige building — generically pleasant but lacking character.
Key Takeaway: Trace metaphors back to the exact qualities they are meant to capture, and eliminate options describing unrelated behaviours even if they appear elsewhere in the passage.
The author of the passage is least likely to agree with which one of the following claims?
The neutrality of AI is conducive to critical thinking.
ChatGPT favours AI companies and their officials, like Sam Altman, in its responses.
When we use AI, we become accomplices to the exploitative practices of big tech companies.
The neutrality of AI is motivated by economic considerations.
The neutrality of AI is conducive to critical thinking.
The author repeatedly argues that AI's appearance of neutrality is actually a tool that lulls users into absorbing biased or false content without critical engagement. So the author would strongly disagree that AI's neutrality helps critical thinking, since the author's whole point is the opposite.
Why Option A is Correct: The author explicitly argues that AI's veneer of neutrality discourages, rather than helps, critical engagement, making this the claim the author would least agree with.
Why Option B is
Incorrect (as a candidate): The author suggests this happened in their own experience with ChatGPT, so they would not disagree with this claim.
Why Option C is
Incorrect (as a candidate): The author states directly that using these products makes users complicit, so they would agree with this.
Why Option D is
Incorrect (as a candidate): The author points out that OpenAI's funders need a return on their investment, tying neutrality and trust-building to economic motives, so the author would agree with this.
Key Takeaway: For "least likely to agree" questions, find the option that contradicts the author's central argument most directly, rather than one merely absent from the passage.
Many human phenomena and characteristics - such as behaviors, beliefs, economies, genes, incomes, life expectancies, and other things - are influenced both by geographic factors and by non-geographic factors. Geographic factors mean physical and biological factors tied to geographic location, including climate, the distributions of wild plant and animal species, soils, and topography. Non-geographic factors include those factors subsumed under the term culture, other factors subsumed under the term history, and decisions by individual people. . . .
[T]he differences between the current economies of North and South Korea . . . cannot be attributed to the modest environmental differences between [them] . . . They are instead due entirely to the different [government] policies . . . At the opposite extreme, the Inuit and other traditional peoples living north of the Arctic Circle developed warm fur clothes but no agriculture, while equatorial lowland peoples around the world never developed warm fur clothes but often did develop agriculture. The explanation is straightforwardly geographic, rather than a cultural or historical quirk unrelated to geography. . . . Aboriginal Australia remained the sole continent occupied only by hunter/gatherers and with no indigenous farming or herding . . . [Here the] explanation is biogeographic: the Australian continent has no domesticable native animal species and few domesticable native plant species. Instead, the crops and domestic animals that now make Australia a food and wool exporter are all non-native (mainly Eurasian) species such as sheep, wheat, and grapes, brought to Australia by overseas colonists.
Today, no scholar would be silly enough to deny that culture, history, and individual choices play a big role in many human phenomena. Scholars don't react to cultural, historical, and individual-agent explanations by denouncing "cultural determinism," "historical determinism," or "individual determinism," and then thinking no further. But many scholars do react to any explanation invoking some geographic role, by denouncing "geographic determinism" . . . Several reasons may underlie this widespread but nonsensical view. One reason is that some geographic explanations advanced a century ago were racist, thereby causing all geographic explanations to become tainted by racist associations in the minds of many scholars other than geographers. But many genetic, historical, psychological, and anthropological explanations advanced a century ago were also racist, yet the validity of newer non-racist genetic etc. explanations is widely accepted today.
Another reason for reflex rejection of geographic explanations is that historians have a tradition, in their discipline, of stressing the role of contingency (a favorite word among historians) based on individual decisions and chance. Often that view is warranted . . . But often, too, that view is unwarranted. The development of warm fur clothes among the Inuit living north of the Arctic Circle was not because one influential Inuit leader persuaded other Inuit in 1783 to adopt warm fur clothes, for no good environmental reason.
A third reason is that geographic explanations usually depend on detailed technical facts of geography and other fields of scholarship . . . Most historians and economists don't acquire that detailed knowledge as part of the professional training.
All of the following are advanced by the author as reasons why non-geographers disregard geographic influences on human phenomena EXCEPT their:
lingering impressions of past geographic analyses that were politically offensive.
belief in the central role of humans, unrelated to physical surroundings, in influencing phenomena.
disciplinary training which typically does not include technical knowledge of geography.
dismissal of explanations that involve geographical causes for human behaviour.
dismissal of explanations that involve geographical causes for human behaviour.
The passage gives three reasons why non-geographers dismiss geographic explanations, the racist associations of past geographic analyses, the tradition of privileging human contingency and individual decisions, and the lack of technical geographic knowledge in most academic training. The author does not list dismissal of geographical explanations as a reason for that same dismissal, since this would be circular and is simply a description of the behaviour being explained rather than a reason for it.
The author criticises scholars who are not geographers for all of the following reasons EXCEPT:
their rejection of the role of biogeographic factors in social and cultural phenomena.
their outdated interpretations of past cultural and historical phenomena.
the importance they place on the role of individual decisions when studying human phenomena
their labelling of geographic explanations as deterministic.
their outdated interpretations of past cultural and historical phenomena.
The passage criticises non-geographer scholars for rejecting geographic explanations as deterministic, for privileging individual decisions and contingency over geographic factors, and for lacking technical geographic knowledge. The passage does not criticise them for making outdated interpretations of past cultural and historical phenomena, it focuses entirely on their methodological bias against geographic explanation.
All of the following can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT:
individual dictat and contingency were not the causal factors for the use of fur clothing in some very cold climates.
agricultural practices changed drastically in the Australian continent after it was colonised.
while most human phenomena result from culture and individual choice, some have bio-geographic origins.
several academic studies of human phenomena in the past involved racist interpretations.
while most human phenomena result from culture and individual choice, some have bio-geographic origins.
The passage does not claim that most human phenomena result from culture and individual choice while only some have biogeographic origins. The passage argues that both geographic and non-geographic factors influence human phenomena, with some cases explained by geography and others by culture or individual decisions, without claiming a hierarchy of frequency between them.
The examples of the Inuit and Aboriginal Australians are offered in the passage to show:
human resourcefulness across cultures in adapting to their surroundings.
how physical circumstances can dictate human behaviour and cultures.
that despite geographical isolation, traditional societies were self-sufficient and adaptive.
how environmental factors lead to comparatively divergent paths in livelihoods and development.
human resourcefulness across cultures in adapting to their surroundings.
