Genetic Typos

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Match8% picked this

   a copy of the original, unaltered text discovered in a manuscript independently known to date

   We were looking for "a distinct pattern of mutations that is concentrated in particular areas". This is saying, "Hey, we found the original text!" That would definitely allow us to resolve authenticity questions, but this doesn't match the passage at all. This would be like "directly observing evolutionary mechanisms", which the 4th paragraph told us never happens. This would be like if Steele said, "Well, we discovered a copy of the original DNA of hominids from 200,000 years ago, so we can just compare that DNA to current hominid DNA to figure out whether acquired traits have been copied in there".

   8%
2. B

   Bad Match6% picked this

   a letter in which the copyist admits to having altered the original

   We were looking for "a distinct pattern of mutations that is concentrated in particular areas". This is saying, "Hey, the copyist confessed!" That would definitely allow us to resolve authenticity questions, but this doesn't match the passage at all. This would be like "directly observing evolutionary mechanisms", which the 4th paragraph told us never happens. This would be like if Steele said, "The RNA just signed a confession that said, 'yes, I sold the altered DNA to a virus, which then took it to the reproductive cells'." This is too literal and easy. The evidence in the final paragraph is circumstantial and involves some interpretation / guesswork.

   6%
3. C

   Bad Match11% picked this

   an allegation by one of the copyist’s contemporaries that the copyist altered

   We were looking for "a distinct pattern of mutations that is concentrated in particular areas". This is saying, "some other body part that works with RNA is giving us signs that RNA changed how DNA was written and those changed DNA instructions got reproduced." The evidence in the final paragraph comes from looking at the genes that carry instructions for immune system responses. It's looking at a subset of our DNA. It's hard to match that up with "one of RNA's contemporaries" (since RNA is the copyist in this metaphor). This answer is a little better than (A) and (B), since it still seems more like innuendo / suggestion, rather than outright proof. But it's a weaker match than the correct answer is for "distinct pattern of mutations concentrated in particular areas".

   11%
4. D

   Bad Match23% picked this

   an account dating from the playwright’s time of a performance of the play that quotes a version of the text that

   We were looking for "a distinct pattern of mutations that is concentrated in particular areas". This is saying, "Hey, we found a quote from the original text that shows the surviving version has been changed." That would definitely allow us to resolve authenticity questions, but this doesn't match the passage. This would be like "we found a DNA sequence of this organism from a long time ago, and we can see that this snippet of DNA is different from the modern version".

   23%
5. E

   Correct52% picked this

   vocabulary in the surviving text that is typical of the later era and not found in other texts

   Why this is right

   We were looking for "a distinct pattern of mutations that is concentrated in particular areas". This is our best option, though it's pretty poor. This is better than other answers because this involves looking at the text itself to see whether there are internal suggestions that things have changed / been adulterated. Steele is looking at subsets of DNA and seeing stuff within the genetic code that appears to be altered .. there's a signature, a cluster of distinct mutations that apparently stick out from the rest of those immune response genes. Similarly, this answer involves looking at the potentially altered text itself and finding within that some stuff that sticks out like a sore thumb: signature vocabulary that doesn't seem like part of the original code. This answer implies that what we're seeing in the surviving text is something typical of the later era but not typical of the original era. It's not super clear how that part of this answer matches Steele and colleagues, but presumably if they are able to pinpoint "a distinct pattern of mutations", then they must have a control group idea of what the DNA should look like if it were following the original form. Mutations are anomalies, and so it presupposes that you know what "normal" is in order for you to detect "abnormal".

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

   52%