PrepTest 106, Section 4, Question 11
Long after the lava has cooled, the effects(450 more words not shown)
The author of the passage(13 more words not shown)
- AMajor volcanic eruptions(18 more words not shown)
- BMajor volcanic eruptions(12 more words not shown)
- CMajor volcanic eruptions(7 more words not shown)
- DThe climatic effects(13 more words not shown)
- EEl Niño has(7 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The author could agree with a claim about any of the findings we've read. We don't need to guess which one the answers will test; we need to check whether the writer has actually committed to it. Keep the study's modest broad effect and the final paragraph's possible regional amplification separate as we go.
Working the answers
- A
The reported average drop in the eruption's hemisphere is half a degree centigrade or less. The possible larger regional effect doesn't establish a drop of more than a degree in the average for the entire hemisphere.
- B
El Niño is another influence on temperature, not an effect that eruptions are said to produce. No causal connection of that kind is given.
- CCorrect
The proposed route to an unusually cold summer is indirect: a small volcanic cooling could alter snow cover and the jet stream, which then amplify it. “Directly” matters. C doesn't deny that an eruption might help bring about such a summer through that sequence.
- D
The study reports no discernible effect for minor eruptions and measurable cooling for major ones. It doesn't establish that they produce the same set of climatic effects with only the size changing. Don't turn an undetected effect into a demonstrated smaller version of every major-eruption effect.
- E
El Niño explicitly warms the atmosphere. Its temperature effect is the reason researchers need to account for it.
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