Q6

[MatthewE452]

Hi! What is wrong with B? A doesn't describe the last paragraph really, which B does following its comma. Any help would be appreciated.

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Main Idea

Answer expected in lines/paragraph:
Line 28-29 sets out a big author question. Lines 38-41 seem to represent an answer. Line 47-49 also poses a question, which is immediately answered in line 49-50.

Any prephrase?
The author's main point seemed to be, "If you vary multiple things at the same time, it's not as hard as it has seemed to find universes conducive to life, but figuring this out need not imperil the theory of the multiverse."

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:

(A) This seems accurate, and it captures the Clarify a Misconception purpose of the passage, although it leaves out the multiverse-implications part.

(B) This focuses on the multiverse as the main character of the passage, when it was more of a sideshow, brought in as a way to talk about one way of resolving the "our unlikely universe" problem. I don't think we can quite support the notion that "the multiverse was developed to explain the fine tuning"; we just know that some cosmologists have used the multiverse theory for that purpose. More importantly would just be the way this mischaracterizes the author's purpose in sitting down to write this passage. Was the author's primary goal to tell the world, "I think I found some other uses for the multiverse theory?" I'm more comfortable saying the author sat down with the purpose of saying, "Me and my research partner have figured out that it's actually not that hard to find alternative universes that would still be conducive to life."

(C) Extreme: "unable". Even if that were fixed to be "usually unable" , this would be TRUE, BUT TOO NARROW. The author is here to tell us that it's actually easier to find alternate sets of laws: we just need to tweak more than one variable at once.

(D) Wrong point of view. This is OTHER cosmologists. Our author doesn't actually think life is as improbable as many others have thought.

(E) This metaphor was a springboard for communicating OTHER cosmologists' view, that our universe is crazy improbable. Our author's main point is that our universe ISN'T as improbable as the movie metaphor.

Takeaway/Pattern: (A) and (B) are probably the final two most of us will get to, and we might be forced to choose between two inadequate answers. Would we rather omit the multiverse, as (A) does? Or would we rather omit the author's research findings, as (B) does? Always think about Main Point answers through the lens of the author's purpose. Did the author sit down to tell us, "Our universe actually isn't as improbable as scientists have thought" or "Hey, there are some other uses for the multiverse besides what we've previously considered". The first one represents his research findings, so it's more sensible to consider his primary focus that. The multiverse stuff was more "damage control" implications. He wanted to clarify that we don't need to get rid of the multiverse, just because of his research findings, but the reason he wrote the essay was to publicize his research findings.

#officialexplanation