PrepTest 135, Section 2, Question 25
Some people mistakenly believe that since we do(54 more words not shown)
Of the following, which one(10 more words not shown)
- AAstronomers often draw(32 more words not shown)
- BMuch can be(36 more words not shown)
- CTo understand a(30 more words not shown)
- DWe often extrapolate(34 more words not shown)
- EOne crucial clue(31 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
We don't need a time machine to learn something about the past.
The passage says present-day geography, geology, and climate contain clues about a region's history. Studying what's here now can help us infer what happened earlier. The limitation is that those present clues become less useful the farther back we try to look.
What we’re looking for
That isn't a claim that the distant past is worthless to study, or that we can learn nothing about it. It's a relationship between the age of the period and the usefulness of current evidence. For the matching principle, look for another case where present evidence illuminates the past but sheds less light on its most distant reaches.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Astronomers use recently collected data to infer the solar system's earlier history, much as historians use current conditions to infer a region's past. They have learned comparatively little about the solar system's origin, the most distant part of that history. Both cases pair useful present evidence with a limitation when the target lies farther back in time.
- B
This is about getting less new information after repeatedly studying the same crime scene. The change is how much investigation has already occurred, not how far into the past the event lies. Diminishing returns from additional study don't match the passage's time-distance relationship.
- C
The distance here is between two worldviews, not between the present and an earlier period. Understanding an unfamiliar perspective might be difficult, but the answer doesn't describe current evidence becoming less informative about more remote history.
- D
This describes an unreliable inference from appearances, such as mistaking the Earth's apparent position for its actual place in the universe. The passage doesn't dismiss inferences from present observations as rash. It says those observations are useful, with decreasing usefulness for more distant periods.
- E
Studying the pyramids supplies a present clue to past knowledge, so the first part fits. But the second part concerns becoming more impressed as the study continues. It doesn't say that the evidence is less useful for learning about earlier and earlier periods. Sharing an archaeological topic isn't enough to match both parts of the principle.
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