Q26

[hyewonkim89]

I was kind of lost on this question..

I think I kind of can see why (E) is right. Temple hypothesized/attempted to explain the connection between the extinction of the birds and calvaria major. Then his hypothesis was challenged because the trees still exist and don't seem as if they will be extinct anytime soon. So the state of affairs he attempted to explain in fact don't exist..

Will someone confirm this and explain why the other answers are wrong?

Thanks in advance!

[christine.defenbaugh]

This is a tough one hyewonkim89! However, on this inference question we get a little support from the wording of the question itself. It's always a useful thing to read the question carefully for these kinds of signals.

The question demands that we understand the author's view on Temple's hypothesis, and it helpfully reminds us what Temple's hypothesis was all about: the trees "seeming loss of the ability to reproduce". The word seeming stands out to remind us that the trees had not actually lost that ability to reproduce, Temple just assumed they had! This lines up perfectly with (E). Temple was working hard to explain away a situation that hadn't even happened.

Note that all the wrong answers fail to note Temple's fundamental failure, and instead cast Temple in a far more positive light.


The Answers that Suggest Temple was Correct
(A) This implies the overall hypothesis was correct, with some minor imperfections. But you can't have a correct hypothesis for something that never happened.
(B) Whether it was initially implausible or not, his hypothesis wasn't vindicated.
(C) While this was certainly outside Temple's area of expertise, it was no "valuable scientific achievement". It's not much of an achievement to be completely wrong about whether the trees are infertile.
(D) Temple's precision is mentioned in paragraph 3, but the author does not suggest it is particularly "laudable", nor is there much "attention to historical detail".


Please let me know if this completely answers your question!

[agutman]

Here's my explanation!

Question Type: Inference (55-57)
The question stem has a very valuable hint: "seeming loss of the ability to reproduce". Especially having just solved the previous question, we should go directly to lines 55-57, which show that Temple’s assumption (line 14) was invalid. Answer choice (E) makes it explicit: Temple came up with his hypothesis (demise of dodo -> CM population decline) based on the assumption that the CM seeds can no longer germinate, but Speke found that in fact they still do germinate. So Temple tried to explain a phenomenon that doesn’t exist.

(A) the author’s opinion is against Temple’s hypothesis; know the sides of your scale!
(B) contradicts lines 44-45.
(C) wrong for the same reason as (A). The author doesn’t think Temple’s hypothesis was a remarkable scientific achievement.
(D) is an unsupported interpretation. If you fell for this one, read the question again and pay particular attention to the word seeming.