PrepTest 152, Section 3, Question 23
Physicists posit that at first our universe was(435 more words not shown)
The claim in the fourth(20 more words not shown)
- Afirst(1 more words not shown)
- Bsecond(1 more words not shown)
- Cthird(1 more words not shown)
- Dfifth(1 more words not shown)
- Esixth(1 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The claim concerns what starting condition is most likely. Why expect something like cold, empty space rather than the unusual small, hot, dense beginning of our universe? Look for the explanation of why disordered configurations are more common than ordered ones.
What we’re looking for
The room analogy supplies that thinking: there are many more random places to scatter an object than places that would make the room tidier. That helps explain why a typical condition would have higher entropy. We want that probability background, not merely a paragraph that also mentions empty space.
Working the answers
- A
The first paragraph describes our universe's hot, dense beginning and expansion. It gives us the state that later needs explaining, not the reasoning for expecting a different, more common starting condition.
- B
The second introduces repeated big bangs and the larger multiverse. It doesn't explain why one kind of initial configuration would be more likely than another.
- CCorrect
The third paragraph explains that there are more ways for a system to be disordered than ordered. Its random-change reasoning and room example supply the background for expecting a high-entropy condition rather than an exceptionally ordered one. That is the idea Carroll and Chen draw on in the fourth paragraph.
- D
The fifth explains how a Big Bang could arise even in empty space: faint energy fluctuations can generate one. That answers how universes might emerge from that setting, not why the setting would be the most common initial condition.
- E
The sixth explains why the creation of a universe like ours is less surprising across a vast multiverse. It is about the occurrence of an unusual event within that larger setting, rather than the earlier reasoning about what the typical background condition would be.
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