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PSAT Science questions
About the PSAT
This is designed to measure the ability to understand and process elements of reading, writing, and mathematics…. The College Board now also offers two PSAT variations: the PSAT 10 for sophmores, and the PSAT 8/9 for freshmen and eighth graders. These variations generate score reports that measure students’ college readiness and skillsets. (the PSAT 8/9 is shorter and less complex). Read more about the PSAT variations. It has four sections:
- The Reading Test – 60 minutes, 47 questions
- The Writing and Language Test – 35 minutes, 44 questions
- Math Test, No Calculator Portion – 25 minutes, 17 questions
- Math Test, Calculator Portion – 45 minutes, 31 questions
The PSAT/NMSQT and PSAT 10 both have a total testing time of 2 hours and 45 minutes.
= from testmasters.net
======
from the Kaplan website kaptest.com/study/psat/psat-reading-science-passages/
The PSAT Reading Test will contain either two single Science passages or one single Science passage and one set of paired Science passages. Science passages differ from other passage types because:
- They often contain a lot of jargon and technical terms.
- They can utilize unfamiliar terms and concepts.
While Science passages can be tricky due to unfamiliar language, you will never need to employ knowledge outside of the passage when answering questions. Use the following strategy when approaching Science passages on the PSAT:
Let’s look at the following example of an abbreviated Science passage and question set. After the mapped passage, the left column contains questions similar to those you’ll see on the PSAT Reading Test on Test Day. The column on the right features the strategic thinking a test expert employs when approaching the passage and questions presented. Note how a test expert can quickly condense the entire passage into a few words and use his or her Passage Map to ask questions that build a prediction for the correct answer.
REMINDER
When you encounter more than one theory or idea, paraphrase each in as few words as possible in your Passage Map.
Sample PSAT Reading Practice Question: Science
For practice question #1, use the Passage Map to find where the author mentions color. Because the author mentions both “filtering” and “dust,” you know that the right answer will include those. Choice (C) mentions “filtering” and is, therefore, correct.
For practice question #2, ask “Why did the author choose those words—what are they doing?” Could you picture how an eclipse worked? Predict that the phrase helps the reader understand the concept. Choice (D) matches exactly.
================
from 2015 Practice Test #1, Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test
Questions 20-28 are based on the following passage and supplementary material.
This passage is adapted from Tina Hesman Saey, “Lessons from the Torpid.” ©2012 by Society for Science & the Public.
Understanding how hibernators, including ground squirrels, marmots and bears, survive their long winter’s naps may one day offer solutions for problems such as heart disease, osteoporosis and muscular dystrophy. Nearly everything about the way an animal’s body
works changes when it hibernates, and preparations start weeks or months in advance. The first order of business is to fatten up.
“Fat is where it’s at for a hibernator,” says Matthew Andrews, a molecular biologist at the
University of Minnesota Duluth who studies 13-lined ground squirrels. “You bring your own lunch with you.” Packing lunch is necessary because the animals go on the world’s strictest diet during the winter, surviving entirely off their white fat. “They have their last supper in October; they don’t eat again until March,” Andrews says.
Bigger fat stores mean a greater chance of surviving until spring. “If they go in really chunky, nice and roly-poly, that’s going to be a good hibernator,” he says. Bears also watch their waistlines expand in the months before settling in for the season. The brown
bears cardiologist Ole Fröbert studies pack on the pounds by chowing down on up to 40 kilograms of blueberries a day. Such gluttony among humans could have severe consequences: Obesity is associated with a greater risk of heart attack and diabetes, among other ailments.
To see how fattening up affects Scandinavian brown bears, Fröbert and his colleagues
ventured into the wilds of Sweden following signals given off by radio transmitters or GPS devices on tagged bears.
Bears can be dangerous close-up. Even hibernating bears can rouse to action quickly, so
scientists tracking down bears in the winter use darts to tranquilize the animals from a distance. Scientists studying the bears in the summer tranquilize them from a helicopter.
Once a bear is under the tranquilizer’s influence (which takes about five minutes), the scientists have 60 minutes max to get the animal from its den, weigh and measure it, draw blood samples and do minor surgeries to collect fat and other tissues. The bear is returned to its den by minute 61.
Precious materials collected during this high-pressure encounter need to be analyzed within 24 hours, so the researchers often test for levels of cholesterol or certain proteins in the blood while working in the snow or at a nearby research station. A pilot sometimes flies samples from field sites to a lab in Denmark in order to meet the deadline, Fröbert says. Samples such as bones and arteries that can’t be collected from live bears come from bears killed by hunters during the legal hunting season.
Recent analyses revealed that Scandinavian brown bears spend the summer with plasma cholesterol levels considered high for humans; those values then increase substantially for hibernation, Fröbert and his colleagues reported. These “very, very fat” bears with high cholesterol also get zero exercise during hibernation. Lolling about in the den pinches off blood vessels, contributing to sluggish circulation.
“That cocktail would not be advisable in humans,” Fröbert says. It’s a recipe for hardened arteries, putting people at risk for heart attacks and strokes. Even healthy young adult humans can develop fatty streaks in their arteries that make the blood
vessels less flexible, but the bears don’t build up such artery-hardening streaks. “Our bears, they had nothing,” Fröbert says. It’s not yet clear how the bears keep their arteries flexible, but Fröbert hopes to find some protective molecule that could stave off hardened arteries in humans as well.
20. The passage is written from the perspective of someone who is
A) actively involved in conducting hibernator research.
B) a participant in a recent debate in the field of cardiology.
C) knowledgeable about advances in hibernator research.
D) an advocate for wildlife preservation.
21. It is reasonable to conclude that the main goal of the scientists conducting the research described in the passage is to
A) learn how the hibernation patterns of bears and squirrels differ.
B) determine the role that fat plays in hibernation.
C) illustrate the important health benefits of exercise for humans.
D) explore possible ways to prevent human diseases.
22. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?
A) Lines 1-5 (“Understanding… dystrophy”)
B) Lines 10-13 (“Fat… squirrels”)
C) Lines 31-35 (“To… bears”)
D) Lines 42-46 (“Once… tissues”)
23. What main effect do the quotations by Andrews in lines 10-18 have on the tone of the passage?
A) They create a bleak tone, focusing on the difficulties hibernators face during the winter.
B) They create a conversational tone, relating scientific information in everyday language.
C) They create an ominous tone, foreshadowing the dire results of Andrews’s research.
D) They create an absurd tone, using images of animals acting as if they were human.
24. As used in line 19, “stores” most nearly means
A) preservatives.
B) reserves.
C) stacks.
D) shelters.
25 Based on the passage, what is Fröbert’s hypothesis regarding why bears’ arteries do not harden during hibernation?
A) The bears’ increased plasma cholesterol causes the arteries to be more flexible.
B) Sluggish circulation pinches off the blood vessels rather than hardening the arteries.
C) Bears exercise in short, infrequent bursts during hibernation, which staves off hardened arteries.
D) Bears possess a molecule that protects against hardened arteries.
26 Which choice provides the best evidence for the
answer to the previous question?
A) Lines 19-20 (“Bigger… spring”)
B) Lines 24-27 (“The brown… day”)
C) Lines 69-72 (“Even… streaks”)
D) Lines 73-76 (“It’s… well”)
27 What information discussed in paragraph 10 (lines 58-68) is represented by the graph?
A) The information in lines 58-62 (“Recent…reported”)
B) The information in lines 62-64 (“These…hibernation”)
C) The information in lines 64-65 (“Lolling…circulation”)
D) The information in lines 67-68 (“It’s… strokes”)
28 Which statement about the effect of hibernation on the seven bears is best supported by the graph?
A) Only one of the bears did not experience an appreciable change in its total plasma cholesterol level.
B) Only one of the bears experienced a significant increase in its total plasma cholesterol level.
C) All of the bears achieved the desirable plasma cholesterol level for humans.
D) The bear with the lowest total plasma cholesterol level in its active state had the highest total plasma cholesterol level during hibernation.
================
Questions 38-47 are based on the following passages.
Passage 1 is adapted from Stewart Brand, “The Case for Reviving Extinct Species.” ©2013 by the National Geographic Society. Passage 2 is adapted from the editors at Scientific American, “Why Efforts to Bring Extinct Species Back from the Dead Miss the Point.” ©2013 by Nature America, Inc.