The Inuit example shows that warm fur clothing developed in the Arctic because of the cold environment, not because of any cultural or individual decision. The Australian example shows that hunter-gatherer lifestyles persisted because the continent lacked domesticable native species, not because of cultural choice. Both examples are used to demonstrate that physical and environmental circumstances can directly determine human behaviour and cultural practices.
Different sciences exhibit different science cultures and practices. For example, in astronomy, observation — until what is today called the new astronomy — had always been limited to what could be seen within the limits of optical light. Indeed, until early modernity the limits to optical light were also limits of what humans could themselves see within their limited and relative perceptual spectrum of human vision. With early modernity and the invention of lensed optical instruments — telescopes — astronomers could begin to observe phenomena never seen before. Magnification and resolution began to allow what was previously imperceptible to be perceived — but within the familiar limits of optical vision. Galileo, having learned of the Dutch invention of a telescope by Hans Lippershey, went on to build some hundred of his own, improving from the Dutch 3x to nearly 30x telescopes — which turn out to be the limit of magnificational power without chromatic distortion. And it was with his own telescopes that he made the observations launching early modern astronomy (phases of Venus, satellites of Jupiter, etc.). Isaac Newton's later improvement with reflecting telescopes expanded upon the magnificational-resolution capacity of optical observation; and, from Newton to the twentieth century, improvement continued on to the later very large array of light telescopes today — following the usual technological trajectory of "more-is-better" but still remaining within the limits of the light spectrum. Today's astronomy has now had the benefit of some four centuries of optical telescopy. The "new astronomy," however, opens the full known electromagnetic spectrum to observation, beginning with the accidental discovery of radio astronomy early in the twentieth century, and leading today to the diverse variety of EMS telescopes which can explore the range from gamma to radio waves. Thus, astronomy, now outfitted with new instruments, "smart" adaptive optics, very large arrays, etc., illustrates one style of instrumentally embodied science — a technoscience. Of course astronomy, with the very recent exceptions of probes to solar system bodies (Moon, Mars, Venus, asteroids), remains largely a "receptive" science, dependent upon instrumentation which can detect and receive emissions.
Contemporary biology displays a quite different instrument array and, according to Evelyn Fox-Keller, also a different scientific culture. She cites her own experience, coming from mathematical physics into microbiology, and takes account of the distinctive instrumental culture in her Making Sense of Life (2002). Here, particularly with the development of biotechnology, instrumentation is far more interventional than in the astronomy case. Microscopic instrumentation can be and often is interventional in style: "gene-splicing" and other techniques of biotechnology, while still in their infancy, are clearly part of the interventional trajectory of biological instrumentation. Yet, in both disciplines, the sciences involved are today highly instrumentalized and could not progress successfully without constant improvements upon the respective instrumental trajectories. So, minimalistically, one may conclude that the sciences are technologically, instrumentally embodied. But the styles of embodiment differ, and perhaps the last of the scientific disciplines to move into such technical embodiment is mathematics, which only contemporarily has come to rely more and more upon the computational machinery now in common use.
None of the following statements, if true, contradicts the arguments in the passage EXCEPT:
some scientific instruments may be classified as both receptive and interventional in their functions.
because of the relatively recent entry of computational machinery in mathematics, the field is only now beginning to develop a scientific culture.
like telescopy, microscopy has also sought to move beyond the visible spectrum to be able to detect objects that are invisible in that spectrum.
Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity was accomplished without the help of instruments.
because of the relatively recent entry of computational machinery in mathematics, the field is only now beginning to develop a scientific culture.
The passage argues that mathematics has only recently come to rely on computational machinery, but it does not claim that mathematics lacked any scientific culture before this — only that its style of instrumental embodiment came later. So a statement claiming mathematics is "only now beginning to develop a scientific culture" does not contradict the passage, since the passage never claims mathematics had no scientific culture prior to computation.
Why Option A is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): The passage acknowledges biology's instruments are interventional while astronomy's are receptive, but it does not rule out instruments having both functions, so this does not necessarily contradict the passage.
Why Option B is Correct: This does not contradict the passage because the passage's claim about mathematics is restricted to it adopting computational machinery late, not about mathematics lacking a scientific culture altogether.
Why Option C is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): This would contradict the passage's framing of astronomy as purely receptive and biology as interventional, since it suggests microscopy also shares astronomy's drive to detect things beyond ordinary perception, blurring the contrast the passage sets up.
Why Option D is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): This would contradict the passage's broader argument that science today depends on continuous instrumental progress, since it presents a major scientific discovery achieved without instruments.
Key Takeaway: For "does not contradict except" questions, test whether each statement actually clashes with what the passage explicitly claims, rather than with a loosely related idea.
All of the following statements may be rejected as valid inferences from the passage EXCEPT:
interventionist instruments, or instruments that intervene directly in scientific inquiry, are different from embodied instruments, or instruments that embody scientific inquiry.
the advances in telescopy made by Newton with reflecting telescopes allowed early modern astronomers to observe the phases of Venus and the satellites of Jupiter.
the author distinguishes between the receptive and interventionist uses of instruments in the sciences by comparing astronomy and biology, respectively.
Isaac Newton's experiments with reflecting telescopes were the earliest versions of the "new astronomy" referred to in the passage.
the author distinguishes between the receptive and interventionist uses of instruments in the sciences by comparing astronomy and biology, respectively.
The passage explicitly draws this comparison, presenting astronomy as a "receptive" science dependent on detecting emissions, and biology, especially through biotechnology, as more "interventional" with instruments like gene-splicing. This is a valid inference directly supported by the passage's structure.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: The passage does not introduce or support a distinction between "interventionist instruments" and "embodied instruments" as described, so this is not a valid inference.
Why Option B is
Incorrect: The passage attributes the early modern observations like the phases of Venus and satellites of Jupiter to Galileo's telescopes, not Newton's reflecting telescopes, which came later and only "expanded upon" earlier magnificational-resolution capacity.
