28 - ] Model SAT Tests - Test Twenty Eight

28 - ] Model SAT Tests

Test Twenty Nine

Read each passage below , and then answer the questions that follow the passage . The correct response may be stated outright or merely suggested in the passage .

Questions 1 - 13 are based on the following passages .

The following passages deal with the exotic world of subatomic physics . Passage 1 , written by a popularizer of contemporary physics , was published in 1985 . Passage 2 was written nearly 15 years later .

Passage 1

            The classical idea of matter was something with solidity and mass , like wet stone dust pressed in a fist. If matter was composed of atoms , then the atoms too must have solidity and mass . At the beginning of the twentieth century the atom was imagined as a tiny billiard ball or a granite pebble writ . Then , in the physics of Niels Bohr , the miniature billiard ball because something akin to a musical instrument , a finely tuned Stradivarius 10 billion times smaller than the real thing . With the advent of quantum mechanics , the musical instrument gave a way to pure music . On the atomic scale , the solidity and mass of matter dissolved into something light and airy . Suddenly physicists were describing atoms in the vocabulary of the composer - “resonance, ” “frequency” “scale.” Atomic electrons sang in choirs like seraphim , cherubim , thrones , and dominions. Classical distinctions between matter and light became muddles . In the new physics , light bounced about like particles and matter undulated in waves like light .    

            In recent decades , physicists have uncovered elegant subatomic structures in the music of matter . They use a strange new language to describe the subatomic world : quark ,  squark , gluon , gauge , Technicolor , flavor , strangeness, charm . There are up quarks and down quarks top quarks and bottom quarks . There are particles with truth and antitruth , and there are particles with  naked beauty . The simplest of the constituents of ordinary matter - the proton , for instance - has taken on the character of a Bach fugue , a four-part counterpoint of matter , energy , space , and time . At matter’s heart there are arpeggios , chromatics , syncopation . On the lowest rung of the chain of being . Creation dances .

            Already , the astronomers and the particle physicists are engaged in a vigorous dialogue . The astronomers are prepared to recognize that the large-scale structure of the universe may have been determined by subtle interactions of particles in the first moments of the Big Bang . And the particle physicists are hoping to find confirmation of their theories of subatomic structure in the astronomers’ observations of deep space and time . The snake has bitten its tail and won’t let go .

Passage 2

            Consider a dew drop , poised at the tip of a grass blade . Only one millimeter in diameter , this tiny dew drop is composed of a billion trillion molecules of water , each consisting of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (Ң 2 O ) . At the onset of the twentieth century , this was the accepted view of the nature of matter . Atoms were seen as matter’s basic building blocks , elementary or fundamental particles that could not be divided into anything smaller .

            This relatively simple picture , however , changed drastically as physicists came to explore the secrets of the subatomic world . The once-indivisible atom , split , was revealed to consist of a nucleus made up f protons and neutrons around which electrons orbited . Protons and neutrons , in turn , were composed of even smaller subatomic particles whimsically dubbed quarks . At first , theorists claimed that all matter was made of three fundamental particles : electrons and paired up and down quarks . Later , however , experiments with powerful accelerators and colliding particle beams suggested the existence of other pairs of quarks , three generations in all , whose mass increased with each generation . Lightest of all were the first generation quarks , up and down , which combined to create the basic protons and neutrons ; somewhat heavier were the second generation quarks , strange and charm , the building blocks of the more esoteric particles produced in the physicists’ labs . Then in 1977 a team headed by Fermilab physicist Leon Lederman uncovered the possibility of a third generation of quarks . Using new accelerators with higher energies , they produced a short-lived heavy particle , the upsilon , whose properties suggested it could not be made of the four quarks then known . They concluded it must be made of a fifth quark , which they named bottom , whereupon scientists throughout the world set off in hot pursuit of bottom’s hypothetical partner , top .

            The hunt for the top quark consumed the world’s particle physicists for nearly twenty years . It was their Grail , and they were as determined as any knight of King Arthur’s court to succeed in their holy quest . To Harvard theorist Sheldon Glashow in 1994 , it was “not just another quark . It’s the last blessed one , and the sooner we find it , the better everyone will feel ,” Indeed , they had to find it , for the Standard Model of particle physics , the theoretical synthesis that reduced the once maddening hordes of particles ( the s0-called “particle zoo” ) to just a few primary components , hinged upon existence . Physicists likened the missing quark to the keystone of an arch : the Standard Model , like an arch , was supported by all its constituents , but it was the keystone , the last piece to go in , that ensured the structure’s stability .

