PrepTest 113, Section 1, Question 9
Spurred by the discovery that a substance containing(462 more words not shown)
The passage suggests that the(23 more words not shown)
- AThe critics fail(17 more words not shown)
- BThe critics do(19 more words not shown)
- CThe critics are(13 more words not shown)
- DThe critics fail(15 more words not shown)
- EThe critics do(13 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
How could she have known what the available evidence couldn't show her? That's the author's response to these critics. They judge Curie for missing conclusions reached later, without giving enough weight to the conditions under which she worked.
Working the answers
- A
Dealing with the scientific community would concern her interactions with other scientists. We aren't told about professional resistance or other obstacles of that kind. The defense concerns the evidence and scientific understanding available to her.
- B
The text credits her investigation with helping later breakthroughs. It doesn't say quantum mechanics depended on her particular conjecture about losing atoms. This is a more specific dependency than the author establishes.
- C
The critics could know about the differing views of atoms and still give their historical importance too little weight. The author doesn't establish that the critics are unaware of those views.
- DCorrect
The writer says the later conclusions were beyond her reach because her available evidence was insufficient (paragraph 2). Her commitment to indivisible atoms supplies another part of that historical setting. Both support the complaint that the critics aren't judging her work in its context.
- E
The critics fault her for conclusions she failed to reach about radiation. We aren't told they misunderstand how she reasoned her way to polonium and radium. This changes the criticism being answered.
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