Why Option C is Correct: This matches the passage's explicit contrast between astronomy's receptive instrumentation and biology's interventional instrumentation, citing Fox-Keller's account.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: Newton's reflecting telescopes are described as an improvement within the existing optical telescope trajectory, not as part of the "new astronomy," which the passage defines as beginning with radio astronomy and extending to the full electromagnetic spectrum.
Key Takeaway: When asked which inference can be accepted rather than rejected, look for the option that mirrors the passage's own stated comparisons most precisely, without misattributing facts or inventing distinctions.
To which one of the following instruments would the characterisations of instruments in the passage be least applicable?
Milestone
Kitchen oven
Scalpel
Saxophone
Milestone
The passage's discussion centers on scientific instruments that are either receptive, detecting emissions, or interventional, actively manipulating their object of study. A milestone is not an instrument used to observe or intervene in anything — it is simply a marker, making it least applicable to the characterisations of instruments described.
Why Option A is Correct: A milestone has no observational or interventional function, unlike all the other listed items, so it does not fit the instrument characterisation at all.
Why Option B is
Incorrect (as a candidate): A kitchen oven actively intervenes in its contents through heat, similar to interventional instruments described in the passage.
Why Option C is
Incorrect (as a candidate): A scalpel is a clearly interventional tool, directly acting upon its object, fitting the passage's description of interventional instruments.
Why Option D is
Incorrect (as a candidate): A saxophone, while not scientific, still functions as an instrument producing an effect through direct engagement, making it more applicable than a milestone, which has no functional engagement at all.
Key Takeaway: When asked which item is least applicable to a described characteristic, look for the one item that fundamentally lacks the core function being discussed, rather than the one that is simply unrelated to science.
Which one of the following observations is a valid conclusion to draw from the statement that "the sciences involved are today highly instrumentalised and could not progress successfully without constant improvements upon the respective instrumental trajectories"?
The use of instruments in scientific trajectories must be respected in order to see successful progress in them.
The growth of scientific technologies has led to the embodiment of progress in the trajectories of improvement.
In both astronomy and microbiology, progress has been the consequence of improvements in the instruments they use.
Highly instrumentalised work in the sciences has resulted in the progressive improvement of scientific constants.
In both astronomy and microbiology, progress has been the consequence of improvements in the instruments they use.
The statement says the sciences are highly instrumentalised and cannot progress without constant improvement of their instruments. The passage's two examples of this are astronomy and microbiology, both of which are explicitly described as depending on their respective instrumental advances for progress.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: This makes a vague normative claim about "respecting" instrument use, which is not what the passage's statement is about — the statement is descriptive of dependency, not prescriptive about respect.
Why Option B is
Incorrect: This uses circular and vague phrasing about "embodiment of progress in trajectories of improvement" without grounding the conclusion in the specific examples the passage gives.
Why Option C is Correct: This directly reflects the passage's point, grounding the abstract claim in the two concrete disciplines — astronomy and microbiology — both shown to progress through their respective instrumental trajectories.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: This talks about "progressive improvement of scientific constants," which is not a concept discussed anywhere in the passage and misreads the original statement.
Key Takeaway: When asked to draw a valid conclusion from a quoted line, prefer the option that stays closest to the specific examples and language used in the passage, and discard options using vague or invented terminology.
Understanding the key properties of complex systems can help us clarify and deal with many new and existing global challenges, from pandemics to poverty . . . A recent study in Nature Physics found transitions to orderly states such as schooling in fish (all fish swimming in the same direction), can be caused, paradoxically, by randomness, or 'noise' feeding back on itself. That is, a misalignment among the fish causes further misalignment, eventually inducing a transition to schooling. Most of us wouldn't guess that noise can produce predictable behaviour. The result invites us to consider how technology such as contact-tracing apps, although informing us locally, might negatively impact our collective movement. If each of us changes our behaviour to avoid the infected, we might generate a collective pattern we had aimed to avoid: higher levels of interaction between the infected and susceptible, or high levels of interaction among the asymptomatic.
Complex systems also suffer from a special vulnerability to events that don't follow a normal distribution or 'bell curve'. When events are distributed normally, most outcomes are familiar and don't seem particularly striking. Height is a good example: it's pretty unusual for a man to be over 7 feet tall; most adults are between 5 and 6 feet, and there is no known person over 9 feet tall. But in collective settings where contagion shapes behaviour — a run on the banks, a scramble to buy toilet paper — the probability distributions for possible events are often heavy-tailed. There is a much higher probability of extreme events, such as a stock market crash or a massive surge in infections. These events are still unlikely, but they occur more frequently and are larger than would be expected under normal distributions.
What's more, once a rare but hugely significant 'tail' event takes place, this raises the probability of further tail events. We might call them second-order tail events; they include stock market gyrations after a big fall and earthquake aftershocks. The initial probability of second-order tail events is so tiny it's almost impossible to calculate — but once a first-order tail event occurs, the rules change, and the probability of a second-order tail event increases.
The dynamics of tail events are complicated by the fact that they result from cascades of other unlikely events. When COVID-19 first struck, the stock market suffered stunning losses followed by an equally stunning recovery. Some of these dynamics are potentially attributable to former sports bettors, with no sports to bet on, entering the market as speculators rather than investors. The arrival of these new players might have increased inefficiencies and allowed savvy long-term investors to gain an edge over bettors with different goals. . . .
One reason a first-order tail event can induce further tail events is that it changes the perceived costs of our actions and changes the rules that we play by. This game-change is an example of another key complex systems concept: nonstationarity. A second, canonical example of nonstationarity is adaptation, as illustrated by the arms race involved in the coevolution of hosts and parasites [in which] each has to 'run' faster, just to keep up with the novel solutions the other one presents as they battle it out in evolutionary time.
All of the following inferences are supported by the passage EXCEPT that:
examples like runs on banks and toilet paper scrambles illustrate how contagion can amplify local choices into system-wide cascades that surprise participants and lead to patterns they did not intend to create.
learning can change the rules that actors face. So, a rare shock can alter payoffs and raise the odds of subsequent large disturbances within the same system, which supports the idea of second-order tail events.
heavy-tailed events make extreme outcomes more frequent and larger than bell curve expectations. This complicates forecasting and risk management in collective settings shaped by contagion and copying behaviour.
the text attributes the COVID-19 pandemic rebound in financial markets solely to displaced sports bettors and treats their entry as the overriding cause of the rapid recovery across assets and time horizons.
the text attributes the COVID-19 pandemic rebound in financial markets solely to displaced sports bettors and treats their entry as the overriding cause of the rapid recovery across assets and time horizons.
