Command of Evidence Lv Hard (Part4)

When digging for clams, their primary food, sea otters damage the roots of eelgrass plants growing on the seafloor. Near Vancouver Island in Canada, the otter population is large and well established, yet the eelgrass meadows are healthier than those found elsewhere off Canada’s coast. To explain this, conservation scientist Erin Foster and colleagues compared the Vancouver Island meadows to meadows where otters are absent or were reintroduced only recently. Finding that the Vancouver Island meadows have a more diverse gene pool than the others do, Foster hypothesized that damage to eelgrass roots increases the plant’s rate of sexual reproduction; this, in turn, boosts genetic diversity, which benefits the meadow’s health overall.

Which finding, if true, would most directly undermine Foster’s hypothesis?

In the “language nest” model of education, Indigenous children learn the language of their people by using it as the medium of instruction and socialization at pre-K or elementary levels. In their 2016 study of a school in an Anishinaabe community in Ontario, Canada, scholars Lindsay Morcom and Stephanie Roy (who are Anishinaabe themselves) found that the model not only imparted fluency in the Anishinaabe language but also enhanced students’ pride in Anishinaabe culture overall. Given these positive effects, Morcom and Roy predict that the model increases the probability that as adults, former students of the school will transmit the language to younger generations in their community.

Which finding, if true, would most strongly support the researchers’ prediction?

A sociology student is reading an essay on the median age of first marriage in Western countries throughout the twentieth century. The author of the essay cites factors common to these countries that the author believes caused an increase in the median age of first marriage, such as new technologies that shortened the time needed for domestic chores, making two-person households less necessary and living alone more viable. The student asserts that beyond these factors there must be additional ones specific to particular Western countries that influenced the increase of age at first marriage.

Which choice most effectively uses data from the graph that support the student’s assertion?

An archaeological team led by Piotr Bieliński and Sultan al-Bakri found remnants of a 4,000-year-old Bronze Age board game at a site in Oman. Little is left of the game except a stone board, which is carved with a grid and has places to hold game pieces. Some scholars claim that the game was largely played by traders.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the scholars’ claim?

Barchester Towers is an 1857 novel by Anthony Trollope. In the novel, Trollope’s portrayal of Dr. Proudie underscores the character’s exaggerated sense of his own abilities: ______

Which quotation from Barchester Towers most effectively illustrates the claim?

Boldly mixing elements of poetry, fiction, drama, philosophy, and manifesto, Puerto Rican writer Giannina Braschi creates cross-genre literature that explores themes such as immigration and independence. Her works have inspired responses from individuals across different fields and in a wide range of formats, from musical compositions and a comic book to architecture and furniture design. In an essay, a student asserts that the production of these diverse creations by others is reflective of Braschi’s own approach to crafting literature.

Which quotation from a scholarly review of Braschi’s work best supports the student’s claim?

Icebergs generally appear to be mostly white or blue, depending on how the ice reflects sunlight. Ice with air bubbles trapped in it looks white because much of the light reflects off the bubbles. Ice without air bubbles usually looks blue because the light travels deep into the ice and only a little of it is reflected. However, some icebergs in the sea around Antarctica appear to be green. One team of scientists hypothesized that this phenomenon is the result of yellow-tinted dissolved organic carbon in Antarctic waters mixing with blue ice to produce the color green.

Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the team’s hypothesis?

Many governments that regularly transfer money to individuals—to provide supplemental incomes for senior citizens, for example—have long done so electronically, but other countries typically have distributed physical money and have only recently developed electronic transfer infrastructure. Researchers studied the introduction of an electronic transfer system in one such location and found that recipients of electronic transfers consumed a different array of foods than recipients of physical transfers of the same amount did. One potential explanation for this result is that individuals conceive of and allocate funds in physical money differently than they conceive of and allocate funds in electronic form.

Which finding from the study, if true, would most directly weaken the potential explanation?

Psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt have argued that experiencing awe—a sensation of reverence and wonder typically brought on by perceiving something grand or powerful—can enable us to feel more connected to others and thereby inspire us to act more altruistically. Keltner, along with Paul K. Piff, Pia Dietze, and colleagues, claims to have found evidence for this effect in a recent study where participants were asked to either gaze up at exceptionally tall trees in a nearby grove (reported to be a universally awe-inspiring experience) or stare at the exterior of a nearby, nondescript building. After one minute, an experimenter deliberately spilled a box of pens nearby.

Which finding from the researchers’ study, if true, would most strongly support their claim?

In a research paper, a student criticizes some historians of modern African politics, claiming that they have evaluated Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, primarily as a symbol rather than in terms of his actions.

Which quotation from a work by a historian would best illustrate the student’s claim?

Archaeologists have held that the Casarabe culture, which emerged in the southwestern Amazon basin in the first millennium CE, was characterized by a sparse, widely distributed population and little intervention in the surrounding wilderness. Recently, however, archaeologist Heiko Prümers and colleagues conducted a study of the region using remote-sensing technology that enabled them to create three-dimensional images of the jungle-covered landscape from above, and the researchers concluded that the Casarabe people developed a form of urbanism in the Amazon basin.

Which finding about the remote-sensing images, if true, would most directly support Prümers and colleagues’ conclusion?

Archaeologist Petra Vaiglova, anthropologist Xinyi Liu, and their colleagues investigated the domestication of farm animals in China during the Bronze Age (approximately 2000 to 1000 BCE). By analyzing the chemical composition of the bones of sheep, goats, and cattle from this era, the team determined that wild plants made up the bulk of sheep’s and goats’ diets, while the cattle’s diet consisted largely of millet, a crop cultivated by humans. The team concluded that cattle were likely raised closer to human settlements, whereas sheep and goats were allowed to roam farther away.

Which finding, if true, would most strongly support the team’s conclusion?

Employment by Sector in France and the United States, 1800–2012 (% of total employment)

Year	Agriculture in France	Manufacturing in France	Services in France	Agriculture in US	Manufacturing in US	Services in US
1800	64	22	14	68	18	13
1900	43	29	28	41	28	31
1950	32	33	35	14	33	53
2012	3	21	76	2	18	80

Rows in table may not add up to 100 due to rounding.

Over the past two hundred years, the percentage of the population employed in the agricultural sector has declined in both France and the United States, while employment in the service sector (which includes jobs in retail, consulting, real estate, etc.) has risen. However, this transition happened at very different rates in the two countries. This can be seen most clearly by comparing the employment by sector in both countries in ______

Which choice most effectively uses data from the table to complete the statement?