PrepTest 152, Section 3, Question 20

Working the answers

• A
  Correct

  This gives the proposed cause and the setting: an energy fluctuation produced our universe within a high-entropy multiverse. It connects the unlikely small, hot, dense beginning with the more typical larger background. That is the explanation the discussion builds toward.

• B

  This is the entropy reasoning from the third paragraph. It matters because it makes our low-entropy starting condition puzzling, but it doesn't tell us how Carroll and Chen propose to explain that condition. Background to the theory isn't the whole theory.

• C

  They accept that our universe underwent rapid inflation. Their claim is that this Big Bang may be one of many, not that it never happened. C changes a proposal about the event's place in a larger setting into a denial of the event itself.

• D

  They accept that our universe had this unlikely starting configuration. This is the problem they are trying to explain, not their explanation of how our universe arose. Calling it unlikely doesn't mean denying that it occurred.

• E

  This is close, and the multiverse is expressly described as encompassing everything. The missing piece is the explanation of our universe's origin through an energy fluctuation. E tells us where our universe fits; A also tells us how, on the proposed theory, it came about.