MCAT Section Tests Dear Future Doctor, The following Section Test and explanations should be used to practice and to assess your mastery of critical thinking in each of the section areas Topics are confluent and are not necessarily in any specific order or fixed proportion This is the level of integration in your preparation that collects what you have learned in the Kaplan classroom and synthesizes your knowledge with your critical thinking Simply completing the tests is inadequate; a solid understanding of your performance through your Score Reports and the explanations is necessary to diagnose your specific weaknesses and address them before Test Day All rights are reserved pursuant to the copyright laws and the contract clause in your enrollment agreement and as printed below Misdemeanor and felony infractions can severely limit your ability to be accepted to a medical program and a conviction can result in the removal of a medical license We offer this material for your practice in your own home as a courtesy and privilege Practice today so that you can perform on test day; this material was designed to give you every advantage on the MCAT and we wish you the best of luck in your preparation Sincerely, Albert Chen Executive Director, Pre-Health Research and Development Kaplan Test Prep © 2003 Kaplan, Inc All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by Photostat, microfilm, xerography or any other means, or incorporated into any information retrieval system, electronic or mechanical without the written permission of Kaplan, Inc This book may not be duplicated, distributed or resold, pursuant to the terms of your Kaplan Enrollment Agreement ANSWER KEY: A B C A B 11 12 13 14 15 A C A A C 21 22 23 24 25 B D B A A 31 32 33 34 35 C B D A D 41 42 43 44 45 C D C D C 51 52 53 54 55 A B D A D 10 D B A B B 16 17 18 19 20 B B D C D 26 27 28 29 30 B C A D D 36 37 38 39 40 C C A B C 46 47 48 49 50 C C B A C 56 57 58 59 60 D B C D C “Test Transcript” VERBAL REASONING TEST TRANSCRIPT Passage I (Questions 1-7) Topic and Scope: Volcanic activity can make an ancient ecosystem appear to have developed in a much drier regional climate than actually existed Paragraph Structure: ¶1 uses a modern-climate example to introduce the idea of mock aridity, while ¶2 suggests that mock aridity may alter our view of past ecosystems ¶3 explains in detail how volcanism causes mock aridity ¶s and discuss two particular paleoclimates whose climates may have been wetter than they appeared This new evidence means that the global climate may have stayed warm and wet for a longer time than scientists previously thought ¶6 explains how the idea of mock aridity can be tested using ocean marine sediment records Questions: (A) I is definitely not an assumption Potts makes; the whole point of using marine records is to avoid the local effects of terrestrial volcanism III is wrong because the passage never talks about the ocean changing temperature II, however, is an assumption that Potts makes The marine sediment record is supposed to be accurate because it was never touched by volcanism, but it wouldn’t be accurate if it had been disturbed by something else (B) Harris and Van Couvering would agree with this because their results agree more with the computer models than with the fossils (A) Be careful It’s not that the ecosystems were more successful than fossils indicate—the ecosystems were continually disrupted It’s that the climate was wetter than fossils indicated (C) This has to be wrong because we have fossils from volcanic regions, according to the passage (D) There is no basis for this in the passage (C) The information in the stem has nothing to with the passage; it’s a distortion of the image conjured in the first ¶ of what the current Pacific Northwest climate will look like to someone a million years in the future (A) Climax communities accurately reflect the regional climate, so fossils from climax communities should be an accurate gauge of the climate, unlike the fossils from volcanically-disrupted communities (B) Due to mock aridity, this would be true even if East Africa had a wetter climate than previously suspected (C) This would support rather than challenge the idea that East Africa may have been wetter than expected, since volcanism would have made the climate look drier (D) This too would support rather than challenge the idea (B) The author compares the barren environment in a volcanic region to the barren environment in a desert (A) If ancient volcanic regions could be deemed savannah environments, there must have been volcanic activity (C) is wrong; see (B) above (D) The author says that biological communities develop but never reach climatic climax, which means they are persistently mowed down by volcanism This does not challenge Harris’s claim (D) If global temperatures did not drop until after the Miocene, this would support Harris’s idea that the Miocene environment was actually warm and wet and that the Miocene savannah environments in the fossil record are an effect of volcanism