What is the main intention of the author in the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

One of the oddest things about Homo sapiens is that he is alone. Though storytellers have filled the world with imaginary hominids—from woodland pixies to mountain giants—no sign of the real thing has ever been seen. But that was not true in the past. As recently as 40,000 years ago there were three other species of human on Earth: Neanderthals in Europe, the “hobbits” of Flores, in Indonesia, and a recently discovered and still mysterious group of creatures called the Denisovans, who lived in Central Asia. And now there is evidence that similar diversity existed earlier in human history, a little under 2m years ago, in Africa.
This evidence, just published in Nature, has been provided by a team led by Meave Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr Leakey is a member of an illustrious palaeontological clan. Her husband, Richard, discovered in 1967 that the area around Lake Turkana is a good place to look for human fossils and made many important finds there; Richard’s parents, Louis and Mary, had earlier been responsible for showing the same was true of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania; and in 1999 Dr Leakey herself found a new species of hominid, called Kenyanthropus platyops. At 3.5m years old Kenyanthropus predates Homo, the genus to which modern humans belong. Her latest discoveries, however, add to that genus, too.
The problem with studying humanity’s fossil record is that it is so sparse: a jawbone here; a braincase there. Often, it is difficult to know if different bones have come from the same species or not. Even multiple examples of the same type of bone can mislead. What looks like two species might actually be the male and the female of one.
Such confusion has bedevilled the interpretation of the human fossils found near Lake Turkana. Some palaeontologists see a single, variable species called Homo habilis. Others add a second, Homo rudolfensis. The new fossils found by Dr Leakey and her team (which includes a third Leakey generation in the form of her daughter, Louise) may, however, help clear up what is going on.
One of the new specimens, known as KMN-ER 62000, has a face like the type specimen of Homo rudolfensis (the fossil that defines the species, if species it turns out to be), though it seems to be from an adolescent, whereas the type specimen is an adult. Crucially, 62000 has a reasonably well-preserved upper jaw, which the type specimen lacks. A computer reconstruction suggests this upper jaw meshes well with the second of Dr Leakey’s discoveries, a lower jaw (KMN-ER 60000). She is not suggesting they are from the same individual, since they are of different ages, but they seem to come from the same species, namely Homo rudolfensis.

Which of these describes the attitude of the author towards Dr Leakey's finding?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

One of the oddest things about Homo sapiens is that he is alone. Though storytellers have filled the world with imaginary hominids—from woodland pixies to mountain giants—no sign of the real thing has ever been seen. But that was not true in the past. As recently as 40,000 years ago there were three other species of human on Earth: Neanderthals in Europe, the “hobbits” of Flores, in Indonesia, and a recently discovered and still mysterious group of creatures called the Denisovans, who lived in Central Asia. And now there is evidence that similar diversity existed earlier in human history, a little under 2m years ago, in Africa.
This evidence, just published in Nature, has been provided by a team led by Meave Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr Leakey is a member of an illustrious palaeontological clan. Her husband, Richard, discovered in 1967 that the area around Lake Turkana is a good place to look for human fossils and made many important finds there; Richard’s parents, Louis and Mary, had earlier been responsible for showing the same was true of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania; and in 1999 Dr Leakey herself found a new species of hominid, called Kenyanthropus platyops. At 3.5m years old Kenyanthropus predates Homo, the genus to which modern humans belong. Her latest discoveries, however, add to that genus, too.
The problem with studying humanity’s fossil record is that it is so sparse: a jawbone here; a braincase there. Often, it is difficult to know if different bones have come from the same species or not. Even multiple examples of the same type of bone can mislead. What looks like two species might actually be the male and the female of one.
Such confusion has bedevilled the interpretation of the human fossils found near Lake Turkana. Some palaeontologists see a single, variable species called Homo habilis. Others add a second, Homo rudolfensis. The new fossils found by Dr Leakey and her team (which includes a third Leakey generation in the form of her daughter, Louise) may, however, help clear up what is going on.
One of the new specimens, known as KMN-ER 62000, has a face like the type specimen of Homo rudolfensis (the fossil that defines the species, if species it turns out to be), though it seems to be from an adolescent, whereas the type specimen is an adult. Crucially, 62000 has a reasonably well-preserved upper jaw, which the type specimen lacks. A computer reconstruction suggests this upper jaw meshes well with the second of Dr Leakey’s discoveries, a lower jaw (KMN-ER 60000). She is not suggesting they are from the same individual, since they are of different ages, but they seem to come from the same species, namely Homo rudolfensis.

