PrepTest 125, Section 4, Question 13
The highest mountain ranges are formed by geological(53 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(11 more words not shown)
- APatterns of extreme(18 more words not shown)
- BThe highest mountain(13 more words not shown)
- CSome lower mountain(19 more words not shown)
- DThe amount of(20 more words not shown)
- EThe thickening of(25 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why are the tallest mountains found where the forces wearing them down are strongest?
The passage gives us two processes pulling in opposite directions. Colliding plates push the crust upward and create mountains. Wind and precipitation wear those mountains down. If we focused only on the second process, we'd expect places with intense erosion to have less impressive peaks.
What if those places also have more mountain building? Perhaps the plates push upward so vigorously that this growth more than makes up for the extra erosion. The mountains could stay tall because the process adding height outpaces the process removing it. That's a possible explanation, not something the passage has established.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to resolve the apparent conflict. My prediction is stronger upward forces in the places with stronger erosion. But keep the actual puzzle in view: why do high mountains and especially strong erosive forces go together? An answer could explain that association by a different route.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This is a different route from my prediction. The large elevation differences in high mountain ranges help produce the extreme wind and precipitation. So we have a reason those weather patterns would be concentrated around high mountains: the mountains themselves help create them.
The weather can still wear the mountains down. A doesn't deny erosion or say that rain makes mountains taller. It explains why the highest ranges would experience especially strong erosion in the first place. We don't have to find the predicted extra upward push when another answer explains why these features occur together.
- B
Fewer plants that reduce erosion would leave the highest peaks with less protection. That makes the puzzle worse: now we have another reason to expect them to wear down. It doesn't explain why the tallest ranges occur where the erosive forces are strongest.
- C
We learn how some lower ranges form, but nothing connects the highest ranges with extreme wind and precipitation. A different way of making lower mountains doesn't explain the association we're asked about. This mentions tectonic plates without supplying the kind of height-versus-erosion explanation we predicted.
- D
Precipitation can vary over a mountain range's lifetime. That could mean a region had rainy periods and dry periods. But why would the highest ranges tend to be in the places with the most prevalent erosive forces? A fact about variation over time doesn't explain this pattern across places. We would have to add a connection that D never gives us.
- E
Sinking crust supplies another way for mountains to lose height. That doesn't resolve why the highest ranges occur where erosion is already especially strong. Like B, it points toward more lowering without explaining the association that surprised us.
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