Thus, (D) is correct and (B) is wrong (A)’s claim is never made in the passage (C)’s claim is unaffected by the information in the stem (B) We have no way of knowing whether or not there was volcanic activity in the Pacific Rim 38 million years ago, so the most Harris and Van Couvering could assert is that the record may not be accurate (A) and (D) There may not have been any volcanoes back then in the Pacific Rim, which eliminates these choices (C) is much too extreme; the fossil record is only inaccurate, as far as we know, in regions that had volcanic activity Passage II (Questions 8-13) Topic and Scope: The author argues that the original transformative feminist commitment to caring has been lost in the equal-opportunity feminist drive to adapt to the realities of the masculine marketplace Paragraph Structure: ¶s and explain the transformative feminist vision, which is based on a commitment to caring ¶3 asserts that corporate America and the media have corrupted and masculinized feminism by defining liberation in marketplace terms The result of this corruption, we find out in ¶s 4, and 6, is equal-opportunity feminism, which favors adaptation to the marketplace over transformation of it In ¶7 and ¶8, the author says that the marketplace was just too seductive a trap for feminists, some of whom have become successful but are now too caught up in their own success These women may still be concerned about political and social issues (¶9), but they are afraid that they’ll jeopardize what they have gained if they work for change Questions: (A) By “the victims of aggression identify with their aggressors,” the author means that the feminists, the victims, began to identify with and accept the ideals of their aggressors, corporate America and the media (B) The author does not agree with the equal-opportunity-feminist tenet that women should place competition above caring; to the author, caring is the true feminist ideal (A) This does not really counter the equal-opportunity feminist’s argument (C) is wrong because it assumes the author would agree that the basic goal of feminism should be to help women compete with men (D) runs counter to the author’s philosophy 10 (B) The author criticizes the successful women (according to “traditional American ideals”) who won’t work for change because they are too caught up in being personally successful, so attainment of personal success is not the highest ideal to her (A) is a tricky wrong choice Not all feminists have lost touch with their roots, just the equal-opportunity feminists (C) This is too extreme to be correct (D) The author never mentions any other societal spheres besides the marketplace 11 (A) According to the author, some successful women are afraid to work for change for fear of jeopardizing their success (A) reflects this idea (B) There is no evidence to support this in the passage (C) and (D) both contradict information in the passage 12 (C) The author makes this claim but offers no specific evidence or examples to support it The claim is consistent with the reasoning of the passage, however 13 (A) This choice is consistent with all of the information in the passage regarding equal-opportunity feminists (B) According to the passage, some equal-opportunity feminists at least say that caring is important, though they may not anything about it (C) This is a former belief of the transformative feminists (D) This claim is never made Passage III (Questions 14-18) Topic and Scope: Mass movements; specifically, the focus of mass movements Paragraph Structure: ¶s and assert that mass movements discredit both the past and present in order to get their members to make sacrifices to achieve an idealized future ¶s 3-6 simply build on this basic theme by providing more details about how mass movements operate and about what they think The Big Picture: Don’t let flowery, indirect language throw you The point here is rather straightforward: mass movements focus on the future at the expense of the past and present All the rest is detail that you can look up if questions demand it Questions: 14 (A) That mass movements look to the future at the expense of the present is discussed throughout the passage Statement I, therefore, is supported Statements II and III, however, aren’t supported by evidence or explanation The passage never discusses the leadership of mass movements (statement II) or the relative success of religious and nationalist mass movements (statement III) 15 (C) In ¶6, the author remarks that religious, social, and nationalist mass movements all reject the present in favor of an idealized future, even if they have different reasons for rejecting the present and looking toward the future Thus, they are all similar in this general respect (A) Mass movements assert that the future will be better than the present; there’s nothing in the passage to indicate that the author would endorse this position (B) is beyond the scope of the passage There’s no discussion of the actual achievements or failures of mass movements (D) To the