Passage 1: Many extinct species—from the passenger pigeon to the woolly mammoth—might now be reclassified as “bodily, but not genetically, extinct.” They’re dead, but their DNA is recoverable from museum specimens and fossils, even those up to 200,000 years
old. Thanks to new developments in genetic technology, that DNA may eventually bring the animals back to life. Only species whose DNA is too old to be recovered, such as dinosaurs, are the ones to consider totally extinct, bodily and genetically.
But why bring vanished creatures back to life? It will be expensive and difficult. It will take decades. It won’t always succeed. Why even try? Why do we take enormous trouble to protect endangered species? The same reasons will apply to species brought back from extinction: to preserve biodiversity, to restore diminished ecosystems, to advance the science of preventing extinctions, and to undo harm that humans have caused in the past.
Furthermore, the prospect of de-extinction is profound news. That something as irreversible and final as extinction might be reversed is a stunning realization. The imagination soars. Just the thought of mammoths and passenger pigeons alive again
invokes the awe and wonder that drives all conservation at its deepest level.
Passage 2: The idea of bringing back extinct species holds obvious gee-whiz appeal and a respite from a steady stream of grim news. Yet with limited intellectual bandwidth and financial resources to go around, de-extinction threatens to divert attention from the modern biodiversity crisis. According to a 2012 report from the International Union for
Conservation of Nature, some 20,000 species are currently in grave danger of going extinct.
Species today are vanishing in such great numbers—many from hunting and habitat destruction—that the trend has been called a sixth mass extinction, an event on par with such die-offs as the one that befell the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
A program to restore extinct species poses a risk of selling the public on a false promise that technology alone can solve our ongoing environmental woes — an implicit assurance that if a species goes away, we can snap our fingers and bring it back.
Already conservationists face difficult choices about which species and ecosystems to try to save, since they cannot hope to rescue them all. Many countries where poaching and trade in threatened species are rampant either do not want to give up the revenue or lack the wherewithal to enforce their own regulations. Against that backdrop, a costly and flamboyant project to resuscitate extinct flora and fauna in the name of conservation looks irresponsible: Should we resurrect the mammoth only to let elephants go under? Of course not.
That is not to say that the de-extinction enterprise lacks merit altogether. Aspects of it could conceivably help save endangered species. For example, extinct versions of genes could be reintroduced into species and subspecies that have lost a dangerous amount of genetic diversity, such as the black-footed ferret and the northern white rhino. Such investigations, however, should be conducted under the mantle of preserving modern biodiversity rather than conjuring extinct species from the grave.
38. The author of Passage 1 suggests that the usefulness of de-extinction technology may be limited by the
A) amount of time scientists are able to devote to genetic research.
B) relationship of an extinct species to contemporary ecosystems.
C) complexity of the DNA of an extinct species.
D) length of time that a species has been extinct.
39. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?
A) Lines 7-9 (“Thanks… life”)
B) Lines 9-11 (“Only… genetically”)
C) Line 13 (“It will be… difficult”)
D) Lines 13-14 (“It will take… succeed”)
40. As used in line 27, “deepest” most nearly means
A) most engrossing.
B) most challenging.
C) most extensive.
D) most fundamental.
41. The authors of Passage 2 indicate that the matter of shrinking biodiversity should primarily be considered a
A) historical anomaly.
B) global catastrophe.
C) scientific curiosity.
D) political problem.
42. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?
A) Lines 37-41 (“Species… ago”)
B) Lines 42-45 (“A program… woes”)
C) Lines 53-56 (“Against… irresponsible”)
D) Lines 65-67 (“Such… grave”)
43. As used in line 37, “great” most nearly means
A) lofty.
B) wonderful.
C) large.
D) intense.
44. The reference to the “black-footed ferret and the northern white rhino” (line 64) serves mainly to
A) emphasize a key distinction between extinct and living species.
B) account for types of animals whose numbers are dwindling.
C) provide examples of species whose gene pools are compromised.
D) highlight instances of animals that have failed to adapt to new habitats.
45. Which choice best states the relationship between the two passages?
A) Passage 2 attacks a political decision that Passage 1 strongly advocates.
B) Passage 2 urges caution regarding a technology that Passage 1 describes in favorable terms.
C) Passage 2 expands on the results of a research study mentioned in Passage 1.
D) Passage 2 considers practical applications that could arise from a theory discussed in Passage 1.
46. How would the authors of Passage 2 most likely respond to the “prospect” referred to in line 21, Passage 1?
A) With approval, because it illustrates how useful de-extinction could be in addressing widespread environmental concerns.
B) With resignation, because the gradual extinction of many living species is inevitable.
C) With concern, because it implies an easy solution to a difficult problem.
D) With disdain, because it shows that people have little understanding of the importance of genetic diversity
47. Which choice would best support the claim that the authors of Passage 2 recognize that the “imagination soars” (line 24, Passage 1) in response to de-extinction technology?
A) Lines 28-30 (“The… news”)
B) Lines 30-33 (“Yet… crisis”)
C) Lines 58-59 (“That… altogether”)
D) Lines 61-63 (“For… diversity”)
================
Questions 12-22 are based on the following passage and supplementary material: Vanishing Honeybees: A Threat to Global Agriculture
Honeybees play an important role in the agriculture industry by pollinating crops. An October 2006 study found that as much as one-third of global agriculture depends on animal pollination, including honeybee pollination—to increase crop output. The importance of bees highlights the potentially disastrous affects of an emerging, unexplained crisis: entire colonies of honeybees are dying off without warning. They know it as colony collapse disorder (CCD), this phenomenon will have a detrimental impact on global agriculture if its causes and solutions are not determined.
Since the emergence of CCD around 2006, bee mortality rates have exceeded 25 percent of the population each winter. There was one sign of hope: during the 2010–2012 winter seasons, bee mortality rates decreased slightly, and beekeepers speculated that the colonies would recover. Yet in the winter of 2012–2013, 10 percent in the United States, with a loss of 31 percent of the colonies that pollinate crops.
12 A) NO CHANGE
B) pollination: this is
C) pollination,
D) pollination;
13 A) NO CHANGE
B) highlights the potentially disastrous effects
C) highlight the potentially disastrous effects
D) highlight the potentially disastrous affects
14 A) NO CHANGE
B) Known as colony
C) It is known as colony
D) Colony
15 Which choice offers the most accurate interpretation of the data in the chart?
A) NO CHANGE
B) been above the acceptable range.
C) not changed noticeably from year to year.
D) greatly increased every year.
16 Which choice offers an accurate interpretation of the
data in the chart?
A) NO CHANGE
B) portion of bees lost was double what it had been
the previous year, rising to
C) number of losses, which had fallen within the
acceptable range the previous year, rose to
D) portion of total colonies lost rose almost 10 percentage points, with a loss of
Studies have offered several possible reasons that bees are vanishing. One reason that is often cited is the use of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which are absorbed by plants and linger much longer than do topical pesticides. Chemicals such as herbicides and
fungicides may also play a role, contaminating the pollen that bees typically feed on and inhibiting healthy insect maturation.
17 Which choice most smoothly and effectively introduces the writer’s discussion of studies of CCD in this paragraph?
A) NO CHANGE
B) Bees are vanishing, and according to studies there are several possible reasons for this trend.
C) Several possible reasons, offered by studies, may explain why bees are vanishing.
D) DELETE the underlined sentence.
18 At this point, the writer is considering adding the following sentence. Prolonged exposure to neonicotinoids has been shown to increase bees’ vulnerability to disease and parasitic mites. Should the writer make this addition here?
A) Yes, because it provides support for the claim made in the previous sentence.
B) Yes, because it introduces a new idea that will become important later in the passage.
C) No, because it would be better placed elsewhere in the passage.
D) No, because it contradicts the main idea of the passage.
Given the role that honeybees play in agriculture, the impact of this loss of hives on fruit, vegetable, seed, and nut crops is not to be scoffed at. A reduction in bee numbers leads to less pollination, which in turn leads to smaller harvests and higher food prices. Some farmers have resorted to renting hives from beekeepers to pollinate their crops; when there is a shortage of bees this being an expensive proposition. Other farmers have
increased they’re dependence on costly hand-pollination by human workers.
urthermore, there may be sociological repercussions. Agroecologist Alexandra-Maria Klein has suggested that rising produce prices could lead to an increase in obesity as people turn to cheaper, less wholesome fare.
Though the precise causes of CCD are yet unclear, some commonsense measures may be taken. A decrease in the use of certain pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, as well as greater attention to the nutrition, habitat, and genetic diversity of managed hives, could begin a shift in a favorable direction.
