PrepTest 145, Section 1, Question 23
The French biologist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744–1829) outlined(453 more words not shown)
The passage is primarily concerned(1 more words not shown)
- Aoffering a historical(8 more words not shown)
- Bdescribing the efforts(10 more words not shown)
- Canswering a set(11 more words not shown)
- Devaluating the overall(13 more words not shown)
- Epresenting a discredited(11 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Return to the main point. Lamarck supplies the background, but Steele is the focus: he proposes a modern immune-system mechanism and claims evidence that may support a theory most biologists reject. We are looking for a description of that effort, not a history of every stage of Lamarckism.
Working the answers
- A
The opening gives historical context, but the later paragraphs describe Steele's current proposal. They do not trace the development of the evolutionary theory across the intervening years.
- BCorrect
Steele is the modern biologist, and Lamarckism is the long-disregarded theory he is trying to vindicate. Describing his efforts does not mean the author concludes that those efforts succeeded.
- C
The questions about immune responses help introduce the mechanism Steele wants to use. They are not the final subject of the account. Explaining how immunity works generally would miss the proposed inheritance of acquired changes.
- D
The author raises reservations, but does not conduct an overall evaluation of Lamarckism's merits. The focus is narrower: a particular researcher's proposed mechanism and the evidence he cites for it.
- E
No broader lesson about the philosophy of science is developed through a case study. The account stays with the biological proposal, its evidence and other biologists' response.
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