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Which of the following best accounts for why sculpture is not amenable to digitized form?
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In the twentieth century, the visual arts have embarked on major experimentation, from cubism to expressionism. While tastes always vary, there are certainly some people who find beautiful objects of each of the art movements of the first half of the twentieth century. In the latter half of the twentieth century, though, most works are so abstract or shocking that neither the critic nor the general public uses the word "beautiful" to describe them: indeed, sometimes late twentieth-century artists have, as one of their expressed goals, the creation of a work that no one?could?find beautiful. Whatever these artists are creating may be intellectually engaging at some level, but it is no longer art.
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Which of the following is an assumption that supports drawing the conclusion above from the reasons given for that conclusion?
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Oceanologist:?Recently an unprecedented number of dead dolphins washed ashore along the mid-Atlantic coast. In the blood of over half of the dolphins, marine biologists discovered a brevotoxin that had been emitted by the alga?Ptychodiscus brevis,?in what is known as a red tide. Additionally, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), a toxic industrial compound, was also found in the dolphin`s blood. A reasonable conclusion, and indeed one many have drawn, is that the dolphins were simply victims of the brevotoxin. Nonetheless, brevotoxins, by themselves, are not lethal to dolphins, though they do tax the dolphins system. Furthermore, most dolphins have some accumulated brevotoxins in their blood without suffering any ill health effects. Therefore, the brevotoxins alone cannot explain the mass beaching of dead dolphins.
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Which of the following, if true, does most to help explain the oceanologist`s doubt that the brevotoxins were the primary cause of the dolphins washing upon shore?
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Riders who wear bicycle helmets can greatly reduce the risk of significant injury. Therefore, doctors working in an emergency room can expect that out of cyclists admitted to hospitals those wearing bicycle helmets will have injuries that are less severe than those not wearing a helmet.
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Which of the following is necessary to evaluate the argument?
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Compared to regulations in other countries, those of the United States tends to be narrower in scope, with an emphasis on manufacturing processes and specific categories of pollution, and little or no attention to the many other factors that affect environmental quality. An example is the focus on controlling pollution rather than influencing decisions about processes, raw materials, or products that determine environmental impacts. Regulation in the United States tends to isolate specific aspects of production processes and attempts to control them stringently, which means that some aspects of business are regulated tightly, although sometimes not cost-effectively, while others are ignored. Other countries and several American states have recently made more progress in preventing pollution at its source and considering such issues as product life cycles, packaging waste, and industrial energy efficiency.
Environmental regulation in the United States is also more prescriptive than elsewhere, in the sense of requiring specific actions, with little discretion left to the regulated firm. There also is a great reliance on action-forcing laws and technology standards.
These contrasts are illustrated nicely in a 1974 book that used a hare and tortoise analogy to compare air quality regulation in the United States and Sweden. While the United States (the hare) codified ambitious goals in statutes that drove industry to adopt new technologies under the threat of sanctions, Sweden (the tortoise) used a more collaborative process that stressed results but worked with industry in deciding how to achieve them. In the end air quality results were about the same. Similar results have been found in other comparative analyses of environmental regulation. For example, one study of a multinational firm with operations in the United States and Japan found that pollution levels in both countries were similar, despite generally higher pollution abatement expenditures in the United States. The higher costs observed in the United States thus were due in large part, not to more stringent standards, but to the higher regulatory transaction costs. Because agencies in different countries share information about technologies, best practices, and other issues, the pollution levels found acceptable in different countries tends to be quite similar.
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According to the passage, as a result of stringent regulation of specific aspects of the production process other aspects of the production process are
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In Metroville, the KP subway line follows the riverfront from downtown to the neighborhoods surrounding the university. ?No matter how many trains the subway runs on the KP line, there are always congestion and delays on the KP line. ?The subway submitted a proposal for an alternate subway line that would travel from downtown to the neighborhoods surrounding the university via the inland neighborhoods, hoping to draw some of the congestion from the KP line. ?The city hired urban planning consultants who concluded the subway's proposal of a new line would not reduce commuter congestion on the KP line.
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Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the urban planning consultants' position?
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Originally, scientists predicted small asteroids to be hard and rocky, as any loose surface material (called regolith) generated by impacts was expected to escape their weak gravity. Aggregate small bodies were not thought to exist, because the slightest sustained relative motion would cause them to separate. But observations and computer modeling are proving otherwise. Most asteroids larger than a kilometer are now believed to be composites of smaller pieces. Those imaged at high-resolution show evidence for copious regolith despite the weak gravity. Most of them have one or more extraordinarily large craters, some of which are wider than the mean radius of the whole body. Such colossal impacts would not just gouge out a crater-they would break any monolithic body into pieces. In short, asteroids larger than a kilometer across may look like nuggets of hard rock but are more likely to be aggregate assemblages-or even piles of loose rubble so pervasively fragmented that no solid bedrock is left.