            In 1995 the physicists found the keystone to their arch , and with it , new questions to answer . surprisingly the top quark was far heavier than theorists had predicated , nearly twice as heavy in fact . Fermilab physicist Alvin Tollestrup originally had estimated top to weight at least as much as a silver atom . At the hunt’s end , top was determined to have a mass similar to that of an atom of gold . (With an atomic weight of 197 , a gold atom is made up of hundreds of up and down quarks . ) The question thus remains , why is top so massive ? Why does any fundamental particle have mass ? With its astonishing heft , the top quark should help clarify the hidden mechanisms that make some particles massive while others have no mass at all .

1 . Which of the following would be the most appropriate title for Passage 1 ?

(A) Linguistic Implications of Particle Physics

(B) The Influence of Music on Particle Interactions

(C) Matter’s Transformation : The Music of Subatomic Physics

(D) Trends in Physics Research : Eliminating the Quark

(E) The Impossible Dream : Obstacles to Proving the Existence of Matter

2 . The author of Passage 1 refers to quarks , squarks , and charms ( paragraph 2 ) primarily in order to

(A) demonstrate the similarity between these particles and earlier images of the atom

(B) make a distinction between appropriate and inappropriate terms

(C) object to suggestions of similar frivolous names

(D) provide examples of idiosyncratic nomenclature in contemporary physics

(E) cite preliminary experimental evidence supporting the existence of subatomic matter

3. The author’s tone in the second paragraph of Passage 1 can best be described as one of

(A) scientific detachment

(B) moderate indignation

(C) marked derision

(D) admiring wonder

(E) qualified skepticism

4 .The underlined  “Matter’s heart” mentioned in paragraph 2 is

(A) outer space

(B) the subatomic world

(C) the language of particle physics

(D) harmonic theory

(E) flesh and blood

5 . At the end of Passage 1, the image of the snake biting its tail is used to emphasize

(A) the dangers of circular reasoning

(B) the vigor inherent in modern scientific dialogue

(C) the eventual triumph of the classical idea of matter

(D) the unity underlying the astronomers’ and particle physicists’ theories

(E) the ability of contemporary scientific doctrine to swallow earlier theories

6 . The underlined word “ properties” at the end of paragraph 2 , Passage 2 most nearly means

(A) lands (B) titles (C) investments (D) civilities (E) characteristics

7  . Glashow’s comment in paragraph 3 , Passage 2 reflects his

(A) apprehension (B)  impatience (C) imagination (D) jubilation (E) spirituality

8 . The references to the “keystone” of the arch at the end of paragraph 3 , Passage 2 serve to

(A) diminish the top quark’s status to that of a commodity

(B) provide an accurate physical description of the elusive particle

(C) highlight the contrast between appearance and reality

(D) give an approximation of the top quark’s actual mass

(E) illustrate the importance of the top quark to subatomic theory

9 . The underlined word “hinged” in paragraph 3 , Passage 2 most nearly means

(A) folded (B) vanished (C) remarked (D) depended (E) weighed

10author of Passage 2 does all of the following EXCEPT

(A) cite an authority

(B) use a simile

(C) define a term

(D) pose a question

(E) deny a possibility

11 . The author of Passage 2 mentions the gold atom at the end of paragraph 4 , Passage 2 primarily to 

(A) clarify the monetary value of the top quark

(B) explain what is meant by atomic weight

(C) illustrate how hefty a top quark is compared to other particles

(D) suggest the sorts of elements studied in high-energy accelerators

(E) demonstrate the malleability of gold as an element

12 . As Passage 2 suggests , since the time Passage 1 was written , the Standard Model has

(A) determined even more whimsical names for the subatomic particles under discussion

(B) taken into account the confusion of the particle physicists

(C) found theoretical validation through recent experiments

(D) refuted significant aspects of the Big Bang theory of the formation of the universe

(E) collapsed for lack of proof of the existence of top quarks

13 . The author of Passage 2 would most likely react to the characterization of the constituents of matter in Passage 1 “The simplest……Creation dances” by pointing out that   

(A) this characterization has been refuted by prominent physicists

(B) the characterization is too fanciful to be worthwhile

(C) the most recent data on subatomic particles support this characterization

(D) this characterization supersedes the so-called Standard Model

(E) the current theoretical synthesis is founded on this characterization