Science Passage (verbal reasoning)
Introduction
A quick quiz to begin this lesson: Using only the words “fast” and “slow”, can you describe the Journey Method in three steps? Make your three-word sequence and then check the spoiler.
Slow-Fast-Slow (this corresponds to the first paragraph, the middle paragraphs, and the last paragraph).
The Journey Method and the Science Passage
The CLT Science passage bears a resemblance to the to other nonfiction passages in the Verbal Reasoning passage (Philosophy/Religion and Historical/Founding Documents). But it is often more technical and focused on the same narrow subject throughout. In addition, the science passage is the only passage where the CLT may include a modern composition (something written in the last 50 years), though this is not always the case. Here is a list of sources of science passages found in official CLT practice materials, together with their dates:
- Johannes Kepler (1611)
- Charles Darwin (1859)
- Albert Einstein (1921)
- Vitali Sintchenko (2011)
- Emilie Reas (2016)
- Caleb Everett (2017)
- Naureen Ghani (2017)
- George Stanciu (2017)
- Leif Karlstrom and Joseph Byrnes (2018)
- Charlotte Hugg (2019)
As the list shows, 70% of science practice passages in Verbal Reasoning were written in the 21st century. Nevertheless, since older passages do occur in the science genre and tend to be harder to decode than modern passages, we include a passage written in the 17th century in this lesson. If you exercise your reading comprehension mental muscles with older, more linguistically challenging passages, you should find modern passages extremely straightforward.
The Journey Method with a nonfiction passage emphasizes not only the varying speeds at which you read but also a focus on key indicator words in the passage. Words and phrases like therefore, for example, first, finally, and indeed are all worth noting and using to enhance your comprehension. But nothing is as revealing as a contrast word like “but”, “yet”, or “however”. Make sure you note every use of such contrast words and mine the context to extract valuable meaning.
Practice Passage
This passage is taken from the Grounds of Natural Philosophy, Divided Into Thirteen Parts, by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, written in 1668 and found at Project Gutenberg.
The Journey Method tells us we should begin by reading closely, and the technical nature of a science passage only reinforces the importance of doing so. The language is a bit challenging and archaic, Cavendish makes clear contrasts and emphasizes important points by repetition, thereby helping us follow along.
Here are a few ideas we might note from this paragraph, either mentally or on our scratch paper: 1) living things (“creatures”) are composites of many parts; 2) those parts are different for each living thing; 3) the way each creature is composed has an enormous amount of variation; 4) nevertheless, there is something in a species that makes its members more similar to each other than to other things, even though they are not exactly the same.
We can expect to have grasped at least some of the passage’s central ideas, so we cautiously speed up our reading. The topic sentence (especially its italicized word) tells us that the author is expounding upon what it means to be in the same species. Even reading quickly, we can pick up a theme of similarity in this paragraph whereas the first paragraph contained more reflection on difference. You might notice the repeated use of the phrase “figurative compositions”; with any unfamiliar phrase like this in the body of a CLT passage, you don’t necessarily need to interpret its meaning right away; it should be sufficient to make a note of it for now and plan to revisit the phrase if the questions require you to do so. It’s a good idea to zoom back in at the end of the paragraph. Notice that animals and vegetables seem to be examples of species in the author’s mind, and their offspring (what they “produce”) are always the same species (“likeness”) as their parents. In other words, animals and vegetables both “give birth” to the same kind as themselves.
We continue moving quickly through the body of the passage. The Journey Method reminds us to focus especially on contrast words like “But” (second sentence), “yet” (second sentence), “yet” (third sentence), and “but” (third sentence). The structural markers help us organize the paragraph and point to a focus on difference rather than similarity. Cavendish seems to be telling us that the same sort of living thing can be produced by different means or processes. The last sentence even speaks of change in the parts of an organism even while the organism itself does not change into a different organism.