19
A) NO CHANGE
B) is a pretty big deal.
C) can’t be put on the back burner.
D) cannot be ignored.
20
A) NO CHANGE
B) crops, this is an expensive proposition when
there is a shortage of bees.
C) crops, an expensive proposition when there is a shortage of bees.
D) crops; an expensive proposition when there is a shortage of bees.
21
A) NO CHANGE
B) there
C) their
D) its
22
The writer wants a conclusion that addresses the future of efforts to combat CCD. Which choice results in the passage having the most appropriate concluding sentence?
A) NO CHANGE
B) Still, bee colonies have experienced such devastating losses that the consequences of the issue have been felt worldwide.
C) Although CCD is a relatively new phenomenon, scientists have been studying other aspects of honeybees for over a century.
D) Genetic variation in bee colonies generally improves bees’ productivity, disease resistance, and ability to regulate body temperature.
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Fall 2016 PSAT Practice Test
Click to access psat-nmsqt-practice-test-2.pdf
Questions 39-47 are based on the following passage.
This passage is adapted from Ed Yong, “Gut Bacteria Allows Insect Pest to Foil Farmers.” ©2013 by National Geographic Society.
Here is a lesson that we’re going to be taught again and again in the coming years: Most animals are not just animals. They’re also collections of Line microbes. If you really want to understand animals, 5 you’ll also have to understand the world of microbes inside them. In other words, zoology is ecology.
Consider the western corn rootworm—a beetle that’s a serious pest of corn in the United States. The adults have strong preferences for laying eggs in corn 10 fields, so that their underground larvae hatch into a feast of corn roots. This life cycle depends on a
continuous year-on-year supply of corn. Farmers can use this dependency against the rootworm, by planting soybean and corn in alternate years. 15 These rotations mean that rootworms lay eggs into corn fields but their larvae hatch among soybean, and die.
But the rootworms have adapted to this strategy by reducing their strong instincts for laying eggs in 20 corn. These rotation-resistant females might lay among soybean fields, so their larvae hatch into a crop of corn.
There are almost certainly genetic differences that separate the rotation-resistant rootworms from their 25 normal peers, but what are they? Researchers at the University of Illinois have been studying the problem since 2000 and, despite generating a vast mountain of data, have failed to find the genes in question. “The western corn rootworm has been an enigma for 30 a long time,” says Manfredo Seufferheld. “This insect has the ability to adapt to practically all control methods deployed against it, including crop rotation.
After many years of research about the mechanisms of rotation resistance, results were mostly 35 inconclusive.” So, Seufferheld looked elsewhere. Rather than focusing on the rootworm’s own genes, he studied the genes of the bacteria in its gut . . . and found
some answers. The rotation-resistant varieties have 40 very different gut bacteria from the normal ones. And when the team killed these microbes with antibiotics, they severely reduced the beetle’s ability to cope with rotation.
“The bad guy in the story—the western corn 45 rootworm—was actually part of a multi-species conspiracy,” says Joe Spencer, who was part of the study.
The team, including graduate student Chia-Ching Chu, found that a third of the rootworms’ gut 50 bacteria comprise species that are unique to either the resistant or normal varieties. These two factions also differ in the relative numbers of the bacteria that they share.
These different microbes give the resistant beetles 55 an edge when eating soybeans. The rootworms digest the protein in their meals using enzymes called cysteine proteases, and soybeans defend themselves with substances that can block these enzymes.
But Chu found that the more the beetles’ bacteria 60 differed from the normal set, the higher the levels of cysteine proteases in their guts. By avoiding indigestion, these beetles were better at surviving among soybeans, and more likely to lay their eggs there.
65 The team proved that the bacteria were responsible by killing them with antibiotics. Sure enough, this drastically lowered the cysteine protease activity in the guts of the rotation-resistant beetles and wrecked their ability to thrive among soybeans.
39. Over the course of the passage, the main focus shifts from a
A) statement about the challenge posed by a particular insect to an indication of why that
challenge was easy to overcome.
B) summary of a once-unexplained natural phenomenon to a biography of the scientists
who researched that phenomenon.
C) description of a problem affecting agriculture to an explanation of how scientists identified the cause of that problem.
D) discussion about a scientific field to an anecdote showing how research is done in that field.
40. The statement “zoology is ecology” (line 6) mainly serves to
A) propose that two areas of scientific knowledge be merged.
B) point out that knowledge obtained in one field of research will lead to expertise in another.
C) assert a point about biological science that is supported by the example in the passage.
D) suggest that one field of scientific research has completely supplanted another.
41. According to the passage, one similarity between rotation-resistant rootworms and normal rootworms is that they both
A) reduce crop productivity by extracting nutrients from the soil.
B) produce larvae that feed on the plant roots of crops.
C) adapt to crop rotation by maintaining high levels of enzymes in their guts.
D) contain the same quantity and composition of bacteria in their guts.
42. Which choice most clearly provides information indicating how some rootworms have overcome farmers’ efforts to eradicate them?
A) Lines 15-17 (“These… die”)
B) Lines 18-20 (“But… corn”)
C) Lines 25-28 (“Researchers… question”)
D) Lines 41-43 (“And… rotation”)
43. The central claim in the fourth paragraph (lines 23-35) is that
A) extensive study of the rootworm’s genes was insufficient to determine why some rootworms are rotation resistant.
B) the rootworm’s ability to adapt to pest control methods is unique among insects.
C) the genetic profile of rootworms is significantly more complex than researchers initially believed.
D) our current understanding of genetics is inadequate to allow researchers to understand why some rootworms are rotation resistant.
44. As used in line 24, “separate” most nearly means
A) distinguish.
B) discharge.
C) extract.
D) scatter.
45. According to the passage, the gut bacteria of rotation-resistant rootworms
A) help the rootworms survive in soybean crops.
B) are responsible for lowering the amount of cysteine protease in the rootworms’ guts.
C) make the rootworms less vulnerable to being killed by antibiotics.
D) are transferred to the larvae that hatch from the rootworms’ eggs.
46. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?
A) Lines 29-30 (“The western… Seufferheld”)
B) Lines 39-40 (“The rotation-resistant… ones”)
C) Lines 44-47 (“The bad… study”)
D) Lines 54-55 (“These… soybeans”)
47. The main idea of the last paragraph is that
A) cysteine proteases are harmful to rootworms when present in large quantities in the body.
B) eggs laid by rotation-resistant rootworms will hatch into crops of soybeans.
C) bacteria unique to rotation-resistant rootworms allow them to digest soybeans.
D) rotation-resistant rootworms do not digest soybeans using cysteine proteases.
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Click to access psat-nmsqt-practice-test-2.pdf
Questions 12-22 are based on the following passage and supplementary material.
A Study in Arctic Migration
Each year, many species of shorebirds migrate from locations in the Southern Hemisphere to their breeding grounds in the 12 Arctic. A journey of thousands of
kilometers that requires frequent stops to fuel up. The risk of death is significant, and the Arctic is an inhospitable region for most of the 13 year, yet the shorebirds never failing to make their annual pilgrimage.
Come spring, the Arctic becomes a suitable habitat, providing many benefits: an abundant supply of food, permanent daylight, ample nesting space, fewer pathogens, and fewer predators to invade the nests of these ground-dwelling birds. These benefits are found in all regions of the 14 Arctic regardless of latitude yet some shorebirds continue on to the high Arctic. If these birds are simply looking for open space and enough food to eat, then why not end their long journey in the low Arctic? Continuing on to the north requires more fuel and carries an even greater risk of 15 mortality if the
birds continue on. The most likely reason certain shorebirds head to the high Arctic is to escape their predators.
12
A) NO CHANGE
B) Arctic, a
C) Arctic; a
D) Arctic; which is a
13
A) NO CHANGE
B) year, the shorebirds never fail
C) year, yet the shorebirds never fail
D) year; yet the shorebirds never failing
14
A) NO CHANGE
B) Arctic, regardless of latitude
C) Arctic, regardless of latitude,
D) Arctic: regardless of latitude,
15
A) NO CHANGE
B) mortality if they keep going.
C) mortality and death.
D) mortality.
[1] A four-year study by a team of Canadian scientists, headed by student Laura McKinnon of the Université du Québec, 16 provide evidence in support of this hypothesis. [2] The scientists created artificial nests that resembled a typical shorebird’s nest. [3] Then each year, during the shorebirds’ breeding season, forty of the nests were placed in each of seven locations that ranged in latitude from the low Arctic to the high Arctic. [4] Each nest had been baited with four 17 quail egg’s, which are similar in size and shape to a shorebird’s eggs. [5] The scientists returned to the nests many times over nine days to check how many eggs remained in the nests. [6] A nest was said to have survived if, at the end of the nine days, it contained at least one undisturbed quail egg.