What is the function of the first paragraph of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

One of the oddest things about Homo sapiens is that he is alone. Though storytellers have filled the world with imaginary hominids—from woodland pixies to mountain giants—no sign of the real thing has ever been seen. But that was not true in the past. As recently as 40,000 years ago there were three other species of human on Earth: Neanderthals in Europe, the “hobbits” of Flores, in Indonesia, and a recently discovered and still mysterious group of creatures called the Denisovans, who lived in Central Asia. And now there is evidence that similar diversity existed earlier in human history, a little under 2m years ago, in Africa.
This evidence, just published in Nature, has been provided by a team led by Meave Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr Leakey is a member of an illustrious palaeontological clan. Her husband, Richard, discovered in 1967 that the area around Lake Turkana is a good place to look for human fossils and made many important finds there; Richard’s parents, Louis and Mary, had earlier been responsible for showing the same was true of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania; and in 1999 Dr Leakey herself found a new species of hominid, called Kenyanthropus platyops. At 3.5m years old Kenyanthropus predates Homo, the genus to which modern humans belong. Her latest discoveries, however, add to that genus, too.
The problem with studying humanity’s fossil record is that it is so sparse: a jawbone here; a braincase there. Often, it is difficult to know if different bones have come from the same species or not. Even multiple examples of the same type of bone can mislead. What looks like two species might actually be the male and the female of one.
Such confusion has bedevilled the interpretation of the human fossils found near Lake Turkana. Some palaeontologists see a single, variable species called Homo habilis. Others add a second, Homo rudolfensis. The new fossils found by Dr Leakey and her team (which includes a third Leakey generation in the form of her daughter, Louise) may, however, help clear up what is going on.
One of the new specimens, known as KMN-ER 62000, has a face like the type specimen of Homo rudolfensis (the fossil that defines the species, if species it turns out to be), though it seems to be from an adolescent, whereas the type specimen is an adult. Crucially, 62000 has a reasonably well-preserved upper jaw, which the type specimen lacks. A computer reconstruction suggests this upper jaw meshes well with the second of Dr Leakey’s discoveries, a lower jaw (KMN-ER 60000). She is not suggesting they are from the same individual, since they are of different ages, but they seem to come from the same species, namely Homo rudolfensis.

Which of the following could be the title of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

One of the oddest things about Homo sapiens is that he is alone. Though storytellers have filled the world with imaginary hominids—from woodland pixies to mountain giants—no sign of the real thing has ever been seen. But that was not true in the past. As recently as 40,000 years ago there were three other species of human on Earth: Neanderthals in Europe, the “hobbits” of Flores, in Indonesia, and a recently discovered and still mysterious group of creatures called the Denisovans, who lived in Central Asia. And now there is evidence that similar diversity existed earlier in human history, a little under 2m years ago, in Africa.
This evidence, just published in Nature, has been provided by a team led by Meave Leakey of the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr Leakey is a member of an illustrious palaeontological clan. Her husband, Richard, discovered in 1967 that the area around Lake Turkana is a good place to look for human fossils and made many important finds there; Richard’s parents, Louis and Mary, had earlier been responsible for showing the same was true of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania; and in 1999 Dr Leakey herself found a new species of hominid, called Kenyanthropus platyops. At 3.5m years old Kenyanthropus predates Homo, the genus to which modern humans belong. Her latest discoveries, however, add to that genus, too.
The problem with studying humanity’s fossil record is that it is so sparse: a jawbone here; a braincase there. Often, it is difficult to know if different bones have come from the same species or not. Even multiple examples of the same type of bone can mislead. What looks like two species might actually be the male and the female of one.
Such confusion has bedevilled the interpretation of the human fossils found near Lake Turkana. Some palaeontologists see a single, variable species called Homo habilis. Others add a second, Homo rudolfensis. The new fossils found by Dr Leakey and her team (which includes a third Leakey generation in the form of her daughter, Louise) may, however, help clear up what is going on.
One of the new specimens, known as KMN-ER 62000, has a face like the type specimen of Homo rudolfensis (the fossil that defines the species, if species it turns out to be), though it seems to be from an adolescent, whereas the type specimen is an adult. Crucially, 62000 has a reasonably well-preserved upper jaw, which the type specimen lacks. A computer reconstruction suggests this upper jaw meshes well with the second of Dr Leakey’s discoveries, a lower jaw (KMN-ER 60000). She is not suggesting they are from the same individual, since they are of different ages, but they seem to come from the same species, namely Homo rudolfensis.

