Reading Comprehension · Science
PrepTest 151 · Section 1 · Passage 2
Questions 7–14
Before you start
Open PrepTest 151, Section 1 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 7–14, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: introduces a researcher's claim about an early first, explains why the evidence is hard to read directly, and describes the method used instead
- P2: compares the finding to a usual pattern, notes a surprise, raises and rejects a rival explanation with background facts, then explains the surprise in a way that supports the claim
- P3: adds a further clue and a final detail that lend more support to the claim
Step 2 · The kid passage
Lulu and the Old Garden Club
Lulu has spent three weeks sorting an old compost bin behind the school. Her claim: twenty years ago, the school garden club may have been the first club here to grow its own pumpkins and carve them for a contest. But a grown pumpkin's stem looks just like a wild one's. So Lulu sorted the stems by size and by how old each pumpkin was when picked.
People who grow pumpkins for pie usually pick almost all of them young and small, keeping only a few to grow big. Lulu found the opposite: most stems came from big, ripe pumpkins. Maybe the club just gathered wild ones, since gatherers usually want the biggest prize? Not here. In the wild field next door, the big ones hide deep in thorny bushes, while small ones sit in easy clumps at the edge. A gatherer would grab those, so if the club only gathered, Lulu says, there should be fewer big stems. And if they grew them, why not pick them young for pie? Lulu reasons that a club carving for a contest would let them grow big.
Another clue: some stems still had whole vines and roots attached. Nobody drags tangled vines across a thorny field, so Lulu thinks those were grown right there, plus maybe a few wild ones hauled in the club wagon. Some vines were even laid in a neat circle around the club's old badges, a sign that the club's bond with its pumpkins went past mere snacking.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Homemade Cookies
A bake-sale judge accused Aunt Rosa of selling store cookies as homemade. Store cookies and hers look the same, so Mr. Whitfield brought a chart instead. "Your Honor, home bakers usually toss the burnt edge pieces. Aunt Rosa's tray has lots of edge pieces." The judge frowned. "Sounds like a store box." "Ah, but store boxes never include edges at all," said Mr. Whitfield. "So if she bought them, we would see fewer. She keeps the edges because her nephew Kevin begs for them." Then he held up the mixing bowl, still crusted with dough. "Nobody hauls a dirty bowl home from a store." He did not claim proof. He laid out a claim, then stacked reasons under it. The judge smiled. "Homemade, most likely."