16
A) NO CHANGE
B) provides
C) are providing
D) have provided
17
A) NO CHANGE
B) quail eggs,
C) quail eggs’,
D) quails eggs,
To make this paragraph most logical, sentence 5 should be placed
A) where it is now.
B) after sentence 1.
C) after sentence 2.
D) after sentence 6
The figure shows the results for the nesting 19 sites,
furthermore, at four of the seven locations, averaged over
the four years of the study. The 20 number of predators
invading the nests increased over time at each location.
This result confirmed that predators were present at the
researchers’ chosen locations. The researchers found that
the percent of 21 surviving nests was greater at locations
having higher latitudes. For example, on day 9,
approximately 55 percent of nests were found to have
survived at the 82°N location compared to approximately 10 percent of nest survival at the 63°N location. This study provides the first known quantifiable evidence for the previously unanswered question of why shorebirds
continue on to the high Arctic. 22 The shorebirds risk
their own survival by flying farther. Their offspring have a better chance of survival because fewer predators invade the nests.
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Sample tests
Related topics
Good hypothesis vs bad hypothesis
In science, what is the difference between a good and a bad hypothesis A hypothesis is something actually testable. Consider these examples:
A. Someone claims “lightning is caused by angry ghosts.” If true then you’d predict that when ghosts are angry, there’d be more lightning.
But this can’t be tested.There is no way to determine whether ghosts are angry – or whether their wrath is correlated with thunderstorms.
We can’t measure ghosts so there are no testable predictions. It is thus not a good hypothesis.
B. Someone claims “lightning is caused by electrical charges moving from the ground to the clouds.” If true then you’d predict that when there is an imbalance of electrically charged particles (electrons) then electrons might move from one place to another.
We can measure electrical charges. The idea is testable so it is a good hypothesis.
C. Someone claims “Planets orbit the Sun at different speeds, because speed is related to the gravitational pull of the Sun, and the further away a planet from the Sun is, the less of a pull it feels. If its true then you’d predict that planets like Mercury are pulled more, and move faster.
This can be tested. We do have ways to measure gravitational pull, distance from the Sun, and speed. Since it makes testable predictions, it is a good hypothesis.
Distinguishing Fact, Opinion, Belief, and Prejudice
Adapted from: Fowler, H. Ramsey. The Little, Brown Handbook. Boston: Little, Brown, 1986
Neil Degrasse Tyson
Facts
are verifiable things that really occurred, or are actually true.
We can determine whether it is true by researching, by examining evidence. This may involve numbers, dates, testimony, etc. (Ex.: “World War II ended in 1945.”) The truth of the fact is beyond argument if the measuring devices, or records, or memories, are correct. Facts provide crucial support for the assertion of an argument.
In science, a fact is a repeatable careful measurement (by experimentation or other means), also called empirical evidence.
In history, a historical fact is a fact about the past. It answers the very basic question, “What happened?” Yet beyond merely listing the events in chronological order, historians try to discover why events happened, what circumstances contributed to their cause, what subsequent effects they had. – Norman Schulz
Facts by themselves are often meaningless until we put them in context, draw conclusions, and, thus give them meaning.
Opinions
are judgments based on facts. Opinions should be an honest attempt to draw a reasonable conclusion from factual evidence.
For example, we know that millions of people go without proper medical care, and so one could form the opinion that the country should institute national health insurance, even though it would cost billions of dollars.
An opinion should be changeable: in science we are actually supposed to change our views if we have new evidence
By themselves, opinions have little power to convince. You must let your reader know what your evidence is, and how it led you to arrive at your opinion.
Beliefs
are convictions based on cultural or personal faith, morality, or values. Statements such as “Capital punishment is legalized murder” express viewpoints, but are not based on facts or evidence. Beliefs cannot be disproved. Since beliefs are inarguable, they cannot serve as the thesis of a formal argument.
There is nothing wrong with having beliefs – we all have them. But we should be careful to distinguish between opinions and beliefs – or clearly explain to the reader what our view is, and what is based on. – RK
Prejudices
are opinions based on insufficient or unexamined evidence. Example “Most women are bad drivers.”
Unlike a belief, a prejudice is testable: it can be analyzed on the basis of facts.
To some extent, all people form some prejudices, or accept them from others – family, friends, the media, etc. – without testing their truth.
At best, prejudices are oversimplifications. At worst, they reflect a narrow-minded view of the world. They are not likely to win the confidence or agreement of your readers.
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Here are the classic Greek philosophers, who developed rationalist philosophy: a critical, systematic system – reasoned argument – to distinguish between facts, beliefs and opinions.
Is evolution a theory or a fact
Is evolution a theory or a fact?
“evolution” has 2 different uses:
‘facts’ of evolution, and the ‘theory’ of evolution.
Here are observable facts
* Many forms of life that used to exist, no longer exist today.
(We’ve found many fossils; more are discovered every day)
* Many forms of life exist now, that did not exist in the past.
(Many modern animals and plants are obviously different from fossils)
* DNA exists.
* Every time an organism reproduces, random changes (mutations) in DNA happen. (We actually explicitly see these with gene-sequencing)
* Some mutations help an organism survive – those genes pass on to the next generation.
(We actually see organisms survive and reproduce. We can sequence the DNA of the parent and of the offspring. We literally see the genes.)
* Some mutations don’t help an organism survive; those genes die out.
(We actually see that some organisms die before they reproduce. Their genes literally die with them.)
* Millions of different DNA samples show a relationship between all forms of life.
* As time goes by, some genes become more common, some become less common. (This has been directly observed in bacteria, some plants and some animals)
Here is the theory that connect such facts
1. Organisms produce more offspring than can survive to adulthood and reproduce.
2. All organisms have random mutations.
3a. Mutations that allow an organism to survive are passed on to their offspring.
3b. Mutations that don’t allow an organism to survive die off.
4. So over time, some mutations become more common.
The “theory” of evolution is the relationship between observations (“facts.”)
In this sense, the theory is just as true as the theory of gravity, or the theory of electricity.
Resources
Evolution 101. Univ of California Museum of Paleontology
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/labs/lab/evolution/
https://lifeonearth.seas.harvard.edu/learning-activities/
How do we know what DNA looks like
Question: How do we know what DNA and genes really look like?
We see images in books that look like this, but each individual atom is only a nanometer (1 x 10 -10 m) wide.
No visible light microscope can view objects made with such small pieces.
So the real way that we figured out the atom-by-atom structure of DNA is through a technique called X-ray crystallography.
Our molecule of interest – in this case, DNA – is concentrated and crystallized.
It is placed in front of an X-ray source.
The X-rays scatter off the DNA’s atoms. We capture this diffraction pattern on film (or on a digital X-ray detector.)
X-ray diffraction image of the double helix structure of the DNA molecule, taken 1952 by Raymond Gosling, commonly referred to as “Photo 51”, during work by Rosalind Franklin on the structure of DNA (text Wikipedia)
This diffraction pattern is beautiful but doesn’t directly look like the original molecule.
There is a mathematical relationship between the placement of the atoms, and where the atoms deflect – just like there is a relationship between hitting pool balls and how they deflect:
When you know how a pool table is set up, what balls are made of, and see how the balls move after being it, you could use math to work backwards to figure out where the balls originally where.
from Banks and Kicks in Pool and Billiards, Dr. Dave Alciatore, Billiards and Pool Principles, Techniques, Resources
The same is true here: We can use math to figure out where each individual atom in the DNA is! Let’s follow the steps below:
On the left, we see X-rays leave a source. Some of these x-rays pass through a lead screen.
The X-rays hit a crystallized DNA sample.
The X-rays bounce off of the molecules, like how pool balls bounce off of each other.
Some of the x-rays bounce onto a film plate. This makes an image.
We end up with a diffraction pattern on film.
How does one physically interpret diffraction patterns in DNA?
Figure 11.4, Purves’s Life: The Science of Biology, 7th Edition
Once we have a diffraction pattern, we then use math to work backwards, and figure out where the atoms must have been.
The result is an electron density map which almost exactly traces out the shape of the molecule.
Left image: X-ray diffraction pattern, Wikimedia. Right upper image: electron density map. Right lower image: model fitting atoms to the density map.