contrary The author contends that mass movements invariably denounce the past in no uncertain terms 16 (B) The phrase “the campaign against the appetites” appears in the context of a discussion of mass movement attempts to get members to eschew the comforts of the present in order to put all of their energies into molding a “glorious future.” In other words, this phrase refers to mass movement efforts to steer members away from pleasures and comforts (A) To the contrary Mass movements are all about political involvement (C) Mass movements don’t disavow miracles Anyway, this choice focuses on a detail from the wrong ¶—¶4 (D) is beyond the scope of the passage Mass movement attitudes about governments aren’t mentioned in the passage 17 (B) The author contends that mass movements have their sights set on the future Thus, a mass movement that was out to reform the present political system would contradict his claim (A) and (C) are logically eliminated by (B) (D) No, this information would contradict the author’s claim 18 (D) The basic idea of the passage is that mass movements want to build a “glorious future” that is fundamentally different from the present Hence, they surely believe that it’s necessary to destroy the present Statement I is true Statements II and III, on the other hand, aren’t true According to the author, mass movements denounce the past; they don’t glorify it And mass movements, according to ¶s 1-3, certainly ask members to sacrifice themselves Passage IV (Questions 19-24) Topic and Scope: By trying to expand into Poland, NATO is jeopardizing its relationship with Russia because (1) Russians believe NATO is breaking a WWII promise and (2) Russians don’t want to lose influence over the countries surrounding them Paragraph Structure: In ¶1, the author uses an analogy to make his point that NATO is trying to expand at a time when it is confused about its identity He goes on to point out that NATO officially says it’s expanding for security reasons but the real goal would be to contain the Russians (¶2) The Russians, for their part, are ticked off about NATO expansion but are trying to apply diplomatic pressure (¶3) ¶s and go into detail about why the Russians are unhappy about NATO expansion In ¶6, the author explains that most Russian politicians want to maintain a sphere of influence in former Soviet regions Questions: 19 (C) In the author’s analogy, NATO is the couple in a crumbling marriage who is trying to have a baby—that is, expand by absorbing an Eastern European country The baby is the Eastern European country in the analogy 20 (D) (A), (B) and (C) are all actions that the author would support at least to some degree, but what he really would want more than anything is for NATO to reconsider expanding into Eastern Europe (D) 21 (B) The “clear though implicit” promise, as discussed in the last question, was that the West wouldn’t go into Eastern Europe (A) was never a promise made to Russia (C) is wrong because it was the promise Russia made (D) was certainly not a promise the West would have made 22 (D) I can be found in ¶2, II is an appropriate inference based on the fact that Western diplomats privately say Russians are paranoid to fear the loss of Ukraine to NATO, and III is true based on the fact that there is “Western criticism” of Russia’s plans to maintain its sphere of influence (last sentence) 23 (B) Both NATO and Russia, according to the passage, justify attempting to maintain and expand their sphere of influence by saying they need it for greater security (A) is never mentioned in the passage and defies common sense (C) Refusing to admit defeat is never mentioned in the passage (D) NATO certainly isn’t engaging in careful planning or diplomatic negotiation 24 (A) The Russians “point to the Monroe Doctrine and the French sphere of influence in Africa” to justify their actions; in other words, “You did it, so it’s all right for us to it.” (A) paraphrases this idea Passage V (Questions 25-30) Topic and Scope: Merchandising of political candidates is undermining democracy because it exploits the electorate’s irrationality and vulnerability to persuasion Paragraph Structure: ¶1: The author argues that increasing population and technology have undermined democracy as the power has come to be held by politicians and not by the people ¶2: Although people are capable of making rational decisions in an election, they don’t get a chance because candidates are marketed like supermarket items ¶3 and 4: The author details how a political campaign is constructed in order to take advantage of the public’s psychological weaknesses Questions: 25 (A) According to the first ¶, an increase in population has resulted in an increase in officials’ power 26 (B) In the first ¶, the author says in a democracy that elected officials are supposed to be the servants of the people, not the ones with power (A) The author would agree; in fact, he argues for this (C) Psychology and the social sciences are being used to manipulate the masses, according to the author (D) As far