PrepTest 125, Section 3, Question 26
Neurobiologists once believed that the workings of the(446 more words not shown)
The primary purpose of the(5 more words not shown)
- Apropose a new(7 more words not shown)
- Bintroduce evidence that(11 more words not shown)
- Cdescribe the approach(9 more words not shown)
- Ddiscuss new support(11 more words not shown)
- Eillustrate the practical(10 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
This is another question about the whole account, phrased as what the writer is doing. The theory has existed for decades and has gradually gained acceptance. What's new is evidence explaining how it works, followed by a promising medical application.
Working the answers
- A
The writer isn't proposing a new theory. The chemical-transmission idea dates back to 1904; the newer contribution is support for its mechanism.
- B
The old, exclusively electrical account is challenged at the start, but that contrast sets up the main discussion. The new evidence supports the increasingly accepted chemical-transmission theory; it doesn't challenge that theory.
- C
We get some findings and an explanation of them, not an account of the general approach scientists use to study the brain.
- DCorrect
The text introduces the accepted theory, identifies the mechanism that had puzzled some scientists, and explains new evidence that resolves that puzzle. The possible applications follow from these discoveries.
- E
Medical usefulness matters in the final paragraph, but it isn't the purpose of the whole discussion. Most of the account explains chemical transmission and the evidence for it. This choice makes one consequence of the research stand in for the larger scientific explanation.
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