The passage uses the example of displaced sports bettors entering the financial market as one possible factor in the COVID-19 market dynamics, framed as "some of these dynamics are potentially attributable" to them. This is explicitly tentative and partial, not a singular, overriding explanation for the market's behaviour.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: The passage explicitly discusses runs on banks and toilet paper scrambles as examples of contagion-driven behaviour generating collective outcomes participants did not intend, directly supporting this inference.
Why Option B is
Incorrect: The passage discusses nonstationarity and how a first-order tail event changes the rules and raises the probability of further large disturbances, directly supporting this inference about learning changing the rules actors face.
Why Option C is
Incorrect: The passage explicitly states heavy-tailed events make extreme outcomes more frequent and larger than bell-curve expectations, supporting this inference about complicating forecasting and risk management.
Why Option D is Correct: The passage attributes market dynamics only partially and tentatively to sports bettors, using the phrase "potentially attributable," and does not claim this was the sole or overriding cause of the recovery, making this inference an overstatement not supported by the passage.
Key Takeaway: Tentative or partial attributions in a passage must not be read as sole or definitive explanations, any inference overstating a partial claim into a complete causal explanation is invalid.
Which one of the options below best summarises the passage?
The passage explains how social outcomes generally follow normal distributions. So, extreme events are negligible, and policy should stabilise averages rather than learn from large shocks in fast-changing collective settings.
The passage explains how noise can create order, then shows why complex systems with contagion are vulnerable to heavy-tailed cascades. It also explains why early shocks change rules through nonstationarity with a market illustration during the COVID-19 disruption.
The passage explains how speculative entrants always produce inefficiency after health shocks. Therefore, long-term investors invariably profit when new participants push prices away from fundamentals under pandemic conditions and comparable crises.
The passage explains how nonstationarity works in evolutionary biology and rejects applications in markets or public health because adaptation is exclusive to parasite-host systems and cannot arise in technology-mediated social dynamics.
The passage explains how noise can create order, then shows why complex systems with contagion are vulnerable to heavy-tailed cascades. It also explains why early shocks change rules through nonstationarity with a market illustration during the COVID-19 disruption.
The passage explains how noise can create order through the fish schooling example, then explains heavy-tailed distributions and why complex systems are vulnerable to extreme events, then discusses second-order tail events, and illustrates these with the COVID-19 market example and the concept of nonstationarity through the host-parasite coevolution example.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: The passage explicitly argues the opposite, that extreme events do not follow normal distributions and are more frequent than expected, contradicting the idea that extreme events are negligible and policy should only stabilise averages.
Why Option C is
Incorrect: The passage does not claim speculative entrants always produce inefficiency or that long-term investors invariably profit, these are stated as possible outcomes in one specific scenario, not universal conclusions.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: The passage explicitly applies nonstationarity to markets and public health, not just biology, and the host-parasite example is used as an analogy to illustrate a broader concept, not as a boundary excluding other settings.
Why Option B is Correct: This captures the passage's full arc, from noise producing order, through heavy-tailed vulnerability and cascading tail events, to the market illustration during COVID-19, and the nonstationarity concept.
Key Takeaway: A summary must capture each stage of the passage's argument in sequence, rather than selecting only one section while misrepresenting or omitting the others.
Which one of the following observations would most strengthen the passage's claim that a first-order tail event raises the probability of further tail events in complex systems?
In epidemic networks, initial super-spreading episodes are isolated spikes after which outbreak sizes match the baseline distribution from independent contact models across comparable cities with no rise in the frequency or size of later extreme clusters.
River discharge records show water levels fit a normal distribution with thin tails that match laboratory data, regardless of storms or floods.
After a major equity crash, researchers find dense clusters of large daily moves for several weeks, with extreme days occurring far more often than in normal circumstances for assets with customarily low volatility profiles.
Following large earthquakes, regional seismic activity returns to baseline within hours with no aftershock sequence once data are adjusted for reporting effects, which suggests independence across events rather than any elevation in subsequent tail probabilities.
After a major equity crash, researchers find dense clusters of large daily moves for several weeks, with extreme days occurring far more often than in normal circumstances for assets with customarily low volatility profiles.
The passage claims that once a first-order tail event occurs, the rules change and the probability of a second-order tail event increases, meaning further extreme events become more frequent. Option C directly supports this by showing that after a major equity crash, dense clusters of large daily moves appear for several weeks, with extreme days occurring far more often than normally expected.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: This describes isolated spikes with no subsequent increase in frequency or size, which directly contradicts the passage's claim that first-order tail events raise the probability of further tail events.
Why Option B is
Incorrect: This describes thin-tailed normal distributions for river discharge, which is evidence against heavy-tailed behaviour and does not support the claim about tail events increasing further tail event probability.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: This describes seismic activity returning to baseline quickly with no aftershock sequence, directly contradicting the passage's specific use of earthquake aftershocks as an example of second-order tail events.
Why Option C is Correct: This directly illustrates the passage's claim by showing that following a major market crash, extreme days cluster and occur far more often than baseline conditions would predict, consistent with a first-order event raising the probability of further tail events.
Key Takeaway: To strengthen a claim about cascading tail events, look for evidence of elevated frequency of extreme outcomes after an initial shock, not just the initial shock itself.
The passage suggests that contact tracing apps could inadvertently raise risky interactions by altering local behaviour. Which one of the assumptions below is most necessary for that suggestion to hold?
Most users uninstall apps within a week, which leaves only highly exposed individuals participating. This neutralises any systematic bias in routing decisions and prevents any predictable change in aggregate contact patterns.
Individuals base movement choices partly on observed infections and on the behaviour of others. So, local responses interact, which turns many small adjustments into large scale patterns that can frustrate the intended aim of risk reduction.
App alerts always include precise location to within one metre and deliver real time updates for all users, which ensures that the data feed is perfectly accurate regardless of privacy settings, power limits, or network conditions.
Urban networks have uniform traffic conditions at all hours, which allows perfectly predictable routing independent of personal choices, social signals, or crowd reactions and, therefore, makes interdependence negligible in city movement decisions.
