PrepTest 158, Section 3, Question 6
Surprisingly, a new study has revealed that shortly(36 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(17 more words not shown)
- ACompared to the(16 more words not shown)
- BMost of the(16 more words not shown)
- CMost rainwater carried(13 more words not shown)
- DThe single leading(20 more words not shown)
- EOther nearby ocean(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The rain is nearly pure. Why does the bay get more polluted afterward?
That's the puzzle. Adding clean water should seem to dilute the pollution already there. Yet after heavy rain, the measured pollution reaches its highest levels. We need something else happening with the rain to explain the increase.
Maybe a factory dumps waste during storms. Maybe the rain moves pollution from somewhere else. Those are possibilities to investigate, not facts we've been given. I don't need to identify the exact mechanism before reading the answers, but I do need to know what a successful explanation must do: connect the heavy rainfall with more pollution in the bay.
What we’re looking for
A fact explaining why the rain doesn't clean the bay would only get us partway. The question asks why pollution increases.
Working the answers
- A
A negligible amount of rainwater might have almost no diluting effect. But why would pollution go up? A could explain why the bay doesn't become noticeably cleaner, while leaving the actual increase unexplained. We need an added source of pollution or some other reason for that increase.
- BCorrect
The rainwater doesn't go straight from the clouds into the bay. Most of it first falls on fields treated with pesticides and then travels into the bay. It can begin almost pure and pick up pollutants along the way.
That explains both facts at once: the rain itself is clean, but the water reaching the bay carries pesticides. Heavy rain can therefore bring more pollution into the bay rather than simply dilute what's already there.
- C
Where the cloud water originally came from doesn't explain why the bay becomes more polluted after rain. We already know the rainwater is almost pure. C gives us part of the water's history without identifying anything that would produce the increase we're trying to explain.
- D
This identifies a major source of pollution in general. But why would that source produce the highest pollution levels shortly after heavy rain? We aren't told that beachgoers leave more trash then or that the rain increases the amount reaching the bay. Don't add that missing connection ourselves.
- E
So the same pattern occurs elsewhere. That makes the puzzle more widespread; it doesn't solve it. We still need to know why rainfall is followed by higher pollution, whether that happens in one bay or several nearby areas.
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