As the passage draws to a close, we slow our reading pace. Crucial keywords, though, should continue to draw our attention, and this paragraph is chock full of them: “But” (first sentence), “nor … nor” (first sentence), “Nor … nor … nor” (second sentence), “but” (second sentence), “Neither” (third sentence), “but” (fourth sentence), “yet” (fourth sentence). Contrast words are valuable because CLT questions will often ask about the opposing ideas to which they point. In this paragraph, classes of living and non-living things (animals/vegetables, vegetables/minerals). Also, in contrast to the previous paragraph, the difference between what something produces and the thing produced. Interestingly, though, she includes the environment in which things grow under the heading of “producing”.
Modern science tells us that cheese isn’t producing maggots, nor is fruit producing worms; rather, the latter are growing out of the former. But it’s important to stick to the author’s point of view; Cavendish apparently views these two kinds of “production” (giving birth to something like oneself and being the environment for the growth of something different from oneself) as the same thing.
Sample Questions
The questions below might seem straightforward to you, and this is no accident; our commentary above has unpacked the passage in such a way that the questions should not be too difficult. The more you can unpack the passage in the same way on test day, the better you should do on the questions!
In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with
A. contrasting living and non-living things.
B. refuting the assumptions of an ancient classification system.
C. detailing how certain organisms grow out of other organisms.
D. describing the similarities and differences among parts of the created order.
The answer is D. Purpose questions, which often occur at the beginning of a CLT Verbal Reasoning question set, use revealing verbs in their answer choices. You can often eliminate an answer choice solely (or at least predominantly) because of the verb it employs! For example, consider choice B in this example and the word “refuting”. To refute is to disprove or convincingly argue against something. Is there any evidence that Margaret Cavendish is arguing against some conversation partner, real or imagined, in this passage? There is no such evidence. So even though choice B is wrong in other ways (there is no “ancient classification system” mentioned), it can be eliminated from the verb alone.
The other main verbs are all plausible; the author does contrast, detail, and describe, so we need to look more deeply at those choices. In doing so, we must keep in mind that this is a “big picture” question; it is asking about what the passage is concerned with overall, not about minor details. So, although the author does mention both living and non-living things (for example, minerals), this is not her primary concern, nor is it something she forcefully contrasts. Choice A is out.
Choice C is also wrong for a couple of reasons. For one thing, this is way too specific; she mentions this idea at the end of the passage (remember maggots in cheese or worms in roots), but not as a major point. Further, she doesn’t explain these things in detail. Choice D uses a helpful verb (she does indeed describe many things at length) and it describes similarities and differences, two major points of emphasis throughout the passage. Finally, it mentions the “created order,” which corresponds to Cavendish’s frequent use of the word “creature”.
A difference the author appears to find surprising is the difference between
A. an organism’s properties and its origin.
B. two organisms within the same species.
C. a living thing and a non-living thing.
D. things naturally created and things artificially created.
The answer is A. Notice that this question is part of a “detail/evidence” pairing; the following question quotes four sentences in the passage and asks us to consider which one provides the best evidence for the answer to the question in this passage. We recommend a specific strategy with these pairings: 1) read the first question and the answers, asking yourself if any answer jumps out; 2) reread all the sentences quoted in the second question and determine if one of the answers confirms your instinct about the previous question or else supports an answer in a way you didn’t notice before; 3) reread the choices in the first question and choose an answer, confirming that choice with the answer you choose in the evidence question.
Let’s practice that strategy here. Reading the question carefully, we note that it asks not just about a noted difference but about one the author finds surprising. How much you’ll recognize the right answer at this point depends entirely on how much you remember from reading the passage. For now, we’ll point out what we noted in the explanation to question 1: although the author mentions one non-living category (minerals), she doesn’t contrast it significantly with living things. Let’s eliminate choice C. You may also remember the discussion of “natural” versus “artificial”, as it happened in the first paragraph. There, the author mentions things artificially created (that is, created by humans) but says she is not going to discuss those things in this passage. There is no reason she would be surprised by this difference, so we can eliminate choice D.