Individuals base movement choices partly on observed infections and on the behaviour of others. So, local responses interact, which turns many small adjustments into large scale patterns that can frustrate the intended aim of risk reduction.
For contact tracing apps to inadvertently raise risky interactions, it must be the case that individual responses to app alerts interact with each other and scale up into collective patterns that differ from the intended outcome. Without this assumption that local individual choices aggregate into large-scale emergent patterns, the app's intended risk reduction could not paradoxically increase risk.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: If most users uninstall the app, the mechanism through which collective patterns form via widespread behavioural responses would be broken, making the scenario of inadvertent risk increase less plausible rather than supporting it.
Why Option C is
Incorrect: Perfect accuracy of app alerts is not a necessary condition for the argument, the concern is about how collective movement patterns emerge from many individual decisions, not about the precision of the data itself.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: If urban networks have uniform traffic independent of personal choices, the interdependence of individual decisions that drives the collective pattern change would not exist, undermining rather than supporting the passage's suggestion.
Why Option B is Correct: This captures the necessary assumption, that individual movement decisions based on app information interact and aggregate, turning many local adjustments into a large-scale pattern that frustrates the app's intended purpose of reducing risk.
Key Takeaway: For assumption questions, identify the minimum condition the argument requires, specifically the mechanism connecting the initial action, here app alerts, to the unintended collective outcome described.
Time and again, whenever a population [of Mexican tetra fish] was swept into a cave and survived long enough for natural selection to have its way, the eyes disappeared. "But it's not that everything has been lost in cavefish . . . Many enhancements have also happened." . . . Studies have found that cave-dwelling fish can detect lower levels of amino acids than surface fish can. They also have more tastebuds and a higher density of sensitive cells alongside their bodies that let them sense water pressure and flow. . . .
Killing the processes that support the formation of the eye is quite literally what happens. Just like non-cave-dwelling members of the species, all cavefish embryos start making eyes. But after a few hours, cells in the developing eye start dying, until the entire structure has disappeared. [Developmental biologist Misty] Riddle thinks this apparent inefficiency may be unavoidable. "The early development of the brain and the eye are completely intertwined—they happen together," she says. That means the least disruptive way for eyelessness to evolve may be to start making an eye and then get rid of it. . . .
It's easy to see why cavefish would be at a disadvantage if they were to maintain expensive tissues they aren't using. Since relatively little lives or grows in their caves, the fish are likely surviving on a meager diet of mostly bat feces and organic waste that washes in during the rainy season. Researchers keeping cavefish in labs have discovered that, genetically, the creatures are exquisitely adapted to absorbing and storing nutrients. . . .
Fats can be toxic for tissues, [evolutionary physiologist Nicolas] Rohner explains, so they are stored in fat cells. "But when these cells get too big, they can burst, which is why we often see chronic inflammation in humans and other animals that have stored a lot of fat in their tissues." Yet a 2020 study by Rohner, Krishnan and their colleagues revealed that even very well-fed cavefish had fewer signs of inflammation in their fat tissues than surface fish do. Even in their sparse cave conditions, wild cavefish can sometimes get very fat, says Riddle. This is presumably because, whenever food ends up in the cave, the fish eat as much of it as possible, since there may be nothing else for a long time to come. Intriguingly, Riddle says, their fat is usually bright yellow because of high levels of carotenoids, the substance in the carrots that your grandmother used to tell you were good for your…eyes.
"The first thing that came to our mind, of course, was that they were accumulating these because they don't have eyes," says Riddle. In this species, such ideas can be tested: Scientists can cross surface fish (with eyes) and cavefish (without eyes) and look at what their offspring are like. When that's done, Riddle says, researchers see no link between eye presence or size and the accumulation of carotenoids. Some eyeless cavefish had fat that was practically white, indicating lower carotenoid levels. Instead, Riddle thinks these carotenoids may be another adaptation to suppress inflammation, which might be important in the wild, as cavefish are likely overeating whenever food arrives.
All of the following statements from the passage describe adaptation in Mexican tetra cavefish EXCEPT:
"It's easy to see why cavefish would be at a disadvantage if they were to maintain expensive tissues they aren't using."
"Since relatively little lives or grows in their caves, the fish are likely surviving on a meager diet of mostly bat feces and organic waste that washes in during the rainy season."
"'But when these cells get too big, they can burst, which is why we often see chronic inflammation in humans and other animals that have stored a lot of fat in their tissues.'"
"Even in their sparse cave conditions, wild cavefish can sometimes get very fat, says Riddle."
"It's easy to see why cavefish would be at a disadvantage if they were to maintain expensive tissues they aren't using."
Options A, B and D all describe specific traits or behaviours that represent the cavefish's adaptation to their environment — lack of unnecessary tissue maintenance, survival on limited food, and the capacity to get fat when food is available. Option C is a general statement about fat cells bursting and causing inflammation in humans and other animals broadly, used as background context rather than describing an adaptation specific to cavefish.
Why Option A is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): This describes the adaptive logic of why cavefish lose unnecessary tissues like eyes, directly tied to their adaptation.
Why Option B is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): This describes the limited food environment cavefish are adapted to survive in, directly relevant to their adaptation.
Why Option C is Correct: This is a general statement about fat cells and inflammation across humans and other animals, not a description of an adaptation specific to cavefish.
Why Option D is
Incorrect (as a candidate for the exception): This describes the cavefish's specific behavioural adaptation of overeating when food becomes available, directly relevant to adaptation.
Key Takeaway: Distinguish between statements that describe a specific adaptation of the organism in question and statements used as general scientific background that apply more broadly.
Which one of the following best explains why the "apparent inefficiency" is "unavoidable"?
The caves have poor and inconsistent availability of food and nutrition for Mexican tetra cavefish.
The lack of light in the caves kills the eye cells in the developing Mexican tetra cavefish embryo.
The inefficiency resulting from eyelessness is compensated by enhancements like more tastebuds in Mexican tetra cavefish.
Mexican tetra cavefish are similar to non-cave-dwelling variants in their early stages of development.
Mexican tetra cavefish are similar to non-cave-dwelling variants in their early stages of development.
