In 1980, Luis Alvarez ①suggested a novel
explanation: cosmic extinction. According to
Alvarez and his geologist son Walter, a huge
meteor crashed into the earth’s surface 65
million years ago, sending up a massive
cloud of dust and rock particles. The cloud
blocked out sunlight for a period of months
or even years, disrupting plant
photosynthesis and, by extension, the global
food chain. The lack of vegetation, coupled
with a significant drop in temperature,
resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs.
The author is considering adding the
following phrase “…, winner of the Nobel
Prize in Physics, …” at point ①. Should this
phrase be added?
I’d go with A, but I’m an old fogy and this demonstrates my concern with the “new & improved” SAT. Every one of those answers is correct – or, at least, none of them is clearly incorrect. Which one you choose is a value judgment. I would probably rank them A C B D.
I hate problems like this. A piece of writing like this would rarely exist in the world we live in. Maybe it would be part of a meteor exhibit at a museum. Maybe it would be a pull-out section of a textbook. Or maybe it’s just phoney.
The thing is, you’d need to see it in context to really know if that information was useful or not. I could easily name 5 contexts where it works be, and 5 contexts where it would not.
The point is, you as a test taker have to outsmart the test author to guess what he thought was relevant, or more generally what he thought the criteria for relevance should be. Which assumes that such standards could ever exist without a context.
They can’t.
I’d guess about a 50% success rate on this type of problem, and I’d hope like heck that real problems are better than this.
If this passage is a continuation of preceding paragraphs, then it would be reasonable to assume that the author did introduce Luiz Alvarez as an eminent scientist whose opinion deserves consideration. In that case “No” would be the correct answer, but for the reason other than (D): redundancy.
Question to @yimtin - is there any information about L.A. before this excerpt?
If the article begins with this passage, then for the uninitiated Luiz Alvarez is as good as some Joe Schmoe; why then would anyone care what he and his equally schmoish son Walter suggested, whether it was novel or not? (Walter’s being a geologist does not bear much weight.) That tips the scales somewhat in favor of (A). The problem with this answer is that distinguished scientists happen at times to be wrong in their own fields; Alvarez, as a physicist, even of the Nobel Prize level, does not have an established credibility in all things dinosaurs.
.
@gcf101 - I think you’re overlooking the phrase “relevant detail” in (A). His physics achievements are not relevant to the following theories about extinction events, and, like every part of every answer choice, the phrase “relevant detail” is included for a reason; in this case, that reason is to allow readers to confidently and unequivocally rule it out.
I’m quite certain it’s (D), regardless of any possible context beyond the excerpt in the original post.
@marvin100 It appears you are overlooking the last few words in (A):
“a relevant detail about Alvarez’s credibility as a scientist”.
It’s not about his credibility in the extinction of species research.
Being awarded the Nobel Prize does prove his high standing as a physicist; physicist is a scientist; therefore, the Nobel Prize is an important detail in establishing Alvarez’s authority as a scientist.
Trying to make it more clear: (A) may seem like the right answer, but then the passage becomes an example of shabby writing.
This is where I agree with @marwin100:
the Nobel Prize winner in physics may not know a diddly squat outside of his field; that makes mentioning of the prize not relevant to the purpose of the passage.
Hey @yimtin, is there an official answer to this question (if it is in a prep book)? I think questions like these are quite ambiguous and can have multiple right answers depending on the perspective.
Quite ironically though, the Wikipedia article about the Alvarez Hypothesis begins like this:
So, if the answer is truly (D), then the guy who wrote this Wikipedia article also got it wrong. At least by SAT standards.
As I said, it’s a value judgment,. Do you think it’s relevant that Alvarez won a Nobel prize or not? I do; @marvin100 evidently does not. I think it’s a very bad question for exactly that reason.
What’s most relevant: where does this question come from? If it is not a college-board item, then there is no way to resolve the “real” answer. Even the opinion of the guy who wrote it is no more valid than the grammar experts here. And yet, I vote for A. While it is possible for the Nobel Prize winner to be wrong, as a group they are certainly a sharp bunch. Alvarez being a member is at least relevant. So if we are debating this for fun, then my vote is for answer A. But if we are debating this for the purpose of improving on the SAT, my vote continues to be: stick with authentic material.
It’s not relevant–a person’s accomplishments in the field of physics do not indicate any expertise in evolutionary biology, climate science, or geology, the subjects at hand. It certainly has nothing to do with “values.”
As for Wikipedia, well, it’s a crowd-sourced encyclopedia and thus is not written with the same standards as the kind of expository writing used on the SAT. I love it, but it’s not relevant here.
@marvin100 : Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in physics and chemistry. I would think that her EXPERT opinion on other subjects might be be relevant as well. There are many polymaths in the world. Please don’t have such a closed mind.
Right answers on the SAT must be right. Many, many wrong answers might be right. This principle is one of the central ideas to understand to master SAT Reading, on both the old test and the new test, @AboutTheSame
