PrepTest 130, Section 3, Question 3
When Copernicus changed the way we think about(51 more words not shown)
The examples provided above illustrate(5 more words not shown)
- AMany valuable intellectual(4 more words not shown)
- BShifting from earlier(8 more words not shown)
- CThe ability to(11 more words not shown)
- DUnderstanding is advanced(17 more words not shown)
- EDramatic intellectual breakthroughs(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Copernicus didn't need new information for the advance described here. He looked differently at information already available. The change was in how he thought about what people knew.
Jenner supplies a second version of the same idea. Instead of concentrating on curing smallpox, he shifted his attention to preventing it. That change in focus led to the discovery of a vaccine.
What we’re looking for
The question asks what the examples illustrate, so identify their shared contribution: a fresh perspective sometimes aids discovery. One person reconsidered existing information; the other reconsidered the problem worth trying to solve. Neither example requires us to believe that gathering information is useless or that every new perspective succeeds.
Working the answers
- A
A new perspective isn't necessarily an accident. Neither example says that the discovery happened by chance. Copernicus and Jenner could have deliberately reconsidered earlier approaches, so this answer adds a cause of success the passage doesn't provide.
- BCorrect
'Shifting from earlier modes of thought' covers both looking differently at existing information and switching from cure to prevention. 'Can result' is appropriately limited: the examples show that this approach sometimes produces important advances, without promising that it always will.
- C
The examples show the usefulness of a different perspective, not how rarely people can adopt one. The passage even says history contains many breakthroughs of this sort, but that still doesn't measure how common the ability itself is. We can't infer rarity from the fact that these accomplishments are noteworthy.
- D
Where is the comparison of frequencies? We have examples in which a shift in thought helped, but no count of advances from organizing information versus advances from gathering new information. Establishing that one route works sometimes doesn't tell us which route works more often.
- E
We aren't told how much information was available in either field or how easy the breakthroughs were. A comparison of fields with small and large amounts of information would need evidence about those differences. The examples support the value of a new perspective without establishing the conditions under which discovery is easiest.
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