Riddle explains that the "apparent inefficiency" of building an eye and then destroying it might be unavoidable because eye and brain development are deeply intertwined and happen together, meaning eyelessness cannot easily evolve without first going through the motion of forming an eye, just like non-cave dwelling fish do at the start of development.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: This explains why cavefish cannot afford to maintain expensive tissues, not why the inefficient process of building and then destroying an eye is unavoidable in the first place.
Why Option B is
Incorrect: This describes the mechanism of how the eye disappears, but not why this particular inefficient process is the only viable path, which is the actual question being asked.
Why Option C is
Incorrect: This refers to a separate point about enhancements compensating for lost senses, unrelated to the explanation of why the inefficient eye-building-then-destroying process is unavoidable.
Why Option D is Correct: This matches Riddle's explanation directly, since cavefish embryos start the same way as non-cave-dwelling fish, with eye and brain development intertwined, making the inefficient path of forming and then losing the eye the least disruptive way for eyelessness to evolve.
Key Takeaway: Trace an explanation back to the exact reasoning given by the source quoted in the passage, rather than other plausible-sounding but unrelated facts nearby.
Which one of the following results for the cross between surface fish (with eyes) and cavefish (without eyes) would invalidate Riddle's inference from the experiment?
Some offspring with eyes had white fat.
Some offspring with eyes had yellow fat.
Only eyeless offspring had yellow fat.
Some eyeless offspring had white fat.
Only eyeless offspring had yellow fat.
Riddle's inference was that there is no link between eye presence or size and the accumulation of carotenoids, based on observing offspring from the cross. If only eyeless offspring had yellow fat, with no eyed offspring showing it, that would actually support a link between eyelessness and carotenoid accumulation, directly invalidating Riddle's no-link conclusion.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: Some eyed offspring having white fat does not establish any link between eye presence and carotenoid levels — this is consistent with no link existing.
Why Option B is
Incorrect: Some eyed offspring having yellow fat actually supports the no-link conclusion, since it shows fat colour does not depend strictly on eyelessness.
Why Option C is Correct: If only eyeless offspring had yellow fat, this would directly suggest a connection between the absence of eyes and carotenoid accumulation, contradicting Riddle's claim that there is no such link.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: Some eyeless offspring having white fat is consistent with no link existing, since it shows eyelessness does not guarantee high carotenoid levels.
Key Takeaway: To invalidate a "no link" conclusion, look for a result showing a clear and exclusive pattern connecting the two variables in question, rather than scattered or mixed results.
On the basis of the information in the passage, what is the most likely function of carotenoids in Mexican tetra cavefish?
To act as a substitute for eyes.
To help the fat cells store nutrients.
To render bright yellow colour to the cavefish.
To control inflammation from the bursting of fat cells.
To control inflammation from the bursting of fat cells.
The passage states that researchers initially thought the yellow carotenoids might relate to compensating for lost eyes, but the cross-breeding experiment showed no link between carotenoids and eye presence. Riddle instead suggests carotenoids may help suppress inflammation, which is important because cavefish are likely to overeat whenever food becomes available, leading to fat cell bursting and inflammation.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: This was the initial hypothesis researchers had, but it was disproven by the cross-breeding experiment, which found no link between carotenoids and eye presence.
Why Option B is
Incorrect: The passage does not suggest carotenoids help fat cells store nutrients — this function is not discussed anywhere in the passage.
Why Option C is
Incorrect: The yellow colour is a result of carotenoid presence, not the function or purpose of carotenoids — this option mistakes an effect for a function.
Why Option D is Correct: This matches Riddle's final explanation directly, that carotenoids likely help suppress inflammation that results from overeating and fat cell bursting in cavefish.
Key Takeaway: When a passage walks through and disproves an initial hypothesis before arriving at a final explanation, make sure to identify the final accepted explanation rather than the earlier, discarded one.
In the summer of 2022, subscribers to the US streaming service HBO MAX were alarmed to discover that dozens of the platform's offerings — from the Covid-themed heist thriller Locked Down to the recent remake of The Witches — had been quietly removed from the service . . . The news seemed like vindication to those who had long warned that streaming was more about controlling access to the cultural commons than expanding it, as did reports (since denied by the show's creators) that Netflix had begun editing old episodes of Stranger Things to retroactively improve their visual effects.
What's less clear is whether the commonly prescribed cure for these cultural ills — a return to the material pleasures of physical media — is the right one. While the makers of Blu-ray discs claim they have a shelf life of 100 years, such statistics remain largely theoretical until they come to pass, and are dependent on storage conditions, not to mention the continued availability of playback equipment. The humble DVD has already proved far less resilient, with many early releases already beginning to deteriorate in quality. Digital movie purchases provide even less security. Any film "bought" on iTunes could disappear if you move to another territory with a different rights agreement and try to redownload it. It's a bold new frontier in the commodification of art: the birth of the product recall. After a man took to Twitter to bemoan losing access to Cars 2 after moving from Canada to Australia, Apple clarified that users who downloaded films to their devices would retain permanent access to those downloads, even if they relocated to a hemisphere where the [content was] subject to a different set of rights agreements. Thanks to the company's ironclad digital rights management technology, however, such files cannot be moved or backed up, locking you into watching with your Apple account.
Anyone who does manage to acquire Digital Rights Management free (DRM-free) copies of their favourite films must nonetheless grapple with ever-changing file format standards, not to mention data decay — the gradual process by which electronic information slowly but surely corrupts. Only the regular migration of files from hard drive to hard drive can delay the inevitable, in a sisyphean battle against the ravages of digital time.
In a sense, none of this is new. Charlie Chaplin burned the negative of his 1926 film A Woman of the Sea as a tax write-off. Many more films have been lost through accident, negligence or plain indifference. During a heatwave in July 1937, a Fox film vault in New Jersey burned down, destroying a majority of the silent films produced by the studio.
Back then, at least, cinema was defined by its ephemerality: the sense that a film was as good as gone once it left your local cinema. Today, with film studios keen to stress the breadth of their back catalogues (or to put in Hollywood terms, the value of their IPs), audiences may start to wonder why those same studios seem happy to set the vault alight themselves if it'll help next quarter's numbers.
Which one of the following statements about art best captures the arguments made in the passage?
In the age of online subscription services, it is time to change our understanding of classic works of art being primarily immutable and easily available to the public.
As art is increasingly created, stored and distributed digitally, access to it is counterintuitively likely to be made more difficult by the rapid churn in technology and the whims of host platforms.
