PrepTest 130, Section 2, Question 13
This passage was adapted from articles published in(459 more words not shown)
It can be inferred from(24 more words not shown)
- Asupercomputers are sufficiently(13 more words not shown)
- Bthe possibility of(16 more words not shown)
- Cthe general public(13 more words not shown)
- Doil companies had(14 more words not shown)
- Esmaller computers can(17 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
What was holding parallel computing back for this job? My first thought is that Emeagwali supplied a technical breakthrough people hadn't yet worked out. But that's still vague. We need the specific obstacle described in the text, not a guess about the history of computing.
Working the answers
- A
The first paragraph says sequential supercomputers were too slow and inefficient for oil-flow prediction. It doesn't explain the delay by saying existing computers were already adequate.
- B
Not having solved a problem is different from never having considered a possible solution. We aren't told that nobody had thought of networking smaller computers. My rough prediction about a missing breakthrough wouldn't justify that extra claim.
- C
The general public's knowledge of the Internet isn't discussed. Public awareness needn't determine what a computer scientist can build.
- D
Supercomputers were already being used for oil-field calculations, so the need for modeling wasn't newly recognized in 1989.
- ECorrect
The second paragraph identifies the difficulty: dividing tasks so the smaller computers avoid disrupting one another’s work. That supplies the concrete obstacle our initial prediction needed. The tree-inspired design addresses coordination and message distribution; simply connecting lots of computers wasn't enough.
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