The rubble hypothesis, proposed decades ago by scientists, lacked evidence, until the planetologist Shoemaker realized that the huge craters on the asteroid Mathilde and its very low density could only make sense together: a porous body such as a rubble pile can withstand a battering much better than an integral object. It will absorb and dissipate a large fraction of the energy of an impact; the far side might hardly feel a thing. At first, the rubble hypothesis may appear conceptually troublesome. The material strength of an asteroid is nearly zero, and the gravity is so low one is tempted to neglect that too. The truth is neither strength nor gravity can be ignored. Paltry though it may be, gravity binds a rubble pile together. And anybody who builds sandcastles knows that even loose debris can cohere. Oft-ignored details of motion begin to matter: sliding friction, chemical bonding, damping of kinetic energy, etc. We are just beginning to fathom the subtle interplay of these minuscule forces.
The size of an asteroid should determine which force dominates. One indication is the observed pattern of asteroidal rotation rates. Some collisions cause an asteroid to spin faster; others slow it down. If asteroids are monolithic rocks undergoing random collisions, a graph of their rotation rates should show a bell-shaped distribution with a statistical "tail" of very fast rotators. If nearly all asteroids are rubble piles, however, this tail would be missing, because any rubble pile spinning faster than once every two or three hours would fly apart. Recently, several astronomers discovered that all but five observed asteroids obey a strict rotation limit. The exceptions are all smaller than about 150 meters in diameter, with an abrupt cutoff for asteroids larger than 200 meters. The evident conclusion-that asteroids larger than 200 meters across are rubble piles-agrees with recent computer modeling of collisions. A collision can blast a large asteroid to bits, but those bits will usually be moving slower than their mutual escape velocity (the lowest velocity that a body must have in order to escape the orbit of a planet). Over several hours, gravity will reassemble all but the fastest pieces into a rubble pile.
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According to the rubble-pile hypothesis, an advantage conferred on an asteroid held together by weak forces is that it is
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Carvania is known to have a greater number of auto fatalities per capita than is the neighboring province of Cheviraul.Nonetheless, the number of collisions per capita that result in whiplash injuries is less than half those per capita of neighboring Cheviraul.?While such a finding implies that accidents occurring in Cheviraul are more likely to result in whiplash, there is another fact that should not be overlooked: unlike insurance providers in Cheviraul, those in Carvania do not pay premiums for automobile accident-related whiplash. Because many incidents of whiplash apparently go unreported in Carvania,?the actual number of incidents of whiplash in Carvania may be equal to, if not more than, the number of whiplash incidents in Cheviraul.
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In the argument given above, the two portions (the second and last sentences) play which of the following roles?
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Chopin the pianist has been greatly overshadowed by Chopin the composer. When Chopin the pianist is mentioned, it is his dreamy gaze and supple wrists (as well as countless female admirers gathered around the piano returning that same dreamy stare). But Chopin was a formidable pianist in his own right: after all, he was able to play, from start to finish, all twenty-four of his etudes, a set of pieces so demanding that even today`s great pianists feel taxed after performing them. Two things perhaps account for this oversight: for one, any pianist for whom no extant recordings exist is likely not to weather time well. Secondly, Chopin`s coeval and friend, Franz Liszt, was of such legendary prowess that Chopin himself wished he could play his own etudes the way Liszt did. Nevertheless, Chopin deserves to be remembered not just as a composer of challenging pieces but as a pianist capable of executing, with panache, these very pieces.
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Which of the following, if true, would cast the most doubt on the author`s contention regarding Chopin the pianist?
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That some dinosaurs could fly has long been established. That these very same species may have been able to walk--using their wings no less--has been far more controversial. However, the latest computer simulations suggest that the Pteranodon, a pterosaur with a wingspan of up to 25-feet long, while no rapid runner, was able to walk by retracting its wrists so as to walk on its palms. As to why the Pteranodon did so still remains unanswered.
One theory is that walking allowed it to forage for food on the ground. While this idea is enticing, proponents of this theory have yet to propose a reasonable answer as to what led to such a dramatic change in both physiology and locomotion. Another explanation is that flying was the evolutionary advantage conferred upon these creatures: in times of scarcity, a flying creature has access to a far greater abundance of fauna than does one limited to terrestrial movement.
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In the sentence, "Another explanation is that flying was the evolutionary advantage...", the author implies that
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As with impact structures, studies of African meteorites, as well as expeditions dedicated to the search for meteorites, have in the past generally been directed by non-African institutions. Obviously this has a lot to do with availability of funding for such work. It is, however, strongly felt that the widely noted lack of knowledge about the importance of the study of meteorites, of how to identify them, and of impact structures also contributes to this one-sided research situation.That said, a small number of scientists, for example at the Universities of Cape Town, Cairo, and of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, have in the past actively studied meteorites. While these institutions display requisite expertise for the task, they tend to work in isolation.
Meteorites, especially the iron and stony-iron meteorites, can be recognized by their metallic or semi-metallic appearance, frequently grooved surface structure, and strong magnetism. It is important that, when such material is discovered, all information, for example about its position, orientation on the surface, time of fall, and any visual observations made or sound heard, be meticulously recorded. Contamination from metal tools and chemical reagents must be avoided.
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