PrepTest 142, Section 2, Question 2
Since there is no survival value in an(54 more words not shown)
Of the following, which one(14 more words not shown)
- AA store in(23 more words not shown)
- BThe body of(25 more words not shown)
- COne car model(33 more words not shown)
- DAthletes occasionally overdevelop(24 more words not shown)
- EAutomotive engineers find(36 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What good is a liver that keeps working after the rest of the body has failed? It doesn't keep the animal alive on its own.
That helps me understand the passage's appeal to efficiency. Making one organ much more durable would supply no survival benefit once the other organs have failed badly enough to kill the animal. So natural selection is unlikely to produce that extra durability. The claim isn't that organs can never function after death; it's about why one organ is unlikely to evolve a lifespan greatly exceeding the others'.
What we’re looking for
We're looking for a similar underlying principle. My first, loose prediction is that an efficient process is unlikely to produce something that serves no useful purpose. I'll keep that prediction flexible while checking how each answer actually works.
Working the answers
- A
The store responds to demand: it avoids routinely stocking expensive goods but obtains them when a customer orders them. That has an efficiency theme, but it lacks the relationship between one part's durability and the useful life of the whole. There is a purpose for these goods when someone wants them. The original concerns extra durability that doesn't help the animal survive.
- B
Other organs take over the deficient organ's job. That describes compensation: one part helps keep the whole functioning when another part falls short. The original isn't about replacing a failed organ's contribution. It concerns the lack of benefit from one organ greatly outlasting the others. Matching the topic of organs doesn't match the principle.
- C
Here, a long-lasting car is useful and popular. Its success causes the manufacturer to stop making competing models. Each model is a complete car, whereas the original compares an organ with the body it serves. Popularity driving a change in production is different from extra durability supplying no benefit to the whole.
- D
Overdeveloping one body part makes others more vulnerable to injury. That gives us a harmful consequence of uneven development. The passage doesn't say that a durable organ damages the others; it says that outlasting them wouldn't help the animal survive. Harm and lack of benefit aren't the same relationship.
- ECorrect
This makes the comparison more precise than my initial prediction: why make a part outlast the whole it serves?
Imagine a piston built to last a thousand years in a car whose other parts will wear out far sooner. Once the rest of the car is unusable, the piston's continued durability doesn't improve the car. The piston corresponds to the organ, the car to the animal, and the unnecessary extra durability to an organ greatly outlasting the others.
Engineers avoid spending extra money for no improvement in the car's overall quality. The passage similarly appeals to the efficiency of natural selection to explain why an organ is unlikely to acquire durability that supplies no survival benefit. That part-and-whole relationship makes E the closest match.
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