Can we image DNA more directly?
Yes. One can use a scanning tunneling microscope (STM).) It shows detail at the the atomic level. Along with the following image please read Livescience: DNA directly-photographed-for-first-time.html
DNA’s double-helix seen in electron microscope photograph. By Enzo Di Fabrizio, Magna Graecia University in Catanzaro, Italy.
Here is another STM image of DNA. You can see how closely it matches the model from X-ray crystallography.
External resources
Are there true pictures of the DNA molecule (not synthetic images), showing the double helix?
On DNA’s Anniversary: How Rosalind Franklin Missed the Helix
Sexism in science: did Watson and Crick really steal Rosalind Franklin’s data?.
The Big Dig
What are we learning?
We’re studying the engineering – applied physics – used in Boston’s Big Dig. We’ll study the effect of changing forces, loads, materials and shapes, on a structure.
Why are we learning this?
To learn how to break a complex real-world problem – building safe tunnels and related structures – into smaller parts that can be solved using scientific/engineering principles.
To learn how to use a simple computer simulation to model such systems.
Vocabulary goals
compression, tension, bending, shear, torsion, loads, dead load, live load, settlement load, thermal load, wind load, earthquake load, dynamic load, arch, brace, buttress
Historical background
The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T) – the Big Dig – was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery of Interstate 93, the chief highway through the heart of the city, into the 3.5-mile (5.6 km) Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Tunnel. It also included the construction of the Ted Williams Tunnel (extending Interstate 90 to Logan International Airport), the Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge over the Charles River, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway in the space vacated by the previous I-93 elevated roadway. Planning began in 1982; construction work was carried out between 1991 and 2006.
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Intro adapted from Wikipedia, The Big Dig, 1/18
Photo gallery
Here are before-and-after photos of downtown Boston, showing the removal of the Central Artery and it’s replacement with the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
Left-click on it to open in a new window, at higher-resolution.
Our app Building Big: Forces & Engineering app (from PBS)
Use the worksheet assigned by the teacher.
Building the tunnel under Forth Point Channel
William Harris, in “How Tunnels Work: The Big Dig” (How Stuff Works) writes:
A few miles west, Interstate 90 enters another tunnel that carries the highway below South Boston. Just before the I-90/I-93 interchange, the tunnel encounters the Fort Point Channel, a 400-foot-wide body of water that provided some of the biggest challenges of the Big Dig.
Engineers couldn’t use the same steel-tube approach they employed on the Ted Williams Tunnel because there wasn’t enough room to float the long steel sections under bridges… Eventually, they decided to abandon the steel-tube concept altogether and go with concrete tunnel sections, the first use of this technique in the United States.
…workers first built an enormous dry dock on the South Boston side of the channel. Known as the casting basin, the dry dock measured 1,000 feet long, 300 feet wide and 60 feet deep — big enough to construct the six concrete sections that would make up the tunnel…
The completed sections were sealed watertight at either end. Then workers flooded the basin so they could float out the sections and position them over a trench dredged on the bottom of the channel.
[They couldn’t] simply lower concrete sections into the trench [because] of the MBTA’s Red Line subway tunnel, which runs just under the trench. The weight of the massive concrete sections would damage the older subway tunnel if nothing were done to protect it. So engineers decided to prop up the tunnel sections using 110 columns sunk into the bedrock. The columns distribute the weight of the tunnel and protect the Red Line subway, which continues to carry 1,000 passengers a day.
Apps
Slider photo: Boston before- and after- Big Dig (10 years later, did the Big Dig deliver?, Boston Globe)
Documentaries
Extreme Engineering: Boston’s Big Dig (2003)
https://vimeo.com/30626123
Tour of the Big Dig in Boston, Bob Vila
National Geographic MegaStructures Boston Big Dig Documentary 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2HHmWxGRMQ
Big Dig The Construction Story of Boston Big Dig
Underground Utility Protection
In “The Big Dig: Learning from a Mega Project”, Virginia Greiman writes
To protect against losses caused by the disruption and failure of underground utilities, a Big Dig utility program relocated 29 miles of gas, electric, telephone, sewer, water, and other utility lines maintained by thirty-one separate companies in 1996.
Some of this infrastructure was more than 150 years old; a complete lack of knowledge on the age, condition, and location of most of the utilities required submission of “as-built” drawings by all project contractors—drawings of existing conditions rather than planned or proposed construction.
The project had to deal with utilities that were shown on as-built drawings but never installed, and damage and flooding caused by underground sewer pipes not identified on the drawings.
Resources
Wikipedia.org: Big Dig
PBS: Great Projects – The Building of America
Archaeology of the Central Artery Project: Highway to the Past. Website + 58 page PDF book.
Big Dig: Massachusetts Historical Commission, Archaeological Exhibits Online
Learning Standards
2016 Massachusetts Curriculum Framework High School Technology/Engineering
HS-ETS1-1. Analyze a major global challenge to specify a design problem that can be improved. Determine necessary qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions, including any requirements set by society.
HS-ETS1-2. Break a complex real-world problem into smaller, more manageable problems that each can be solved using scientific and engineering principles.
HS-ETS1-3. Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, aesthetics, and maintenance, as well as social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
HS-ETS1-4. Use a computer simulation to model the impact of a proposed solution to a complex real-world problem that has numerous criteria and constraints on the interactions within and between systems relevant to the problem.
HS-ETS1-5(MA). Plan a prototype or design solution using orthographic projections and isometric drawings, using proper scales and proportions.
HS-ETS1-6(MA). Document and present solutions that include specifications, performance results, successes and remaining issues, and limitations.
Chromosomes in cells
What do we need to know about chromosomes? Look inside any form of life – plants, animals, even fungi.
We see individual cells.
Looking more closely, cells have a nucleus.
Zoom in on the nucleus and break it open:
Here the nucleus has been punctured, objects are spilling out.
These objects are called chromosomes.
Let’s look at them even more closely: They are made of a really thin thread, wrapped up again and again to make a shape.
Zoom in even more – this thread has the shape of a helix (spiral shape.)
Wait – not just one helix, but two – wrapped around each other.
This shape is called a double helix.
This beautiful molecule here is DNA.
Those letters – T, C, A, and G – are just abbreviations for molecules (“DNA bases.)
A more realistic drawing would show the shape of these DNA bases (see top part of this next diagram, but that’s a lot to draw.)
To make it easier to draw we usually just write the letters (see bottom part of this diagram.)
So now we have discovered the relationship between DNA and chromosomes.
DNA is a very thin, long chemical, made of many little DNA bases.
These units are wound up into two helixes, and then wound up into larger objects, chromosomes.
It’s like how a skein of yarn is made of yarn thread, wound, and wound up again, into a complex and large shape.
Threads of DNA are wound up into a chromosome:
How many chromosomes in each cell?
That depends on the organism:
Image from What’s a Genome, courtesy of http://www.GenomeNews Network.org/J. Craig Venter Institute.
http://www.expeditions.udel.edu/extreme08/genomics/
We see here that humans have 46 chromosomes in almost every cell in our body.
Each chromosome contains many genes, so the total number of genes is huge.
Image from What’s a Genome, courtesy of http://www.GenomeNews Network.org/J. Craig Venter Institute.
http://www.expeditions.udel.edu/extreme08/genomics/
The photograph below is a karyotype: we cut open a cell nucleus, let the chromosomes tumble out, and photograph it.
Then we can cut out each of the chromosome images. Next we line them up, in pairs.
Why pairs? We have two of every chromosome – Half are from one’s mother, and half from one’s father.
And remember that each chromosome has many genes.
So you have 2 copies of every gene (one from each parent)
A pair of matched chromosomes are called “homologous chromosomes.”
Homologous is Greek for “same word,”
…
Howard Gardner and the theory of multiple intelligences
Reframing the Mind. Howard Gardner and the theory of multiple intelligences
By Daniel T. Willingham, from EducationNext, SUMMER 2004 / VOL. 4, NO. 3
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Basic Books, 1983)
Multiple Intelligences: The Theory into Practice (Basic Books, 1993)
Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (Basic Books, 1999)
By Howard Gardner
Checked by Daniel T. Willingham
What would you think if your child came home from school and reported that the language-arts lesson of the day included using twigs and leaves to spell words? The typical parent might react with curiosity tinged with suspicion: Is working with twigs and leaves supposed to help my child learn to spell? Yes, according to Thomas Armstrong, author of Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, especially if your child is high in “naturalist” intelligence–one of eight distinct intelligences that Harvard University scholar Howard Gardner claims to have identified. However, if your child possesses a high degree of what Gardner terms “bodily-kinesthetic” intelligence, Armstrong suggests associating movement with spelling. For example, a teacher might try to connect sitting with consonants and standing with vowels.