as we know from the passage, propaganda is very effective at exploiting voters’ weaknesses 27 (C) (B) and (D) are both irrelevant, so they can be eliminated, leaving you with (A) and (C) (A) is wrong because it’s possible that Americans won’t bother to watch political debates but still care about candidates’ political principles and/or know about them from the candidates’ campaigns (C) is correct because if Americans vote for candidates without knowing about their specific plans or principles regarding foreign policy, then (1) it wasn’t part of the selling of the candidate to tell Americans about this and (2) Americans didn’t care enough to demand to know the candidates’ foreign policy proposals 28 (A) Why would such an accusation work? Because people are afraid of crime If one candidate runs a commercial that attacks his opponent’s stance on crime, the commercial is playing on the public’s fears (B) This claim is never made, and besides, the opponent could indeed be soft on crime (C) Such a commercial does not appeal to the strengths of the voters (D) This claim is never made 29 (D) This choice is supported by the entire final paragraph (A) contradicts the author’s belief that the public can respond to rational appeal (B) The author would never come out in favor of the merchandising method (C) This choice has no basis in the passage 30 (D) Notice in ¶3 that a lot of the work on a political campaign is already done before a candidate is selected (A) This contradicts the whole idea behind merchandising, that surface matters most (B) If everybody had unique fears and desires, merchandisers wouldn’t be able to play on the collective fears and desires of the people as they (C) The author never claims that anyone can be molded into a political candidate Passage VI (Questions 31-36) Topic and Scope: Messages; specifically, the relative effectiveness of one- and two-sided messages Paragraph Structure: ¶s and introduce the basic issue: which is more effective in persuading an audience, a oneor a two-sided message? ¶s and explain that there’s no clear answer to this question It really depends on two variables: the audience’s knowledge of the subject of the message and its views on that subject ¶5 contends that two-sided messages are more effective when dealing with knowledgeable audiences, while one-sided messages are more effective when dealing with uninformed audiences ¶6 veers off the general topic a bit, to explain how advertisers have applied information about the effectiveness of messages to their efforts Finally, ¶7 points out that onesided messages are more effective with audiences that are predisposed to accept the communicator’s position, while twosided messages are more effective with audiences that are undecided about the communicator’s position The Big Picture: When a passage presents a number of relationships, be sure that you can discriminate among them The questions will probably test to see that you can Questions: 31 (C) ¶5 says that well-informed people are more likely to be persuaded by two-sided arguments Since the congressional “foreign policy experts” are definitely well-informed, the President should make a two-sided argument that addresses both the potential benefits and the potential costs of troop deployment (A) and (B) One-sided arguments would not be effective in front of such an audience, particularly if they focus on potential costs (D) is beyond the scope of the passage There’s no discussion of emotions versus facts Strategy Point: If you don’t remember the nature of a particular relationship brought up in the passage, go back and reread the relevant piece(s) of text Don’t rely on your memory 32 (B) In the context of the passage, “comparative advertising” refers to advertising that mentions the competition by name An advertisment in which “the manufacturer of Brand W explains why its product is superior to Brand X’s product” fits the bill (A), (C), and (D) None of these advertisements features a named product that is compared to another named product 33 (D) ¶5 indicates that the less informed a person is about an issue, the more likely he or she is to be swayed by a one-sided message Underlying this thinking is the necessary assumption that the less a person knows about a subject, the more willing he or she must be to accept someone else’s opinion about it (A) The authors never claim that advertisements are generally ineffective Moreover, this isn’t an assumption implicit in the authors’ opinion about audience receptivity to messages (B) is beyond the scope of the passage The only reference to the mass media concerns the volume of messages that it transmits to the public (C) The authors never claim that most people don’t think carefully about what others tell them They simply say that the less knowledge one has about a topic, the more likely one can be swayed by a one-sided message about it 34 (A) This choice reflects the basic point of ¶5 (B) No, not when the leading brand uses comparative advertising (C) The passage speaks of “knowledgeable” people being