Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT122 S3 P4 Q27 Explanation

Maize

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsInferenceScience

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Passage

Every culture that has adopted the cultivation of maize—also known as corn—has been radically changed by it. This crop reshaped the cultures of the Native Americans who first cultivated it, leading to such developments as the adoption of agrarian and in some cases urban lifestyles, and much of the explosion of European much more bountiful than others? Modern biochemistry has revealed the physical mechanism underlying maize’s impressive productivity.

To obtain the hydrogen they use in the production of carbohydrates through photosynthesis, all plants split water into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen. They use the resultant hydrogen to form one of the molecules they need for energy, but the oxygen is released into the atmosphere. During photosynthesis, carbon dioxide that atmospheric conditions, oxygen begins to bind competitively to the enzyme, thus interfering with the photosynthetic reaction.

Some plants, however, have evolved a photosynthetic mechanism that prevents oxygen from impairing photosynthesis. These plants separate the places where they split water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen from the places where they build sugars from carbon dioxide. Water molecules are split, as in all plants, in specialized chlorophyll-containing structures in the Such C-4 plants as sugar cane, rice, and maize are among the world’s most productive crops.

What this question is testing

Inference

Your task

Find what must be true based on what the passage or stimulus states.

Common trap

Answers that are plausible or likely but not actually guaranteed by the text.

Winning move

Keep only the choice the statements fully support — eliminate anything that requires an extra assumption.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
27.

The passage provides the most support for which one of the

Answer choices

  1. Correct68% picked this

    In many plants, rubisco is not isolated in airtight tissues in the center

    Why this is right

    This doesn't have one great support sentence, but it's sort of a common sense composite of the whole passage. This passage is asking, But why are maize and a few similar crops so much more bountiful than others? And the answer to that question in paragraph 3 is The key to the process is that in these (C4) plants, oxygen and all other atmospheric gases are excluded from the cells containing rubisco. In these C4 plants, rubisco is isolated in airtight tissues, so carbon dioxide has to transform into the nongas C4 molecule in order to go bind with rubisco. In non-C4 plants, carbon dioxide doesn't have to turn into C4 because rubisco isn't isolated in airtight tissues that are impermeable by gases. The last sentence of the 2nd paragraph also reveals evidence that in many plants rubisco is not isolated in some airtight place: Unfortunately, though .... oxygen begins to bind competitively to the enzyme (rubisco), thus interfering with the photosynthetic reaction.

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

  2. Unsupported3% picked this

    A rubisco molecule contains four carbon

    This is just a "word salad", where they take a bunch of words from the passage and create an unsupported meaning. The passage mentions "four carbon atoms" when discussing how carbon dioxide turns into a nongas molecule named C-4. That molecule then enters the bundle sheath cells to "mate" with rubisco, but rubisco ain't the thing with 4 carbon atoms.

  3. Contradicted13% picked this

    Rubisco is needed in photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide to a

    This is another Word Salad, where they're just bundling words from the passage together and creating a brand new claim. C-4 plants are the only ones in which carbon dioxide is forced to become a nongas molecule, because in C-4 plants the rubisco is walled off from all gases (trying to prevent oxygen from competitively binding to it). Most plants do photosynthesis without ever converting carbon dioxide into a nongas molecule. So it isn't true to say that anything is needed in photosynthesis to convert CO2 to a nongas molecule, because most photosynthesis doesn't ever involve CO2 becoming a nongas molecule. Even in C-4 plants, where that does occur, rubisco doesn't convert it from gas to nongas. We aren't told what does it, other than "Carbon dioxide, which cannot enter these cells as a gas, first undergoes a series of reactions to form an intermediary, nongas molecule". This is all in preparation for finally entering rubisco's secret chambers. So the CO2 doesn't even "meet" the rubisco until after it's already converted to nongas.

  4. Unsupported: protect against oxygen12% picked this

    In maize, rubisco helps protect against the detrimental effects of oxygen buildup

    The passage never implies that rubisco helps protect against oxygen buildup. Rubisco is an enzyme that helps with photosynthesis. That's it. In most plants, oxygen buildup in the atmospheric conditions (not necessarily in the leaves) messes with rubisco while it's trying to do its photosynthetic job. We could re-write this answer by saying: In maize, rubisco is protected against the detrimental effects of oxygen.

  5. Too Strong: optimized5% picked this

    Rubisco’s role in the C-4 process is optimized when oxygen levels are high relative to

    The passage never talks about when rubisco would be at its best. We could infer that it will do its photosynthetic enzyme job most optimally when oxygen isn't messing with it and competitively binding to it. So in that sense, rubisco will have the worst time when oxygen levels are high relative to carbon dioxide levels. But if we're talking about C-4 plants, then it doesn't matter what the atmospheric oxygen / CO2 balance is. In C-4 plants, the rubisco is sequestered in airtight bundle sheath cells, so it has no interaction with oxygen, regardless of oxygen's levels atmospherically.

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