Armstrong is far from alone in placing faith in Gardner’s theory of “multiple intelligences.” Gardner’s ideas have been a significant force in education for the past 20 years–significant enough that they bear close study. How does the scientific community regard the theory of multiple intelligences, and what impact should the theory have on education?
Central Claims
Gardner first proposed his theory in 1983. Since then, it has undergone incremental but not fundamental change, including the addition of one intelligence (bringing the total to eight), the rejection of others, and consideration of the theory’s applications. The theory rests on three core claims:
• Gardner says that most psychometricians, those who devise and interpret tests as a way of probing the nature of intelligence, conceive of intelligence as unitary. In Intelligence Reframed, Gardner’s most recent restatement of his general theory, he writes, “In the ongoing debate among psychologists about this issue, the psychometric majority favors a general intelligence perspective.”
This is not an accurate characterization of the position taken by most psychometricians. As will be shown, the vast majority regard intelligence not as a single unified entity, but as a multifaceted phenomenon with a hierarchical structure.
• There are multiple, independent intelligences. There are three parts to this claim, and it is important to appreciate all three. First, Gardner offers a new definition of intelligence, describing it as “a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture.”
Previous definitions were limited to cognition or thought; one was intelligent to the extent that one could solve problems and adapt effectively to one’s environment using thinking skills. Gardner self-consciously broadens the definition to include effective use of the body and thinking skills relevant to the social world. He also extends the functionality of intelligence to include the crafting of useful products, not just the solving of problems.
Second, Gardner claims to have identified some (but not all) of the several types of intelligence, which I describe below.
Third, he claims that these multiple intelligences operate independently of one another.
• The multiple intelligences theory has applications to education. Gardner has been careful to say that he has proposed a scientific theory that should not be mistaken for a prescription for schooling. He makes clear that the educational implications of children’s possessing multiple intelligences can and should be drawn, but he believes that many possible curricula and methods could be consistent with the theory. The sole general implication he supports is that children’s minds are different, and an education system should take account of those differences, a point developed in diverse ways by his many followers.
One Intelligence or Many?
Let’s evaluate each of Gardner’s claims in turn, beginning with how psychometricians view intelligence. In the early 20th century, many psychometricians did in fact think of intelligence as a unitary trait, just as Gardner now claims. The thinking at that time was articulated by Charles Spearman, who suggested that a single factor (he called it g, for general) underlay all intelligent behavior. If you had a lot of g, you were smart; if you didn’t, you weren’t.
However, by the 1930s some researchers (notably Louis L. Thurstone) were already arguing for a multifaceted view of intelligence. One might be intelligent in the use of words, for example, but unintelligent mathematically. From the 1950s on, many psychometricians proposed hierarchical models, which may be thought of as a mixture of the single-factor and multiple-factor models. Except for a few holdouts, most psychologists now favor the hierarchical model.
How can one use data from tests of cognitive ability to evaluate the number of intelligences? A straightforward approach entails administering a number of separate tests thought to rely on different hypothesized intelligences. Suppose tests 1 and 2 are different tests of verbal ability (for example, vocabulary and spelling), and tests 3 and 4 are different tests of mathematical ability. If there is one intelligence, g, then g should support performance on all four tests, as shown in diagram A of Figure 1 (this page). A high score on test 1 would indicate that the test-taker is high in g, and he or she should perform well on all of the other tests.
Suppose, however, that there are two intelligences–one verbal and one mathematical, as shown in diagram B of Figure 1. In that case, a high score on test 1 would predict a high score on test 2, but would tell us nothing about the individual’s performance on the math tests, 3 and 4. Performance on those tests would depend on mathematical intelligence, which is separate and independent of verbal intelligence.
The data support neither of these views. To continue with our hypothetical example, the data show that all of the test scores, 1 through 4, are somewhat related to one another, which is consistent with the existence of g.
But scores from tests of math ability are more related to one another than they are to verbal scores; the same goes for verbal scores. A hierarchical model, shown in diagram C of Figure 1, fits this pattern. In this model, g influences both mathematical and verbal cognitive processes, so performance on math and verbal tests will be somewhat related.
But mathematical competence is supported not just by g, but by the efficacy of a mathematical intelligence that is separate and independent of a verbal intelligence. That’s why math scores are more related to each other than they are to verbal scores. It also explains how it is possible for someone to be quite good in math, but just mediocre verbally. This logic applies not only to the restricted example used here (math and verbal) but also to a broad spectrum of tests of intellectual ability.
The hierarchical view of intelligence received a strong boost from a landmark review of the published data collected over the course of 60 years from some 130,000 people around the world. That massive review, performed by the late University of North Carolina scholar John Carroll, concluded that the hierarchical view best fits the data. Researchers still debate the exact organization of the hierarchy, but there is a general consensus around the hierarchical view of intelligence. Thus Gardner’s first claim–that most psychometricians believe that intelligence is unitary–is inaccurate.
What Are the Intelligences?
Gardner’s second claim is that individuals possess at least eight independent types of intelligence. The following list includes a definition of each along with examples Gardner has provided of professions that draw heavily on that particular intelligence.
• Linguistic: facility with verbal materials (writer, attorney).
• Logico-mathematical: the ability to use logical methods and to solve mathematical problems (mathematician, scientist).
• Spatial: the ability to use and manipulate space (sculptor,
architect).
• Musical: the ability to create, perform, and appreciate music (performer, composer).
• Bodily-kinesthetic: the ability to use one’s body (athlete, dancer).
• Interpersonal: the ability to understand others’ needs, intentions, and motivations (salesperson, politician).
• Intrapersonal: the ability to understand one’s own motivations and emotions (novelist, therapist with self-insight).
• Naturalist: the ability to recognize, identify, and classify flora and fauna or other classes of objects (naturalist, cook).
Gardner claims that everyone has all eight intelligences to some degree, but each individual has his or her own pattern of stronger and weaker intelligences. Gardner also argues that most tasks require more than one intelligence working together. For example, the conductor of a symphony obviously uses musical intelligence, but also must use interpersonal intelligence as a group leader and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence to move in a way that is informative to the orchestra. The claim of separate and independent intelligences is, of course, central to Gardner’s theory. How do we know that these intelligences are independent?
It is important to bear in mind that the hierarchical model described in the previous section is not a theory, but a pattern of data. It is a description of how test scores are correlated. A theory of intelligence must be consistent with these data; the pattern of data is not itself a theory. For example, the data do not tell us what g is or how it works. The data tell us only that there is some factor that contributes to many intellectual tasks, and if your theory does not include such a factor, it is inconsistent with existing data. Gardner’s theory has that problem.
Setting g aside, the claim of independence among the eight intelligences is also a problem. Data collected over the past 100 years consistently show that performances on intellectual tasks are correlated. Even if Gardner’s theory did not include some general factor, it should at least provide a way to account for this correlation. The theory did not, and it was widely criticized for this failure. In some later writings, Gardner has said that he questions the explanatory power of g, not whether it exists–in other words, he doubts whether g makes much of a contribution to abilities Gardner deems important. He has also deemphasized the importance in his theory of whether the intelligences are truly independent.
Let’s allow, then, that the intelligences Gardner has identified are not independent, but that there are a number of distinguishable (but correlated) intellectual capabilities in addition to g. Has Gardner done a good job of cataloguing them? It is instructive to examine the criteria by which Gardner determines whether an ability is an intelligence. The criteria are shown in the table on page 22.
Gardner’s eight criteria appear to be quite rigorous: the psychometric criterion described in the previous section and seven others that span different domains of investigation. But Gardner weakens them by demanding that only a majority be satisfied, and some are rather easy to satisfy. The psychometric criterion is the most rigorous of the eight, but Gardner has largely ignored it. The remaining criteria are so weak that they cannot restrain a researcher with a zest for discovering new intelligences.
For instance, a humor intelligence and a memory intelligence certainly meet a majority of the criteria. Humor and memory can be used to solve problems and create valued products in many cultures and so meet Gardner’s definition of intelligence. Both can be isolated by brain damage, each has a distinct developmental history, and there is evidence for the psychological separability of each. Some individuals show exceptional memory or sense of humor but no other remarkable mental abilities. The evolutionary plausibility of each intelligence is easy to defend as well. Humor would certainly be adaptive in a social species such as ours, and the adaptive nature of memory should be self-evident.