more receptive to two-sided messages than “uninformed” people “Knowledgeable” is different than “educated.” (D) The authors suggest that some audiences may view communicators as unfair if they employ one-sided messages; but the authors themselves never make this charge Strategy Point: Make sure that you’re aware of the differences between authorial views and the views of individuals or groups mentioned in the passage Wrong choices will often confuse the two 35 (D) According to the passage, a well-informed, unbiased individual should react more favorably to a two-sided message So, a person like the one in I wouldn’t challenge information in the passage The people in II and III are a different matter, however A poorly-informed, unbiased person, according to the passage, should react more favorably to a one-sided message, while a well-informed, unbiased person should react favorably to a two-sided message 36 (C) According to the passage, knowledgeable and open-minded audiences would be more inclined to take seriously a twosided argument Hence, a communicator in possession of this information would present this type of argument (A) Why would a communicator make no argument? (B) is logically eliminated by (C) (D) Why would a communicator appeal to emotions? Passage VII (Questions 37-42) Topic and Scope: The author thinks that punitive damages should not be awarded over and over again to different plaintiffs against the same defendant for the same issue (one punishment is enough) Paragraph Structure: ¶s through explain what punitive damage awards are and how they have increased in the past five years In ¶4, the author says although single punitive damage awards some good, multiple awards are ridiculous He supports this position in ¶5 by bringing up and then countering the arguments of those who favor multiple awards ¶6 gives you some scope of the problem from the corporate point of view ¶7 asserts, however, that corporations just pass along the costs of suffering multiple damage awards to consumers Finally, ¶8 says that the answer to the problem is federal legislation Questions: 37 (C) What the author really wants is to outlaw multiple punitive damage awards for the same act This would it (A) The author is not against single punitive damage awards, so this is wrong (B) The author would be in favor of this, but not nearly as much as he would favor the law in (C) (D) Don’t confuse this with limiting multiple damage awards, which involve suing a corporation over and over for the same act 38 (A) The argument would be more persuasive if the author were a plaintiff lawyer than if he were a CEO (B) because a plaintiff lawyer would have a lot to lose if multiple damage awards were limited, and this would mean that the plaintiff lawyer would not be making the argument in order to gain something personally The CEO would definitely be arguing in his own self-interest, making the argument less psychologically persuasive (C) and (D) don’t lend any particular credibility to the argument 39 (B) According to ¶7, corporations just pass on their losses to the consumer; that means that they aren’t at financial risk due to punitive damages (A) This contradicts ¶6, which asserts that punitive damage awards are very substantial (C) and (D) There is no evidence in the passage to support either of these claims 40 C) Read the question stem carefully The RAND study is too old to have an impact on the argument in the passage, which has to with the trend in litigation over the past five years 41 (C) I is out because multiple punitive damages has to with only one offense (there are many separate cases having to with only one offense) II is true because the whole point of saying a jury may be aware of only the facts of its own case is that there may be more facts in other cases about the offense in question that would show even more accurately how bad the offense was As stated above, in multiple damage awards multiple cases have been brought against the same defendant for the same act III is also true 42 (D) This claim is made in ¶4 (A), (B) and (C) None of these claims is ever made in the passage Passage VIII (Questions 43-52) Topic and Scope: Scholar A believes that the restoration of the Sistine Chapel ruined Michelangelo’s masterpiece because the cleaning solvents removed his final touches and made everything too bright Scholar B defends the restorers and says the colors are what the artist intended to be seen Paragraph Structure: The idea behind ¶1 is that Scholar A thinks that Michelangelo himself would have been appalled at the restoration In ¶2, A goes on to say that the essential dark quality of the painting had been removed with the dirt, and that this quality was not just the effect of dirt or grime but was rather the master’s work In ¶3, Scholar B responds by defending the restoration as scientifically justified and precise B claims in ¶4 that Scholar A had just gotten used to the wrong idea of Michelangelo which was based on dirty frescoes Scholar A gets a parting shot in ¶5 to the effect that