Which of these can be inferred from the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

There are no comparisons to be made. This is not like war or plague or a stock market crash. We are ill-equipped, historically and psychologically, to understand it, which is one of the reasons why so many refuse to accept that it is happening.
What we are seeing, here and now, is the transformation of the atmospheric physics of this planet. Three weeks before the likely minimum, the melting of Arctic sea ice has already broken the record set in 2007. The daily rate of loss is now 50% higher than it was that year. The daily sense of loss – of the world we loved and knew – cannot be quantified so easily. 
The Arctic has been warming roughly twice as quickly as the rest of the northern hemisphere. This is partly because climate breakdown there is self-perpetuating. As the ice melts, for example, exposing the darker sea beneath, heat which would previously have been reflected back into space is absorbed.
This great dissolution, of ice and certainties, is happening so much faster than most climate scientists predicted that, one seasoned observer reports, “it feels as if everything I’ve learned has become obsolete.” In its last assessment, published in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that “in some projections, Arctic late-summer sea ice will disappear almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century.” These were the most extreme forecasts in the panel’s range. Some scientists now forecast that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice in late summer could occur in this decade or the next.
As I’ve warned repeatedly, but to little effect, the IPCC’s assessments tend to be conservative. This is unsurprising when you see how many people have to approve them before they are published. There have been a few occasions – such as its estimate of the speed at which glaciers would be lost in the Himalayas – on which the panel has overstated the case. But it looks as if these will be greatly outnumbered by the occasions on which the panel has understated it.
The melting disperses another belief: that the temperate parts of the world – where most of the rich nations are located – will be hit last and least, while the poorer nations will be hit first and worst. New knowledge of the way in which the destruction of the Arctic sea ice affects northern Europe and North America suggests that this is no longer true. A paper published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters shows that Arctic warming is likely to be responsible for the extremes now hammering the once-temperate nations.
The north polar jet stream is an air current several hundred kilometres wide, travelling eastwards around the hemisphere. It functions as a barrier, separating the cold, wet weather to the north from the warmer, drier weather to the south. Many of the variations in our weather are caused by great travelling meanders – or Rossby waves – in the jet stream.
Arctic heating, the paper shows, both slows the Rossby waves and makes them steeper and wider. Instead of moving on rapidly, the weather gets stuck. Regions to the south of the stalled meander wait for weeks or months for rain; regions to the north (or underneath it) wait for weeks or months for a break from the rain. Instead of a benign succession of sunshine and showers, we get droughts or floods. During the winter a slow, steep meander can connect us directly to the polar weather, dragging severe ice and snow far to the south of its usual range.