By these criteria I am also prepared to defend an olfactory intelligence and a spelling intelligence and to subdivide Gardner’s spatial intelligence into near-space intelligence and far-space intelligence, thus bringing the total number of intelligences to 13. (Gardner, for reasons that are not clear to me, excludes sensory systems as potential intelligences, but not action systems such as bodily-kinesthetic.)
The issue of criteria by which new intelligences are posited is crucial, and it is in the selection of criteria that Gardner has made a fundamental mistake. Gardner’s criteria make sense if one assumes extreme modularity in the mind, meaning that the mind is a confederation of largely independent, self-sufficient processes. Gardner argues that neuroscience bears out this assumption, but that is an oversimplification.
For example, suppose that mathematical and spatial intelligence have the structure depicted in Figure 2, where each letter represents a cognitive process. Mathematical reasoning requires the cognitive processes A through E. Spatial reasoning requires the processes B through F. Are math and spatial reasoning separate?
Most people would agree that they are not identical, but they are largely overlapping and don’t merit being called separate. By Gardner’s criteria, however, they likely would be.
If we assume that each process (A through F) is localized in a different part of the brain, then if the part of the brain supporting process A were damaged, math ability would be compromised, but spatial ability would not, so the brain criterion would be met.
If process A or process F had a different developmental progression than the others, the developmental criterion would be met.
If A and F differ in their need for attentional resources, the experimental psychological criterion would be met.
The criteria that Gardner mentions can be useful, but they do not signal necessarily separate systems. In fact, the one criterion that Gardner has routinely ignored–the psychometric–is the one best suited to the question posed: Are cognitive processes underlying a putative intelligence independent of other cognitive processes?
Gardner’s second claim–that he has described multiple, independent varieties of intelligence–is not true. Intellectual abilities are correlated, not independent. Distinguishable abilities do exist, but Gardner’s description of them is not well supported.
Should Theory Become Practice?
For the educator this debate may be, as Shakespeare wrote, sound and fury, signifying nothing. What matters is whether and how the theory inspires changes in teaching methods or curriculum. The extent to which multiple intelligence ideas are applied is difficult to determine because few hard data exist to describe what teachers actually do in the classroom.
Even statements of schools’ missions are of limited usefulness, although dozens of schools claim to center their curriculum on the theory. An administrator might insert multiple intelligences language in an effort to seem progressive. Or an administrator’s enthusiasm may be sincere, but if the teachers are not supportive, the classroom impact will be minimal.
We are left with indirect measures. Textbooks for teachers in training generally offer extensive coverage of the theory, with little or no criticism. Furthermore, the ready availability of multiple intelligences classroom materials (books, lesson plans, and activities) leaves the impression that there is a market for such materials. The applications they suggest generally fall into two broad categories: curricular expansion and pedagogical stratagem.
Curriculum expansion suggests that schools should appeal to all of the intelligences. Some educators have called for a more inclusive approach that does not glorify any one of the intelligences at the expense of the others. The theory has also been viewed as providing a pedagogical stratagem–namely, to teach content by tapping all of the intelligences. For example, to help students learn punctuation, a teacher might have them form punctuation marks with their bodies (bodily-kinesthetic intelligence), assign an animal sound to each punctuation mark (naturalist intelligence), and sort sentences according to the required punctuation (logical-mathematical intelligence). The motive may be that students will most enjoy or appreciate the material when it is embedded in an intelligence that is their strength. In this sense, intelligences may be translatable. The student who is linguistically weak but musically strong may improve his spelling through a musical presentation.
Gardner has criticized both ideas. Regarding curriculum, Gardner argues that the goals of education should be set independently of the multiple intelligences theory, and the theory should be used to help reach those goals. In other words, he does not believe that status as an “intelligence” necessarily means that that intelligence should be schooled. This objection is doubly true if you doubt that Gardner has categorized the intelligences correctly.
On the subject of pedagogy, Gardner sees no benefit in attempting to teach all subjects using all of the intelligences. He also expresses concern that some educators have a shallow understanding of what it takes to really engage an intelligence. Gardner writes, “It may well be easier to remember a list if one sings it (or dances to it). However, these uses of the ‘materials’ of an intelligence are essentially trivial. What is not trivial is the capacity to think musically.” It is therefore surprising that Gardner wrote the preface for Thomas Armstrong’s book, Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, which includes many such trivial ideas, such as singing spellings and spelling with leaves and twigs, as mentioned earlier. In the preface Gardner says that Armstrong provides “a reliable and readable account of my work.” The inconsistency in Gardner’s views is difficult to understand, but I believe he is right in calling some applications trivial.
Gardner also writes that intelligences are not fungible; the individual low in logico-mathematical intelligence but high in musical intelligence cannot somehow substitute the latter for the former and understand math through music. An alternative presentation may serve as a helpful metaphor, but the musically minded student must eventually use the appropriate representation to understand math. Gardner is on solid ground here. There is no evidence that subject-matter substitution is possible.
Gardner offers his own ideas of how multiple intelligences theory might be applied to education. Teachers should introduce a topic with different entry points, each of which taps primarily one intelligence. For example, the narrational entry point uses a story (and taps linguistic intelligence), whereas the logical entry point encourages the use of deductive logic in first thinking about a topic. Entry points are designed to intrigue the student via a presentation in an intelligence that is a particular strength for him or her. Gardner also believes that a thorough understanding of a topic is achieved only through multiple representations using different intelligences. Hence significant time must be invested to approach a topic from many different perspectives, and topics should be important enough to merit close study.
How effective are Gardner’s suggested applications? Again, hard data are scarce. The most comprehensive study was a three-year examination of 41 schools that claim to use multiple intelligences. It was conducted by Mindy Kornhaber, a long-time Gardner collaborator.
The results, unfortunately, are difficult to interpret. They reported that standardized test scores increased in 78 percent of the schools, but they failed to indicate whether the increase in each school was statistically significant. If not, then we would expect scores to increase in half the schools by chance.
Moreover, there was no control group, and thus no basis for comparison with other schools in their districts. Furthermore, there is no way of knowing to what extent changes in the school are due to the implementation of ideas of multiple intelligences rather than, for example, the energizing thrill of adopting a new schoolwide program, new statewide standards, or some other unknown factor.
What is perhaps most surprising about Gardner’s view of education is that it is not more surprising. Many experienced educators probably suspected that different materials (songs, stories) engage different students and that sustained study using different materials engenders deep knowledge.
Multiple Talents
One may wonder how educators got so confused by Gardner’s theory. Why do they believe that intelligences are interchangeable or that all intelligences should be taught? The answer is traceable to the same thing that made the theory so successful: the naming of various abilities as intelligences.
Why, indeed, are we referring to musical, athletic, and interpersonal skills as intelligences? Gardner was certainly not the first psychologist to point out that humans have these abilities. Great intelligence researchers–Cyril Burt, Raymond Cattell, Louis Thurstone–discussed many human abilities, including aesthetic, athletic, musical, and so on. The difference was that they called them talents or abilities, whereas Gardner has renamed them intelligences. Gardner has pointed out on several occasions that the success of his book turned, in part, on this new label: “I am quite confident that if I had written a book called ‘Seven Talents’ it would not have received the attention that Frames of Mind received.”
Educators who embraced the theory might well have been indifferent to a theory outlining different talents–who didn’t know that some kids are good musicians, some are good athletes, and they may not be the same kids?
Gardner protests that there is no reason to differentiate–he would say aggrandize–linguistic and logico-mathematical intelligences by giving them a different label; either label will do, but they should be the same. He has written, “Call them all ‘talents’ if you wish; or call them all ‘intelligences.’” By this Gardner means that the mind has many processing capabilities, of which those enabling linguistic, logical, and mathematical thought are just three examples. There is no compelling reason to “honor” them with a special name, in his view.
Gardner has ignored, however, the connotation of the term intelligence, which has led to confusion among his readers. The term intelligence has always connoted the kind of thinking skills that make one successful in school, perhaps because the first intelligence test was devised to predict likely success in school; if it was important in school, it was on the intelligence test. Readers made the natural assumption that Gardner’s new intelligences had roughly the same meaning and so drew the conclusion that if humans have a type of intelligence, then schools should teach it.
It is also understandable that readers believed that some of the intelligences must be at least partially interchangeable. No one would think that the musically talented child would necessarily be good at math. But refer to the child as possessing “high musical intelligence,” and it’s a short step to the upbeat idea that the mathematics deficit can be circumvented by the intelligence in another area–after all, both are intelligences.
