PrepTest 133, Section 4, Question 19
Until the 1950s, most scientists believed that the(440 more words not shown)
If the time intervals between(23 more words not shown)
- ACompass readings are(12 more words not shown)
- BIt is this(16 more words not shown)
- CSome of the(13 more words not shown)
- DContinental rock is(14 more words not shown)
- EWithin any given(14 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
If one magnetic orientation lasts a long time, more crust can form with that orientation before the field reverses. If the next orientation lasts only a short time, less crust forms before the next reversal.
What we’re looking for
So I'd expect uneven stripes: some wide bands and some narrow ones, rather than a uniform zebra pattern. Let's look for that consequence.
Working the answers
- A
Different intervals between reversals don't establish where compass distortion is most likely. Nothing connects those changing intervals specifically to the ridge's peaks.
- B
The reversals affect the magnetic pattern recorded in the rock. They aren't offered as the reason the mountain range follows its particular winding route around Earth.
- CCorrect
A longer interval allows a wider band of crust to form with one polarity; a shorter interval produces a narrower band. Greatly varying intervals would therefore give us greatly varying stripe widths. That's the uneven pattern we predicted.
- D
The hypothetical doesn't establish a difference in reliability between land and ocean rock. Both can preserve a record of past magnetic orientation.
- E
A single stripe needn't have formed all at once. Crust can keep forming throughout a period with one magnetic orientation. Its polarity stays the same across the stripe even though the earlier-formed rock is older than the later-formed rock.
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