Which of these options could be the title of the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

There are no comparisons to be made. This is not like war or plague or a stock market crash. We are ill-equipped, historically and psychologically, to understand it, which is one of the reasons why so many refuse to accept that it is happening.
What we are seeing, here and now, is the transformation of the atmospheric physics of this planet. Three weeks before the likely minimum, the melting of Arctic sea ice has already broken the record set in 2007. The daily rate of loss is now 50% higher than it was that year. The daily sense of loss – of the world we loved and knew – cannot be quantified so easily. 
The Arctic has been warming roughly twice as quickly as the rest of the northern hemisphere. This is partly because climate breakdown there is self-perpetuating. As the ice melts, for example, exposing the darker sea beneath, heat which would previously have been reflected back into space is absorbed.
This great dissolution, of ice and certainties, is happening so much faster than most climate scientists predicted that, one seasoned observer reports, “it feels as if everything I’ve learned has become obsolete.” In its last assessment, published in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that “in some projections, Arctic late-summer sea ice will disappear almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century.” These were the most extreme forecasts in the panel’s range. Some scientists now forecast that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice in late summer could occur in this decade or the next.
As I’ve warned repeatedly, but to little effect, the IPCC’s assessments tend to be conservative. This is unsurprising when you see how many people have to approve them before they are published. There have been a few occasions – such as its estimate of the speed at which glaciers would be lost in the Himalayas – on which the panel has overstated the case. But it looks as if these will be greatly outnumbered by the occasions on which the panel has understated it.
The melting disperses another belief: that the temperate parts of the world – where most of the rich nations are located – will be hit last and least, while the poorer nations will be hit first and worst. New knowledge of the way in which the destruction of the Arctic sea ice affects northern Europe and North America suggests that this is no longer true. A paper published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters shows that Arctic warming is likely to be responsible for the extremes now hammering the once-temperate nations.
The north polar jet stream is an air current several hundred kilometres wide, travelling eastwards around the hemisphere. It functions as a barrier, separating the cold, wet weather to the north from the warmer, drier weather to the south. Many of the variations in our weather are caused by great travelling meanders – or Rossby waves – in the jet stream.
Arctic heating, the paper shows, both slows the Rossby waves and makes them steeper and wider. Instead of moving on rapidly, the weather gets stuck. Regions to the south of the stalled meander wait for weeks or months for rain; regions to the north (or underneath it) wait for weeks or months for a break from the rain. Instead of a benign succession of sunshine and showers, we get droughts or floods. During the winter a slow, steep meander can connect us directly to the polar weather, dragging severe ice and snow far to the south of its usual range.

Which of these is the main point made by the author in the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

There are no comparisons to be made. This is not like war or plague or a stock market crash. We are ill-equipped, historically and psychologically, to understand it, which is one of the reasons why so many refuse to accept that it is happening.
What we are seeing, here and now, is the transformation of the atmospheric physics of this planet. Three weeks before the likely minimum, the melting of Arctic sea ice has already broken the record set in 2007. The daily rate of loss is now 50% higher than it was that year. The daily sense of loss – of the world we loved and knew – cannot be quantified so easily. 
The Arctic has been warming roughly twice as quickly as the rest of the northern hemisphere. This is partly because climate breakdown there is self-perpetuating. As the ice melts, for example, exposing the darker sea beneath, heat which would previously have been reflected back into space is absorbed.
This great dissolution, of ice and certainties, is happening so much faster than most climate scientists predicted that, one seasoned observer reports, “it feels as if everything I’ve learned has become obsolete.” In its last assessment, published in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that “in some projections, Arctic late-summer sea ice will disappear almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century.” These were the most extreme forecasts in the panel’s range. Some scientists now forecast that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice in late summer could occur in this decade or the next.
As I’ve warned repeatedly, but to little effect, the IPCC’s assessments tend to be conservative. This is unsurprising when you see how many people have to approve them before they are published. There have been a few occasions – such as its estimate of the speed at which glaciers would be lost in the Himalayas – on which the panel has overstated the case. But it looks as if these will be greatly outnumbered by the occasions on which the panel has understated it.
The melting disperses another belief: that the temperate parts of the world – where most of the rich nations are located – will be hit last and least, while the poorer nations will be hit first and worst. New knowledge of the way in which the destruction of the Arctic sea ice affects northern Europe and North America suggests that this is no longer true. A paper published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters shows that Arctic warming is likely to be responsible for the extremes now hammering the once-temperate nations.
The north polar jet stream is an air current several hundred kilometres wide, travelling eastwards around the hemisphere. It functions as a barrier, separating the cold, wet weather to the north from the warmer, drier weather to the south. Many of the variations in our weather are caused by great travelling meanders – or Rossby waves – in the jet stream.
Arctic heating, the paper shows, both slows the Rossby waves and makes them steeper and wider. Instead of moving on rapidly, the weather gets stuck. Regions to the south of the stalled meander wait for weeks or months for rain; regions to the north (or underneath it) wait for weeks or months for a break from the rain. Instead of a benign succession of sunshine and showers, we get droughts or floods. During the winter a slow, steep meander can connect us directly to the polar weather, dragging severe ice and snow far to the south of its usual range.

