Reading Comprehension

PT106 · S4 · P2 · Q9 Volcanoes

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Long after the lava has cooled, the effects of a major volcanic eruption may linger on.

Topic

The lingering climate effects of major volcanic eruptions and how they influence global and regional temperatures.

Framework

Present Debate

Main Point

While volcanic eruptions are thought to cool Earth's climate, recent research suggests the cooling effect is smaller and more complicated than previously believed, with global impacts being minor but potential for larger regional effects due to feedback loops. (The “most valuable sentence” encapsulating the main point appears in P3: )

P1: Common Belief about Volcanic Eruptions

After a big volcano erupts, the dust and acid it throws into the air can cool the planet by blocking sunlight—some even blame Tambora’s 1815 eruption for an entire summer without warm weather in 1816.

P2: New Findings Challenge Conventional Wisdom

Scientists Mass and Portman say this connection isn’t quite as strong as we think. By analyzing global temperatures around nine eruptions—while accounting for El Niño’s effects—they find the supposed volcanic cooling can be tricky to pin down.

P3: Refining the Evidence—What Eruptions Really Do

Once they filtered out El Niño, they saw that smaller eruptions don’t noticeably affect temperatures, and even huge eruptions only slightly cool the hemisphere—much less than earlier studies had claimed.

9.

Which one of the following most accurately characterizes what the author of the passage means by a "minor" volcanic eruption (second sentence of the third paragraph)?

  1. an eruption that produces less

    Too Specific

    While it's true that Krakatau and El Chicon are major eruptions, and so a minor eruption would produce less lava than those, it's a very specific idea to define "everything with less lava than these two volcanoes" as minor. By analogy, a poor person has less money than a rich person, such as Bill Gates or Elon Musk. But that doesn't mean we define "being poor" as "having less money than Bill Gates or Elon Musk".

    3% picked this

  2. an eruption that has less

    Too Specific

    Just like (A), it's too weird to think that the designation of "minor" volcano is defined by some quantitative comparison to two specific volanoes. And again, like (A), it's certainly true that minor eruptions have less effect on global temp than these two volcanoes did. But that doesn't mean we're defining "minor" as "every single volcano with less effect than Krakatau or El Chichon". A major eruption might have only caused a 0.4º drop, whereas Krak and El Chich caused a 0.5º drop. Minor eruptions cause no drop.

    15% picked this

  3. an eruption whose effect on

    Major, not Minor

    A major eruption, which has effects on regional temperature, can be masked by conditions in the hemisphere such as El Niño. Minor eruptions, we are told, "have no discernible effect on temperature". You can't mask something that isn't there in the first place.

    4% picked this

  4. Correct

    an eruption that introduces a

    Why this is right

    This best matches our available supporting text, which told us: - minor eruptions have no discernible effect on temperature, whereas major ones cause up to 0.5º C of cooling - minor ones apparently don't qualify as "dust-spitting explosions" It also accords with our common sense, since the whole mechanism by which a volcano would affect global temperature is through spitting dust and debris into the atmosphere. Since we're told that minor eruptions don't affect the temperature, it makes sense to say they introduce relatively little debris into the atmosphere.

    Skill tested: Meaning in Context · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    73% picked this

  5. an eruption that causes average

    Too Specific

    This is somewhat tempting, because it seems to resemble the first part of our support text. - minor eruptions have no discernible effect on temperature, whereas major ones cause up to 0.5º C of cooling - minor ones apparently don't qualify as "dust-spitting explosions" But it's too specific to say that any eruption that's less than a 0.5º drop is therefore minor. After all, if an eruption caused a 0.4º drop, would the passage consider that a minor eruption? No, because minor eruptions have no discernible effect. But this answer choice would consider that a minor eruption.

    5% picked this

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