the restorers have apparently made the ceiling vulnerable to pollution Questions: 43 (C) To say that Michelangelo would be “philosophical” about some of the damage is to say that he would be “unruffled” by it Always go back to the context for a question like this so that you can avoid wrong answer choices of the same type as (A) and (B) (D) To the contrary, Scholar A proposes that Michelangelo would have “taken in stride” the effects environment had on the painting 44 (D) The fact that decades passed between the painting and the first application of glaze indicated to the restorers that Michelangelo did not apply the glaze; that’s why they felt justified in removing it They—and Scholar B—were assuming in this argument that Michelangelo could not himself have put the glaze on decades after painting the ceiling (A) It was the first glaze, not the dirt, that was laid down decades after the painting’s completion (B) But the cleaning solvents did touch the frescoes (C) According to Scholar B’s theory, Michelangelo had nothing to with the glaze 45 (C) The ceiling used to be dark and foreboding and isn’t anymore, so it must be the darkening of colors that made Michelangelo look like a wayward genius If he was wayward for doing this, it must mean that darkening colors wasn’t common practice (A) Just because the painting is no longer unconventional doesn’t mean that Michelangelo wasn’t a fiercely independent thinker (B) This is pretty far-fetched (C) Being a wayward genius isn’t a negative trait, is it? 46 (C) This choice reflects the first ¶ (A) Scholar A never says anything about immortality (B) This contradicts Scholar A’s claims that Michelangelo would have thought this, Michelangelo would have thought that (D) Scholar A does think the ceiling has changed over time due to water damage, etc 47 (C) This is Scholar A’s position in a nutshell He could very well be wrong (A)’s reasoning really doesn’t make sense (B) The assertion that the restorers reveled in brightening the ceiling doesn’t support the idea that Michelangelo would be appalled unless Michelangelo didn’t intend the ceiling to look that way—which is uncertain (D) All of Scholar A’s statements are meant to support the claim that Michelangelo would be appalled 48 (B) Scholar A sarcastically suggests at the end of the passage that the climate-control system will itself probably damage the painting Since it did not, and since Scholar A is nothing but critical, one would expect him to attack the restorers again for having allowed pollution damage to occur (A) Although Scholar A thinks the painting should have stayed dark, he is not at all happy about the idea of pollution damage (C) Scholar A would never say anything positive about the restoration (D) There is no reason, as far as we know from the passage, that Scholar A would think this 49 (A) If Michelangelo seems like a “vagabond given a good scrubbing”—that is, if our view of him completely changes— just because the painting has been brightened, it means that we know about Michelangelo only through his art If we knew a lot more about him, simply brightening one of his works wouldn’t make him seem like a different person to us (B), (C) and (D) all simply miss the point of Scholar B’s creative comparison 50 (C) Scholars A and B both think that the Sistine Chapel should look as Michelangelo intended it to look; they just have different opinions on what were Michelangelo’s intentions (A) Scholar B prizes scientific methods above artistic sensibility (B) Scholar A would prefer to uphold long-standing traditions (D) Scholar B proposes this; Scholar A does not 51 (A) Scholar A immediately attributes the darkening of the ceiling to pollution, so he must be assuming that nothing else could have caused the darkening (I) However, there is no reason for him to have assumed that II and III are true 52 (B) The “quality of suppressed anger etc.” was the result of the darkening by the dirt and glaze that Scholar B thinks was NOT Michelangelo’s work (A) This is Scholar A’s claim, not Scholar B’s (C) Scholar B thinks that the darkening was NOT a typical Renaissance effect (D) Neither Scholar A nor Scholar B says that the “quality of suppressed anger” was the subject of many different interpretations Passage IX (Questions 53-60) Topic and Scope: The discovery of dinosaur DNA and its significance Paragraph Structure: ¶1 explains why it has been difficult to obtain dinosaur DNA and why polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has helped researchers in their search ¶2 discusses the research on other forms of ancient DNA in order to illustrate the significance of Woodward’s discovery ¶3 explains why the original cell had been preserved due to the inhibition of fossilization The paragraph elaborates on the research and introduces Woodward’s hypothesis that the DNA belonged to one or two species of dinosaur ¶4 proposes that some researchers believe the cytochrome b sequence contained so much variation because it derived from several organisms The paragraph concludes with the idea that