PrepTest 113, Section 1, Question 11
Spurred by the discovery that a substance containing(462 more words not shown)
The author's primary purpose in(4 more words not shown)
- Asummarize some aspects(10 more words not shown)
- Bdescribe a scientific(10 more words not shown)
- Coutline a currently(12 more words not shown)
- Dexplain the mechanism(16 more words not shown)
- Ediscover the antecedents(17 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Our main-point prediction already gives us the direction: Curie's work was limited, but valuable, and the criticism doesn't fairly account for her circumstances. In terms of purpose, the author first explains what she did and then defends it. We need both jobs.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The opening summarizes her investigations and what they did and didn't establish. Recent criticism appears in paragraph two, followed by the evidence and historical context that answer it. The ending reinforces the defense by crediting her contribution to later breakthroughs.
- B
Defending the value of her work isn't arguing that her earlier conclusions were correct. The author accepts that some were inaccurate. This substitutes a defense of a theory's truth for a fair assessment of the scientist's work.
- C
We get some later scientific understanding, but not an analysis of the evidence that led to its acceptance. Those details help explain the limits of what Curie could have known.
- D
The discussion of atoms supplies historical context for Curie's limitations. It isn't a reconstruction of the debate that produced the eventual explanation of radiation. D leaves out the central defense of her work.
- E
The author calls the later developments breakthroughs. Crediting Curie's contribution to them doesn't mean denying that they were genuine advances over her work.
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