Which of these options would describe the attitude of the author towards how people view global warming?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

There are no comparisons to be made. This is not like war or plague or a stock market crash. We are ill-equipped, historically and psychologically, to understand it, which is one of the reasons why so many refuse to accept that it is happening.
What we are seeing, here and now, is the transformation of the atmospheric physics of this planet. Three weeks before the likely minimum, the melting of Arctic sea ice has already broken the record set in 2007. The daily rate of loss is now 50% higher than it was that year. The daily sense of loss – of the world we loved and knew – cannot be quantified so easily. 
The Arctic has been warming roughly twice as quickly as the rest of the northern hemisphere. This is partly because climate breakdown there is self-perpetuating. As the ice melts, for example, exposing the darker sea beneath, heat which would previously have been reflected back into space is absorbed.
This great dissolution, of ice and certainties, is happening so much faster than most climate scientists predicted that, one seasoned observer reports, “it feels as if everything I’ve learned has become obsolete.” In its last assessment, published in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that “in some projections, Arctic late-summer sea ice will disappear almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century.” These were the most extreme forecasts in the panel’s range. Some scientists now forecast that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice in late summer could occur in this decade or the next.
As I’ve warned repeatedly, but to little effect, the IPCC’s assessments tend to be conservative. This is unsurprising when you see how many people have to approve them before they are published. There have been a few occasions – such as its estimate of the speed at which glaciers would be lost in the Himalayas – on which the panel has overstated the case. But it looks as if these will be greatly outnumbered by the occasions on which the panel has understated it.
The melting disperses another belief: that the temperate parts of the world – where most of the rich nations are located – will be hit last and least, while the poorer nations will be hit first and worst. New knowledge of the way in which the destruction of the Arctic sea ice affects northern Europe and North America suggests that this is no longer true. A paper published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters shows that Arctic warming is likely to be responsible for the extremes now hammering the once-temperate nations.
The north polar jet stream is an air current several hundred kilometres wide, travelling eastwards around the hemisphere. It functions as a barrier, separating the cold, wet weather to the north from the warmer, drier weather to the south. Many of the variations in our weather are caused by great travelling meanders – or Rossby waves – in the jet stream.
Arctic heating, the paper shows, both slows the Rossby waves and makes them steeper and wider. Instead of moving on rapidly, the weather gets stuck. Regions to the south of the stalled meander wait for weeks or months for rain; regions to the north (or underneath it) wait for weeks or months for a break from the rain. Instead of a benign succession of sunshine and showers, we get droughts or floods. During the winter a slow, steep meander can connect us directly to the polar weather, dragging severe ice and snow far to the south of its usual range.

Which of these options gives an analogous example to the way in which people understand the problem of global warming?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