regardless of the origin of the DNA, the sample is still too small to offer substantial phylogenetic information The Big Picture: Often a passage will appear to be heading toward a particular point (scientists finally isolated ancient dinosaur DNA) when, in actuality, it concludes with a different idea (the search for dinosaur DNA needs to continue) This usually indicates that some of the questions will focus on the contrast between the final conclusion and the development of the main idea Questions: 53 (A) ¶1 provides evidence and explanation in support of statement I Statements II and III, on the other hand, are beyond the scope of the passage 54 (D) ¶4 introduces the idea that some researchers question the identity of the DNA, and that they believe it comes “from several organisms.” If choice D were true, this would support the hypothesis of the questioning researchers (A) makes a vague statement that does not give support to the idea of Woodward’s DNA having a non-dinosaur origin (B) gives no support to the idea that Woodward’s DNA did not come from a dinosaur (C) is a general statement, which offers neither support nor opposition to the idea that Woodward’s DNA did not come from dinosaur 55 (A) The beginning of ¶3 states that scientists used cytochrome b to study the DNA sequence (B) To the contrary, the end of ¶4 states that the “cytochrome b fragments were too short to offer meaningful phylogenetic information.” (C) Even Woodward believed that the DNA could have belonged to more than one species of dinosaur There is no evidence in the passage that the DNA came from one species of dinosaur (D) ¶3 states that researchers believed that the DNA was from a dinosaur, and not from a crocodile, because “the bones visible in the mine were larger than those of a crocodile.” The passage never indicates that cytochrome b was used to identify the DNA as non-crocodile 56 (D) ¶2 claims that before Woodward, ancient DNA had been extracted, but never from bone (A) To the contrary, Woodward’s experiment did not provide much conclusive evidence, especially about any evolutionary relationships (B) The passage never mentions Woodward as the first researcher to extract DNA from fossils In fact, researchers did indeed extract ancient DNA from fossils before Woodward; they just did not extract it from bone (C) ¶1 states that researchers have been using PCR since the late 1980s Strategy Point: Some questions may require close attention to detail Choice B is tempting, yet careful examination of the passage shows that Woodward distinguished himself by extracting DNA from dinosaur bone, not from plants or bugs 57 (B) The first sentence of ¶3 states that siltstone inhibited fossilization and implies that this inhibition preserved the cell structure and thus the structure of the DNA Therefore, the author would definitely not agree with this statement (A) ¶1 mentions that the rocks of Utah are “fossil-rich.” (C) paraphrases the last sentence of ¶2 (D) paraphrases the last two sentences of ¶1 58 (C) The end of ¶4 proposes that the search for dinosaur DNA must continue because the extracted DNA was “too short” to provide conclusive phylogenetic information (A) Woodward’s DNA may come from several species yet the passage never suggests that this is the reason the “dinosaur hunt must continue.” (B) To the contrary, as ¶1 states, PCR is used to copy “minute quantities of DNA.” (D) To the contrary, ¶2 indicates that Woodward excavated in mines which “often contained dinosaur traces.” 59 (D) The second sentence of ¶1 indicates that Woodward’s team distinguished itself by being the first to isolate dinosaur DNA (A) The passage never indicates that Woodward developed PCR (B) is too general a statement And, the passage indicates Woodward’s research has yet to provide conclusive phylogenetic information (C) The beginning of ¶2 implies that many researchers know how to extract ancient DNA from fossils 60 (C) Researchers who question the identity of Woodward’s dinosaur DNA believe that the sample of DNA came from multiple organisms If it were proven that the sample of DNA came from one particular species of dinosaur, then this would undermine their argument (A) offers evidence that Woodward’s sample of DNA derived from multiple sources This would support the researchers who question the identity of Woodward’s dinosaur DNA (B) does not have direct relevance to the argument (D) offers no substantial evidence for or against the argument  ... D 36 37 38 39 40 C C A B C 46 47 48 49 50 C C B A C 56 57 58 59 60 D B C D C Test Transcript” VERBAL REASONING TEST TRANSCRIPT Passage I (Questions 1-7) Topic and Scope: Volcanic activity can... longer time than scientists previously thought ¶6 explains how the idea of mock aridity can be tested using ocean marine sediment records Questions: (A) I is definitely not an assumption Potts... number of relationships, be sure that you can discriminate among them The questions will probably test to see that you can Questions: 31 (C) ¶5 says that well-informed people are more likely to