PrepTest 113, Section 1, Question 13
Spurred by the discovery that a substance containing(462 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(24 more words not shown)
- Athe physical process(4 more words not shown)
- Bthe experimental apparatus(5 more words not shown)
- Cthe procedure scientists(9 more words not shown)
- Dthe isotopes of(7 more words not shown)
- Ethe scientific theory(3 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
She observes radiation, but how does it happen? That is the question she cannot answer. Try replacing mechanism with the process that produces radiation: she couldn't explain the underlying process. That fits the surrounding sentence.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The physical process is the missing explanation. She can observe an element emitting radiation without knowing what is happening within it to produce that effect.
- B
An apparatus is equipment. The sentence doesn't say Curie lacked equipment in which radiation could occur; she was already observing it. She lacked an explanation of how it occurred.
- C
This means steps a scientist takes to produce radiation. The question here is what happens in the substance, not what experimental procedure the scientist follows. Radiation appeared spontaneous.
- D
Isotopes are involved in the later explanation, but naming the things involved doesn't describe the process. What happens as they decay is the kind of explanation Curie was missing.
- E
A theory describes or explains a phenomenon; the mechanism is the physical process it explains. Curie needed an account of that process, but the word mechanism names the process itself. A states that meaning directly.
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