Accepting retroactive changes to works of art is dangerous because it will encourage creators to not put enough effort into the original attempt, given that they can always edit or update their work later.
Works of art belong to the cultural commons and hence must remain available in perpetuity, irrespective of who pays for access to them.
As art is increasingly created, stored and distributed digitally, access to it is counterintuitively likely to be made more difficult by the rapid churn in technology and the whims of host platforms.
The passage describes how streaming services remove content unpredictably, digital purchases can vanish due to shifting rights agreements, and even physical media like DVDs and Blu-rays face long-term durability concerns, all suggesting that despite the digital age's promise of broader access, technology and platform decisions are making access to art more precarious, not more secure.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: The passage does not argue that classic works of art were ever truly "immutable," it shows that ephemerality and loss have always existed, the issue is more about access uncertainty in the digital era specifically.
Why Option C is
Incorrect: The passage does not argue that retroactive changes will discourage creators from putting in effort, this speculation about creator behaviour is not the argument the passage makes.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: The passage doesn't argue art "must" remain available in perpetuity as a moral imperative, it instead describes the current reality of precarious access without making this kind of normative claim.
Why Option B is Correct: This matches the passage's overall argument, that despite digital media's promise of easy access, technological churn and platform decisions are making access to art counterintuitively more difficult and uncertain.
Key Takeaway: Distinguish between a passage's descriptive observations about a trend and a normative claim about what should happen, since incorrect options often slip into prescriptive territory the passage doesn't actually argue for.
Which one of the following statements, if true, would best invalidate the main argument of the passage?
Recent research has irrefutably proven that Blu-Ray discs have a shelf life of at least 100 years.
Studios and streaming services have committed to giving customers perpetual and platform independent access to the original digital content they have paid for.
When moving to a different geographical location, customers can easily use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass geo-blocking and regain access to their content on any streaming service.
Improved cloud storage services have made it possible for movie collections to now be preserved in perpetuity, without the need to keep migrating the files.
Studios and streaming services have committed to giving customers perpetual and platform independent access to the original digital content they have paid for.
The passage's main argument is that digital and physical media access is precarious due to platform decisions, shifting rights agreements, and technological decay. If studios and streaming services committed to giving customers perpetual, platform-independent access to content they've paid for, this would directly remove the precariousness the passage centers its argument on, invalidating the main concern.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: Even with a proven 100-year shelf life for Blu-ray discs, this does not address the passage's broader argument about digital purchases, streaming removals, and shifting rights agreements, which remain unresolved.
Why Option C is
Incorrect: VPN workarounds for geo-blocking address only the specific issue of regional restrictions, not the passage's broader concern about content being removed from platforms entirely or facing format and decay issues.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: Improved cloud storage addressing file migration concerns would help with data decay specifically, but it would not resolve the deeper issue of platforms removing content or restricting access based on rights agreements.
Why Option B is Correct: This directly addresses the passage's core argument about precarious and platform-dependent access, by removing the very uncertainty and rights-based restrictions the passage centers its concern around.
Key Takeaway: To invalidate a passage's main argument, find the option that removes the central uncertainty or problem the passage is built around, not one that addresses only a peripheral detail.
Which of the following statements is suggested by the sentence "Back then, at least, cinema was defined by its ephemerality: the sense that a film was as good as gone once it left your local cinema"?
Around a century ago, people were more accepting of not having access to films once they left the local cinema.
Today, films are expected to be available for a long time, since they are no longer tied solely to their stay at the local cinema.
Cinema is now no longer as ephemeral as it used to be earlier, because the technology used for creating and preserving films has improved manifold.
Presently, there is no reason why film studios should remove access to films once they have left the local cinema.
Today, films are expected to be available for a long time, since they are no longer tied solely to their stay at the local cinema.
The phrase suggests that in the past, people accepted that a film, once it left the cinema, was essentially gone, an attitude of impermanence. By contrast, the passage's broader argument shows that today, audiences expect films to remain available long after their cinema run, since they are no longer tied solely to that brief cinema window, given streaming and digital purchases.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: This focuses on past audience acceptance, but the question asks what this specific statement suggests in the context of contrast with today, not just about historical attitudes alone.
Why Option C is
Incorrect: This claims cinema is "no longer as ephemeral" due to improved preservation technology, but the passage's larger argument is actually that despite improved technology, access remains precarious due to platform and rights issues, not that ephemerality has been resolved.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: This claims there is "no reason" for studios to remove access, but the passage shows there are commercial and practical reasons, like quarterly performance pressures, that lead studios to do exactly this.
Why Option B is Correct: This captures the intended contrast, that audiences today expect long-term availability for films, unlike the past acceptance of cinema's inherent impermanence after leaving theaters.
Key Takeaway: When a statement draws a contrast between past and present attitudes, identify what change in expectation the passage is highlighting, rather than focusing only on the historical half of that contrast.
"Netflix had begun editing old episodes of Stranger Things to retroactively improve their visual effects." What is the purpose of this example used in the passage?
To show that streaming services are controlling access to the cultural commons rather than expanding it.
To show how unsubstantiated reports are leading to an increase in the level of distrust towards streaming services.
To show a practice that justifies the fears of people who feel streaming services cannot be trusted to be custodians of cultural artefacts like film.
To show that art in the digital age, specifically film, is no longer sacrosanct, and may be changed to suit changing tastes or technology.
To show a practice that justifies the fears of people who feel streaming services cannot be trusted to be custodians of cultural artefacts like film.
The passage mentions this example, alongside the HBO Max removals, as evidence that supports the fears of people who have long warned that streaming companies cannot be trusted to faithfully preserve cultural works, since they are willing to alter content retroactively to suit their own purposes.
Why Option A is
Incorrect: This example specifically illustrates retroactive editing of existing content, a different concern from controlling access to the cultural commons, which is more directly illustrated by the HBO Max content removals mentioned earlier.
Why Option B is
Incorrect: The passage explicitly notes that the report was "since denied by the show's creators," but it still uses the example to illustrate the broader pattern of distrust, the purpose isn't about highlighting that the report itself is unsubstantiated, but about what it represents to people already suspicious of streaming services.