There are no comparisons to be made. This is not like war or plague or a stock market crash. We are ill-equipped, historically and psychologically, to understand it, which is one of the reasons why so many refuse to accept that it is happening.
What we are seeing, here and now, is the transformation of the atmospheric physics of this planet. Three weeks before the likely minimum, the melting of Arctic sea ice has already broken the record set in 2007. The daily rate of loss is now 50% higher than it was that year. The daily sense of loss – of the world we loved and knew – cannot be quantified so easily. 
The Arctic has been warming roughly twice as quickly as the rest of the northern hemisphere. This is partly because climate breakdown there is self-perpetuating. As the ice melts, for example, exposing the darker sea beneath, heat which would previously have been reflected back into space is absorbed.
This great dissolution, of ice and certainties, is happening so much faster than most climate scientists predicted that, one seasoned observer reports, “it feels as if everything I’ve learned has become obsolete.” In its last assessment, published in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted that “in some projections, Arctic late-summer sea ice will disappear almost entirely by the latter part of the 21st century.” These were the most extreme forecasts in the panel’s range. Some scientists now forecast that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice in late summer could occur in this decade or the next.
As I’ve warned repeatedly, but to little effect, the IPCC’s assessments tend to be conservative. This is unsurprising when you see how many people have to approve them before they are published. There have been a few occasions – such as its estimate of the speed at which glaciers would be lost in the Himalayas – on which the panel has overstated the case. But it looks as if these will be greatly outnumbered by the occasions on which the panel has understated it.
The melting disperses another belief: that the temperate parts of the world – where most of the rich nations are located – will be hit last and least, while the poorer nations will be hit first and worst. New knowledge of the way in which the destruction of the Arctic sea ice affects northern Europe and North America suggests that this is no longer true. A paper published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters shows that Arctic warming is likely to be responsible for the extremes now hammering the once-temperate nations.
The north polar jet stream is an air current several hundred kilometres wide, travelling eastwards around the hemisphere. It functions as a barrier, separating the cold, wet weather to the north from the warmer, drier weather to the south. Many of the variations in our weather are caused by great travelling meanders – or Rossby waves – in the jet stream.
Arctic heating, the paper shows, both slows the Rossby waves and makes them steeper and wider. Instead of moving on rapidly, the weather gets stuck. Regions to the south of the stalled meander wait for weeks or months for rain; regions to the north (or underneath it) wait for weeks or months for a break from the rain. Instead of a benign succession of sunshine and showers, we get droughts or floods. During the winter a slow, steep meander can connect us directly to the polar weather, dragging severe ice and snow far to the south of its usual range.

All of these options are true in the light of the contents of the passage EXCEPT

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Every day, we face thousands of decisions both major and minor — from whether to eat that decadent chocolate cupcake to when to pursue a new romantic relationship or to change careers. How does the brain decide? A new study suggests that it relies on two separate networks to do so: one that determines the overall value — the risk versus reward — of individual choices and another that guides how you ultimately behave.
“Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex,” says Jan Glascher, lead author of the study and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, referring to the seat of higher-level reasoning in the brain.
Study co-author Ralph Adolphs, a professor of psychology at Caltech, explains the distinction by way of a grocery shopping example: “Your valuation network is always providing you with information about what’s rewarding around you — the things you want to buy — but also lots of distracting things like junk food and other items popping into your vision off the shelves.”
Cognitive control is what keeps this network in check. “To be able to get to the checkout counter with what you planned, you need to maintain a goal in mind, such as perhaps only buying the salad you needed for dinner,” says Adolphs. “That’s your cognitive control network maintaining an overall goal despite lots of other information”.
Understanding how the brain parcels out specific decision-making tasks can offer insight into conditions in which such networks go awry, such as in the case of psychiatric disorders. Depressed people, for example, clearly have difficulty with value-based decision making: because nothing feels good or seems appealing, all options appear equally bleak and making choices becomes impossible. Hoarding disorder, in contrast, may involve overvaluation of certain possessions and impairment of the cognitive control needed to shift one’s attention away from them. That explains why hoarding becomes more important than other life goals like maintaining relationships.
To tease out the distinct roles of these brain areas, the researchers analyzed data on nearly 350 people with damage, or lesions, in specific regions of the frontal lobes believed to be involved with particular tasks. Such studies of brain lesions are better at helping scientists understand cause and effect than imaging studies alone: if a damaged region is linked with impairment on a particular cognitive test, you know that task requires involvement from that region; with imaging studies, however, researchers can never be sure whether brain activity in certain regions is crucial to the task at hand, or whether it resulted from extraneous factors like a participant being distracted in the scanner.

