Reading comp PrepTest 135 · Section 3 · Question 22

Passage

Questions 20-27  .        As part of an international effort to address  . environmental problems resulting from agricultural  . overproduction, Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Environmental problems from overproduction in Europe (depleted nutrients, fertilization encourages problem weeds) and some solutions (replace topsoil, end production, accelerated restoration)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Cause-and-effect relationships, according to the author:
      • Overproduction causes the depletion of nutrients, among other environmental problems (first and second sentences)
      • Overfertilization causes the growth of problem weeds, which make it difficult for native plants to establish themselves (third sentence)
    • Author's view:
      • The quickest solution is removing and replacing the topsoil, but that is impractical on a large scale (fourth sentence)
      • Most people believe that doing nothing will allow the soil to restore itself, but the Netherlands study is trying to accelerate this natural rehab (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "environmental problems" (first sentence); "will be difficult" (second sentence); "problem weeds" (third sentence); "impractical" (fourth sentence); "generally believed" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Netherlands study described (plots planted with native grasses/herbs have fewer thistles)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparison, according to the study:
      • One the control plots planted with nothing or corn, thistles became dominant; on the plots planted with native grasses/herbs, thistles were forced out (first through last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Conclusion from additional stage of the Netherlands study (spreading beneficial microorganisms and native herbs/grasses restores soil more quickly)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparison, according to the study:
      • Researchers spread untouched soil (which has beneficial microorganisms) into the plots and found the plots with native herbs/grasses and the soil fared better than plots with just native herbs/grasses, but not as well as unfarmed soil (first and second sentences)
    • Researchers' view:
      • Farmed soil has harmful organisms and no good ones, so we can accelerate soil's restoration by returning beneficial microorganisms (which fight the harmful organisms) and native herbs/grasses (third through last sentences)
    • Examples of beneficial organisms, according to the author:
      • Nematodes, mycorrhiza (first and third sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "beneficial microorganisms" (first sentence); "preliminary results" (fourth sentence); "hinges on" (fourth sentence)

Main Point: Studies by researchers in the Netherlands have shown that the natural restoration of ecological health can be accelerated by sowing beneficial microorganisms into the soil while planting a wide variety of native seeds.

Meta-Structure?

Problem/Solution: This passage is an interesting variation on the Problem/Solution Meta-Structure. It introduces a problem — the environmental problems associated with agricultural overproduction — and it explores a spectrum of solutions. These vary from the non-workable (removing and replacing all of the topsoil) to the slow (do nothing and let nature run its course) to the speculative one promoted by the study from the Netherlands.

In general, the main point of a Problem/Solution passage will be the author's preferred solution or, absent that, their opinion on the main solution. In this case, the author doesn't really express their preference for or even their opinion on any of the solutions. Therefore, the main point will simply summarize the solution that the passage dedicates the most space to — the speculative solution from the Netherlands studies. We'll need to make sure the main point mentions that any conclusions drawn from the study are held by those researchers, not the author. Those conclusions are summarized in the last sentence of the passage, which we used to construct our anticipated main point.

Last Thoughts?

Each paragraph involves a lot of detail and will require a lot of checking in the questions. In Paragraph 1, that's the list of contributing factors to the problem and the different solutions noted. In Paragraph 2, there are the differences between the four types of plots and their results. In Paragraph 3, that's micro...mycro...mycorrhiza? It's the difficult details around the harmful microorganisms, especially since the paragraph also talks about beneficial microorganisms. Let's be sure to rely heavily on the passage to help us on the detail-oriented questions.

Question prompt

The passage offers which Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: B

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Science

Strategy Overview

Refer to notes or what you highlighted/underlined to locate where the passage discusses why native plant varieties grew better when sown on land that had been out of production for 20 years than when sown on the plots enriched with soil taken from that land, and refer to the relevant part of the passage as needed to find that answer choice that must be true

Answer Anticipation

For questions that ask us to find a specific detail mentioned in the passage, quickly finding and reviewing that piece of information is paramount. That is why we make brief notes describing the role of each paragraph and highlight or underline definitions and the minor Meta-Structures — doing so helps us find the salient information efficiently and reliably. Once we review that part of the passage, we can look through the answer choices to see which one is best supported by what we reviewed.Here, the question asks why native plant varieties grew better when sown on land that had been out of production for 20 years than when sown on the plots enriched with soil taken from that land. Where did those show up in the passage? Our notes say that the results of the study are discussed throughout the second and third paragraphs, which can make pinpointing where the passage discusses this diffcult. However, we can scan the text for "20 years" (our eyes are pretty good at quickly locating numbers in text) or use the CTRL/Command + F search function to search for "out of production" or "20 years." This will direct our attention to the third paragraph.With the paragraph narrowed down, we can now figure out why why native plant varieties grew better when sown on land that had been out of production for 20 years than when sown on the plots enriched with soil taken from that land. According to the passage, researchers concluded this was because fields farmed for many years are overrun with aggressive disease organisms while beneficial microorganisms are lacking (P3, S3). Let's find an answer that brings up either or both of those details.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Land that has been Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this say that the fields that have been farmed are overrun with aggressive disease organisms while beneficial microorganisms are lacking?

    Nope. Researchers concluded that the difference was due to microorganisms, not nutrients. So, we can cross this off. Besides, the depletion of nutrients was mentioned as a part of the overall problem in Paragraph 1 (P1, S2).

  2. B
    Land that has been Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem

    (B) Does this say that the fields that have been farmed are overrun with aggressive disease organisms while beneficial microorganisms are lacking?

    Yep! This mentions the "aggressive disease organisms." As we saw in our review of the third paragraph, researchers studying the discrepancy between native plants' ability to grow on farmed land and out-of-production land concluded that it was due to the aggressive disease organisms that had built up in the latter land (P3, S3), making this the correct answer. We would be justified in selecting (B) and advancing immediately to the next question.

  3. C
    Land that has been Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this say that the fields that have been farmed are overrun with aggressive disease organisms while beneficial microorganisms are lacking?

    Nope. So, we can eliminate (C). Heavy fertilization is mentioned in the intro as a part of the overall problem with agricultural overproduction (P1, S3), but it's not a part of the explanation for the specific discrepancy asked about here.

  4. D
    The soil that was Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this say that the fields that have been farmed are overrun with aggressive disease organisms while beneficial microorganisms are lacking?

    Nope, this is factually inaccurate. Researchers concluded that the land that had been farmed for many years — the plots that had the other soil added to them — was lacking in beneficial organisms (P3, S3). This answer says that it was the land that had been taken out of production that lacked such organisms.

  5. E
    The soil that was Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this say that the fields that have been farmed are overrun with aggressive disease organisms while beneficial microorganisms are lacking?

    No. Two issues here. First, it was the land that had been continually farmed that had the harmful organisms, not the land that had been taken out of production (P3, S3). Second, the passage says that the beneficial organisms strengthened the roots, not that the harmful organisms attacked the roots (P3, S3).

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 7%
  2. B Credited 67%
  3. C 4%
  4. D 19%
  5. E 3%

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