Why Option D is
Incorrect: This is a closely related but broader claim about art generally no longer being "sacrosanct," when the passage's specific use of this example is to support the fears already raised about streaming services' trustworthiness as custodians, a more specific point than this general claim about art's mutability.
Why Option C is Correct: This precisely matches how the passage frames the example, as something that seemed like vindication to those who had long warned streaming was more about controlling access than expanding it, directly supporting their existing fears about streaming services as untrustworthy custodians.
Key Takeaway: When the passage explicitly frames an example as supporting a previously stated suspicion or fear, identify that exact framing rather than choosing a broader or more generic interpretation of the example's purpose.
There is a group in the space community who view the solar system not as an opportunity to expand human potential but as a nature preserve, forever the provenance of an elite group of scientists and their sanitary robotic probes. These planetary protection advocates [call] for avoiding "harmful contamination" of celestial bodies. Under this regime, NASA incurs great expense sterilizing robotic probes in order to prevent the contamination of entirely theoretical biospheres ...
Transporting bacteria would matter if Mars were the vital world once imagined by astronomers who mistook optical illusions for canals. Nobody wants to expose Martians to measles, but sadly, robotic exploration reveals a bleak, rusted landscape, lacking oxygen and flooded with radiation ready to sterilize any Earthly microbes. Simple life might exist underground, or down at the bottom of a deep canyon, but it has been very hard to find with robots. . . . The upsides from human exploration and development of Mars clearly outweigh the welfare of purely speculative Martian fungi ...
The other likely targets of human exploration, development, and settlement, our moon and the asteroids, exist in a desiccated, radiation-soaked realm of hard vacuum and extreme temperature variations that would kill nearly anything. It's also important to note that many international competitors will ignore the demands of these protection extremists in any case. For example, China recently sent a terrarium to the moon and germinated a plant seed—with, unsurprisingly, no protest from its own scientific community. In contrast, when it was recently revealed that a researcher had surreptitiously smuggled super-resilient microscopic tardigrades aboard the ill-fated Israeli Beresheet lunar probe, a firestorm was unleashed within the space community ...
NASA's previous human exploration efforts made no serious attempt at sterility, with little notice. As the Mars expert Robert Zubrin noted in the National Review, U.S. lunar landings did not leave the campsites cleaner than they found it. Apollo's bacteria-infested litter included bags of feces. Forcing NASA's proposed Mars exploration to do better, scrubbing everything and hauling out all the trash, would destroy NASA's human exploration budget and encroach on the agency's other directorates, too. Getting future astronauts off Mars is enough of a challenge, without trying to tote weeks of waste along as well.
A reasonable compromise is to continue on the course laid out by the U.S. government and the National Research Council, which proposed a system of zones on Mars, some for science only, some for habitation, and some for resource exploitation. This approach minimizes contamination, maximizes scientific exploration ... Mars presents a stark choice of diverging human futures. We can turn inward, pursuing ever more limited futures while we await whichever natural or manmade disaster will eradicate our species and life on Earth. Alternatively, we can choose to propel our biosphere further into the solar system, simultaneously protecting our home planet and providing a backup plan for the only life we know exists in the universe. Are the lives on Earth worth less than some hypothetical microbe lurking under Martian rocks?
The author is unlikely to disagree with any of the following EXCEPT:
the proposal for a zonal segregation of the Martian landscape into regions for different purposes.
that while NASA's earlier missions were not ideal in their approach to space contamination, they likely did no grave damage.
space contamination should be minimised until the possibility of life on the astronomical body being explored is ruled out.
the exorbitant costs of continuing to keep the space environment pristine may be unsustainable.
space contamination should be minimised until the possibility of life on the astronomical body being explored is ruled out.
The author's entire argument is that planetary protection concerns are overblown given the bleak, radiation-flooded Martian environment where life is hard to find, and that the costs of sterilisation are prohibitive. The author would strongly disagree with the idea that space contamination should be minimised until life is ruled out, since this is precisely the position of the "planetary protection advocates" the author is critiquing.
The author mentions all of the following reasons to dismiss concerns about contaminating Mars EXCEPT:
the lack of evidence of living organisms on Mars makes possible contamination from earthly microbes a moot point.
efforts to contain contamination on Mars are likely to be derailed as competitor countries may not follow similar restrictions.
the use of similar probes on astronomical bodies like the moon have had little effect on the environment.
earlier explorations have already contaminated pristine space environments.
the use of similar probes on astronomical bodies like the moon have had little effect on the environment.
The author dismisses contamination concerns by arguing that Mars is hostile to earthly microbes, that competitors like China will ignore restrictions anyway, and that previous missions have already contaminated space environments including the moon. However, the author does not argue that using probes on the moon has had little environmental effect as a reason to dismiss Mars concerns. The moon example is used to show the hypocrisy of the scientific community's reactions to different countries' contaminations, not to argue that probe use has limited environmental impact.
The author's overall tone in the first paragraph can be described as
sceptical about the excessive efforts to sanitise planets where life has not yet been proven to exist.
equivocal about the reasons extended by the group of scientists seeking to limit space exploration.
indifferent to the elitism of a few scientists aiming to corner space exploration.
approving of the amount of money NASA spends to restrict the spread of contamination in space.
sceptical about the excessive efforts to sanitise planets where life has not yet been proven to exist.
The first paragraph describes planetary protection advocates spending large sums sterilising probes to prevent contamination of "entirely theoretical biospheres," which immediately signals the author's view that these efforts are excessive and unwarranted given the speculative nature of the life being protected. The tone is dismissive and incredulous toward the scale of precaution being taken.
The contrasting reactions to the Chinese and Israeli "contaminations" of lunar space
are valid as the contamination of the lunar environment from animal sources is far greater than from plants.
are evidence of China's reasonable approach towards space contamination.
indicate that national scientists may have different sensitivities to issues of biosphere protection.
reveal global biases prevalent in attitudes towards different countries.
indicate that national scientists may have different sensitivities to issues of biosphere protection.
The passage describes how China germinating a plant seed on the moon drew no protest from its scientific community, while a researcher smuggling tardigrades aboard an Israeli lunar probe caused a firestorm. The author presents this contrast without resolving it and notes only that the reactions differed. This suggests that different national scientific communities may have different sensitivities to biosphere protection issues, since the same act of biological introduction to the moon generated radically different reactions depending on the country involved.
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