Which of these decisions does not require a person to use both the networks involved in decision making in the brain?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Every day, we face thousands of decisions both major and minor — from whether to eat that decadent chocolate cupcake to when to pursue a new romantic relationship or to change careers. How does the brain decide? A new study suggests that it relies on two separate networks to do so: one that determines the overall value — the risk versus reward — of individual choices and another that guides how you ultimately behave.
“Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex,” says Jan Glascher, lead author of the study and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, referring to the seat of higher-level reasoning in the brain.
Study co-author Ralph Adolphs, a professor of psychology at Caltech, explains the distinction by way of a grocery shopping example: “Your valuation network is always providing you with information about what’s rewarding around you — the things you want to buy — but also lots of distracting things like junk food and other items popping into your vision off the shelves.”
Cognitive control is what keeps this network in check. “To be able to get to the checkout counter with what you planned, you need to maintain a goal in mind, such as perhaps only buying the salad you needed for dinner,” says Adolphs. “That’s your cognitive control network maintaining an overall goal despite lots of other information”.
Understanding how the brain parcels out specific decision-making tasks can offer insight into conditions in which such networks go awry, such as in the case of psychiatric disorders. Depressed people, for example, clearly have difficulty with value-based decision making: because nothing feels good or seems appealing, all options appear equally bleak and making choices becomes impossible. Hoarding disorder, in contrast, may involve overvaluation of certain possessions and impairment of the cognitive control needed to shift one’s attention away from them. That explains why hoarding becomes more important than other life goals like maintaining relationships.
To tease out the distinct roles of these brain areas, the researchers analyzed data on nearly 350 people with damage, or lesions, in specific regions of the frontal lobes believed to be involved with particular tasks. Such studies of brain lesions are better at helping scientists understand cause and effect than imaging studies alone: if a damaged region is linked with impairment on a particular cognitive test, you know that task requires involvement from that region; with imaging studies, however, researchers can never be sure whether brain activity in certain regions is crucial to the task at hand, or whether it resulted from extraneous factors like a participant being distracted in the scanner.

What is the main purpose of the author in writing the passage?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Every day, we face thousands of decisions both major and minor — from whether to eat that decadent chocolate cupcake to when to pursue a new romantic relationship or to change careers. How does the brain decide? A new study suggests that it relies on two separate networks to do so: one that determines the overall value — the risk versus reward — of individual choices and another that guides how you ultimately behave.
“Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex,” says Jan Glascher, lead author of the study and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, referring to the seat of higher-level reasoning in the brain.
Study co-author Ralph Adolphs, a professor of psychology at Caltech, explains the distinction by way of a grocery shopping example: “Your valuation network is always providing you with information about what’s rewarding around you — the things you want to buy — but also lots of distracting things like junk food and other items popping into your vision off the shelves.”
Cognitive control is what keeps this network in check. “To be able to get to the checkout counter with what you planned, you need to maintain a goal in mind, such as perhaps only buying the salad you needed for dinner,” says Adolphs. “That’s your cognitive control network maintaining an overall goal despite lots of other information”.
Understanding how the brain parcels out specific decision-making tasks can offer insight into conditions in which such networks go awry, such as in the case of psychiatric disorders. Depressed people, for example, clearly have difficulty with value-based decision making: because nothing feels good or seems appealing, all options appear equally bleak and making choices becomes impossible. Hoarding disorder, in contrast, may involve overvaluation of certain possessions and impairment of the cognitive control needed to shift one’s attention away from them. That explains why hoarding becomes more important than other life goals like maintaining relationships.
To tease out the distinct roles of these brain areas, the researchers analyzed data on nearly 350 people with damage, or lesions, in specific regions of the frontal lobes believed to be involved with particular tasks. Such studies of brain lesions are better at helping scientists understand cause and effect than imaging studies alone: if a damaged region is linked with impairment on a particular cognitive test, you know that task requires involvement from that region; with imaging studies, however, researchers can never be sure whether brain activity in certain regions is crucial to the task at hand, or whether it resulted from extraneous factors like a participant being distracted in the scanner.