To distinguish between choices A and B, let’s proceed to Step 2 and consider the evidence question that follows. The rest of the explanation for this question will be joined with our explanation of Question 3 below.
Which lines in the passage best support the answer to the previous question?
A. Paragraph 1, Sentence 2 (“Indeed … alike.”)
B. Paragraph 3, Sentence 1 (“The same … know.”)
C. Paragraph 3, Sentence 2 (“But yet … engrafted.”)
D. Paragraph 4, Sentence 1 (“But as for … the rest.”)
The answer is C. But we need to consider this question together with #2 to confirm this answer. Let’s begin by rereading all four quoted sentences, keeping our remaining choices from question 2 (A and B) in mind. We’re looking for contrasts either 1) between organisms or 2) between an organism’s characteristics and its origin. Choice A quotes evidence for a choice we’ve already ruled out; the author makes this contrast but there’s no evidence she’s surprised by it. Choice B doesn’t appear to be describing a difference at all; referring back to the previous paragraph shows the “this” in this sentence points to more of a similarity than a distance.
Choice C’s sentence begins with the phrase “but yet.” This strong contrast suggests that there may be something surprising about what follows. Reading further, we see an extended contrast between the way an organism such as a plant can appear similar wherever it grows even though its origin may come from different sources: sowing (seeds), planting (presumably a root or fruit), or engrafting (part of one into another). In the context of the whole passage, this is something the author appears to find at least mildly surprising, in that this contrast is different from the other contrasts listed in the passage.
Meanwhile, choice D shows a contrast but doesn’t hint at anything paradoxical or surprising about it; rather, this contrast is part of a larger list of contrasts throughout this paragraph.
Going back to Question 2, we finish with step 3 of the process. Although choice B in #2 might indeed mention a difference the author finds surprising, none of the choices for Question 3 provide evidence for that fact. The questions must be answered in tandem, and the evidence chosen must support the right answer for the previous question. So answer choices A for #2 and C for #3 work best.
As used in paragraph 2, the phrase “figurative compositions” most nearly means
A. metaphorical writings
B. non-literal descriptions
C. bodily formation
D. species-based organization
The answer is C. This is a difficult question, both because the context can be challenging to understand and because the author’s use of “figurative” does not correspond to a meaning we are used to. This is very common; although there is no harm in asking yourself what a certain word has meant in your experience, you must be open to the possibility that the context will reveal an unexpected meaning of the word. So while we can observe that “figurative” in modern parlance usually means “non-literal,” that may not be the case here.
Take a moment to reread Paragraph 2, noting the two uses of the phrase “figurative compositions.” What does the context, especially any contrasts in the context, tell us about what the phrase means? The paragraph is about how species are connected by their similarities; it repeatedly mentions a love and affection within the species. But the first use of the phrase “figurative compositions” indicates that there is affection for something besides other members of the species.
The second use of this phrase refers to these “compositions” having “actions” and “parts”. Which of the answer choices could best be described as having such properties? You may have guessed it: bodies. Meanwhile, choices A and B are trap answers because they use “figurative” in the sense we are more used to: metaphorical or non-literal. Choice D could be tempting because of the mention of species, but a discussion of how species are organized does not match with the attribution to these “compositions” of actions and parts.
fruit : worm
A. maggot : root
B. vegetable : mineral
C. species : kind
D. soil : plant
(Answer: D) As always with analogy questions, we do well to begin by stating the relationship between the stem pair in a sentence. Remember that you typically need to compare the pair not just in the abstract but by how the terms are used in the passage. These words come from the last sentence of the passage and picture a worm emerging from a fruit. So there’s our relationship: we want a par in which the second term can be described as emerging from the first. A plant emerges from soil in the same way a worm comes out of the fruit; in both cases, the first word describes the environment from which the organism comes out. We can rule out the other answers as not matching: a root does not come out of a maggot; a mineral does not come out of a vegetable; a species is a sort of kind, so “species” and “kind” are close to being synonyms, rather than describing one thing that emerges from another.