PrepTest 149, Section 2, Question 12
In a typical Hollywood action movie, the hero(451 more words not shown)
If the multiverse hypothesis as(30 more words not shown)
- Ahad a team(13 more words not shown)
- Bwas actually just(15 more words not shown)
- Chad developed the(13 more words not shown)
- Dwas actually just(17 more words not shown)
- Ewas equipped with(17 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Use the multiverse explanation from the third paragraph, not the author's later finding about changing several constants. That explanation gives us many universes, most of which might not permit life, and enough opportunities for at least one suitable universe to occur.
Now rebuild the movie. Instead of sending one hero into all that danger, send a huge number of people on the mission. Most fail, but one survives the bullets, explosions, and falling objects. Seeing only the survivor could look like an extraordinary run of luck. Knowing how many unsuccessful attempts there were makes that success less surprising.
What we’re looking for
So we want many attempts and an exceptional success. Special training, secret helpers, or a perfect map would explain survival in a different way.
Working the answers
- A
A support team would actively arrange for the hero's success. The cosmologists do not explain our universe by claiming that something behind the scenes ensured it would support life.
- BCorrect
Each person sent on the mission matches a universe. The many failures match the universes with unsuitable laws, and the surviving hero matches our life-supporting universe. The successful attempt is part of a much larger set of attempts; that is the missing feature of the original movie story.
- C
This hero improves through earlier missions. The account does not describe our universe practicing, learning, or getting better through previous attempts of its own.
- D
This begins well: many people go on the mission. But then everyone succeeds. The third paragraph instead describes almost all universes as possibly unable to support matter and life as we know them. The distinction between many attempts and many successes is essential. Do not replace this paragraph's explanation with the later finding that several different arrangements might work.
- E
A map supplies advance knowledge that helps the hero avoid danger. Nothing in the cosmologists' explanation gives a universe such guidance. Their explanation rests on the number of possibilities, not a way of making each attempt succeed.
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