Which of these options, if true, weakens the argument that studies on brain damaged patients are useful?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Every day, we face thousands of decisions both major and minor — from whether to eat that decadent chocolate cupcake to when to pursue a new romantic relationship or to change careers. How does the brain decide? A new study suggests that it relies on two separate networks to do so: one that determines the overall value — the risk versus reward — of individual choices and another that guides how you ultimately behave.
“Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex,” says Jan Glascher, lead author of the study and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, referring to the seat of higher-level reasoning in the brain.
Study co-author Ralph Adolphs, a professor of psychology at Caltech, explains the distinction by way of a grocery shopping example: “Your valuation network is always providing you with information about what’s rewarding around you — the things you want to buy — but also lots of distracting things like junk food and other items popping into your vision off the shelves.”
Cognitive control is what keeps this network in check. “To be able to get to the checkout counter with what you planned, you need to maintain a goal in mind, such as perhaps only buying the salad you needed for dinner,” says Adolphs. “That’s your cognitive control network maintaining an overall goal despite lots of other information”.
Understanding how the brain parcels out specific decision-making tasks can offer insight into conditions in which such networks go awry, such as in the case of psychiatric disorders. Depressed people, for example, clearly have difficulty with value-based decision making: because nothing feels good or seems appealing, all options appear equally bleak and making choices becomes impossible. Hoarding disorder, in contrast, may involve overvaluation of certain possessions and impairment of the cognitive control needed to shift one’s attention away from them. That explains why hoarding becomes more important than other life goals like maintaining relationships.
To tease out the distinct roles of these brain areas, the researchers analyzed data on nearly 350 people with damage, or lesions, in specific regions of the frontal lobes believed to be involved with particular tasks. Such studies of brain lesions are better at helping scientists understand cause and effect than imaging studies alone: if a damaged region is linked with impairment on a particular cognitive test, you know that task requires involvement from that region; with imaging studies, however, researchers can never be sure whether brain activity in certain regions is crucial to the task at hand, or whether it resulted from extraneous factors like a participant being distracted in the scanner.

Which of these describes the attitude of the author towards brain science research?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

Every day, we face thousands of decisions both major and minor — from whether to eat that decadent chocolate cupcake to when to pursue a new romantic relationship or to change careers. How does the brain decide? A new study suggests that it relies on two separate networks to do so: one that determines the overall value — the risk versus reward — of individual choices and another that guides how you ultimately behave.
“Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex,” says Jan Glascher, lead author of the study and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, referring to the seat of higher-level reasoning in the brain.
Study co-author Ralph Adolphs, a professor of psychology at Caltech, explains the distinction by way of a grocery shopping example: “Your valuation network is always providing you with information about what’s rewarding around you — the things you want to buy — but also lots of distracting things like junk food and other items popping into your vision off the shelves.”
Cognitive control is what keeps this network in check. “To be able to get to the checkout counter with what you planned, you need to maintain a goal in mind, such as perhaps only buying the salad you needed for dinner,” says Adolphs. “That’s your cognitive control network maintaining an overall goal despite lots of other information”.
Understanding how the brain parcels out specific decision-making tasks can offer insight into conditions in which such networks go awry, such as in the case of psychiatric disorders. Depressed people, for example, clearly have difficulty with value-based decision making: because nothing feels good or seems appealing, all options appear equally bleak and making choices becomes impossible. Hoarding disorder, in contrast, may involve overvaluation of certain possessions and impairment of the cognitive control needed to shift one’s attention away from them. That explains why hoarding becomes more important than other life goals like maintaining relationships.
To tease out the distinct roles of these brain areas, the researchers analyzed data on nearly 350 people with damage, or lesions, in specific regions of the frontal lobes believed to be involved with particular tasks. Such studies of brain lesions are better at helping scientists understand cause and effect than imaging studies alone: if a damaged region is linked with impairment on a particular cognitive test, you know that task requires involvement from that region; with imaging studies, however, researchers can never be sure whether brain activity in certain regions is crucial to the task at hand, or whether it resulted from extraneous factors like a participant being distracted in the scanner.