PrepTest 159, Section 4, Question 25

Working the answers

• A

  The author doesn't establish that knowing all the locations is impossible in principle. The argument grants that information hypothetically and says prediction would still exceed scientists' ability to compute the system's behavior.

• B

  The reason given isn't a demonstrated division into successful predictions for all linear systems and unsuccessful ones for nonlinear systems. The first paragraph identifies the theory's limited scope: fundamental components do not give us predictions for every complicated whole.

• C

  This contradicts the explanation that the theory would address everything only because particles constitute all physical things (paragraph 1). The objection is not that thunderstorms contain some different, nonparticle substance.

• D
  Correct

  The theory would explain the nature and fundamental interactions of subatomic particles. Calling it a theory of everything misleadingly suggests that this would also explain or predict all the behavior of complicated systems, which the author says it could not do.

• E

  We aren't told what modern science is primarily concerned with. The objection concerns what this theory could explain, not how scientific attention is distributed.