In the end, Gardner’s theory is simply not all that helpful. For scientists, the theory of the mind is almost certainly incorrect. For educators, the daring applications forwarded by others in Gardner’s name (and of which he apparently disapproves) are unlikely to help students. Gardner’s applications are relatively uncontroversial, although hard data on their effects are lacking. The fact that the theory is an inaccurate description of the mind makes it likely that the more closely an application draws on the theory, the less likely the application is to be effective. All in all, educators would likely do well to turn their time and attention elsewhere.
-Daniel T. Willingham is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia.
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Good writing and avoiding plagiarism
What are the most common types of plagiarism?
From “Avoiding Plagiarism”, Sparta Middle School Media Center, Sparta, NJ
How do you know if you are plagiarizing?
This section is from Avoiding Plagiarism, MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing. Content is free for reuse under a CC Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
Reasons to Avoid Intentional Plagiarism
There are numerous reasons why people plagiarize…But there are better reasons for not plagiarizing.
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If you do have writing problems, identifying them early will give you plenty of opportunity to improve your skills.
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You will engage with the ideas and thus deepen your own critical thinking and writing skills.
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You will add authority to what you write by citing sources.
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You will learn to question all ideas. Simply using the ideas of others prevents us from questioning or judging ideas, and this approach can lead to a willingness to accept ideas without question (a profoundly dangerous thing to do in any profession or society).
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Without struggling to understand, interpret, and argue with ideas, your own ideas never develop fully, and you will tend to see issues superficially.
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You will learn to voice your own ideas.
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You will avoid the penalties of plagiarism if you get caught.
Advantages to Citing Sources
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You allow your readers to locate the sources of your information in case they want to pursue it in their own research. After all, in the academic and professional worlds, your research becomes part of the ongoing intellectual conversation about ideas. We all stand on the shoulders of earlier researchers, and we all hope that others will stand upon our shoulders in the future.
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An obvious illustration of this standing-on-the-shoulders-of-others is found in technical and scientific writing. Procedures and methods sections of technical and scientific articles and laboratory reports provide readers with information sufficient to replicate both the method and data described in the document. That information is provided not only so that our results can be verified but also so that others might refine our methods or build upon them to make even more discoveries.
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For documents in any field, quotations provide evidence for our assertions and ideas for us to argue against. Citations show our willingness to have our interpretations of those other works verified.
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For longer papers in other fields, literature reviews provide the intellectual context for understanding our contribution to that ongoing conversation about ideas.
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Your ethos (your credibility) is profoundly enhanced when you cite your sources. Doing so proves that you are well informed about the topic and that your work can be trusted to be accurate. Doing so also proves that you are honest.
The following section is from What Is Plagiarism, And Why Does It Matter?, by Michelle Waters, on rethinkela.com
Students who commit plagiarism do so for a variety of reasons, which mainly fall into the following categories: Intentional and unintentional.
Intentional Plagiarism
Intentional plagiarizers typically struggled with time management, a lack of academic integrity, or pressure to achieve better scores than normally possible.
Students may also have a blase attitude towards plagiarism, thinking that everyone else does it without being caught and that they should be able to do so, as well. This may be because some teachers do not teach and enforce their school’s plagiarism policy.
The Victim’s Perspective
This may have been the situation when students in a Canadian high school plagiarized my web design work. Before I became a teacher, I founded and managed a web design and hosting company. One of my clients, the owner of a Massachusetts bakery, contacted me one day to report that she found a website using her graphics. Not only did the web designers steal the design that she had purchased from me, they also hotlinked her graphics (which is how she found the plagiarizers).
I researched the site and discovered that it had been built by high school students in Toronto, who wanted to advertise an upcoming bake sale for their business class. Apparently, no one had explained to them that it is a copyright violation to take graphics and text from a website without permission. (Or they just didn’t listen…) I ended up calling the principal and requesting that the site be taken down immediately. It was. End of story.
Similar stories do not end as nicely. Several bloggers recently have been charged thousands of dollars for plagiarizing photographs…. I also found an article by a content marketing agency that was sued for $8,000 for using a copyrighted image, and a copywriting company that ended up paying $4,000 for a photo.
Unintentional Plagiarism
On the other hand, unintentional plagiarizers usually lack an understanding of Internet citations, or do not have a clear grasp on issues of plagiarism. As a teacher, you can clear up any misconceptions these students have ahead of time by teaching them what plagiarism is, showing them examples of student plagiarism, and modeling proper citation.
In both cases, if students do not learn that they must cite their sources, and how to do so, they will set themselves up for disaster at the collegiate and professional levels.
https://sites.google.com/a/sparta.org/sparta-middle-school-mrc/avoiding-plagiarism
http://thevisualcommunicationguy.com/2014/07/14/can-i-use-that-picture/
https://www.plu.edu/writingcenter/avoiding-plagiarism/
http://turnitin.com/assets/en_us/media/plagiarism-spectrum/
https://unicheck.com/blog/the-nine-circles-of-plagiarism-hell-infographic
ELA Common Core Learning Standards
CCRA.W.7 – Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
CCRA.W.8 – Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
CCRA.W.9 – Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Olympics forces: The Physics of Olympic sports
Topic goal: Write a paper on the science of one of the Olympic sports.
ELA goals: Develop your ability to “Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
Physics goals: Given real-world situations, identify the objects involved in the interaction, identify the pattern of motion; and explain & represent the forces with a free-body diagram.
You may choose any Olympic sport. Suggested topics are offered below. Use the following template.
Olympic Forces Essay Template
Here a student created a free-body diagram, showing the forces on people in Karate.
Topics
https://www.olympic.org/sports and Olympic Sports article (Wikipedia)
Swimming
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/olympics-physics-swimming/
Diving and swimming
https://www.wired.com/2012/07/olympics-physics-swimming-starting-blocks/
BMX bicycles
https://www.wired.com/2016/08/high-speed-physics-olympic-bmx/
Can runners benefit from drafting
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/olympics-physics-drafting-1500-meters/
Does the density of air, and altitude affect the ability to do a long jump
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/long-jump-air-density/
Gymnastics and stunts
https://www.wired.com/2016/08/physics-behind-every-olympic-gymnasts-twist/
Water drag and swimming
https://www.wired.com/2016/08/wanna-swim-like-ledecky-take-dive-physics-drag/
Archery
https://www.wired.com/2016/08/physics-archery/
How the hammer throw is like a particle accelerator
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/olympics-physics-hammer-throw/
Why is the iron cross so difficult?
https://www.wired.com/2008/08/the-iron-cross-or-why-is-gymnastics-so-darn-difficult/
PBS: The Olympics Mind and Body
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/lessons-plans/the-olympics-body-and-mind/
Discus
The discus throw is a track and field event in which an athlete throws a heavy frisbee—called a discus—in an attempt to mark a farther distance than their competitors.
Discus throwing is an ancient sport, as demonstrated by the fifth-century-BC Myron statue, Discobolus. Although not part of the modern pentathlon, it was one of the events of the ancient Greek pentathlon, which can be dated back to at least to 708 BC.
There is a great scene of this in the classic film Jason and the Argonauts, 1963, directed by Don Chaffey with animation by Ray Harryhausen. In one scene Greek athletes compete to win spots on the ship Argo. This culminates in a challenge between Hercules (Nigel Green) and Hylas (John Cairney.) We can examine it here: Discus scene: Jason And The Argonauts
The physics of discus
http://plyometrics0.tripod.com/id7.html
Video: Physics behind discus throwing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fvqE-EWNGM
Sports Science discus throw
Infographic: Sports science of discus
Re: what are the physics behind discus throwing?
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1999-06/927732521.Ph.r.html
The Physics behind discus
http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/webproj/211_fall_2014/Sarah_Riopelle/Sarah_Riopelle/PhysicsofDiscus.html
Rotational speed of a discus
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/29285/rotational-speed-of-a-discus
Learning Standards
Massachusetts 2016 Science and Engineering Practices
8. Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information
Compare, integrate, and evaluate sources of information presented in different media or formats, as well as in words in order to address a scientific question or solve a problem.
Communicate scientific and/or technical information or ideas (e.g., about phenomena and/or the process of development and the design and performance of a proposed process or system) in multiple formats.
Next Generation Science Standards: Science and Engineering Practice: “Ask questions that arise from examining models or a theory to clarify relationships.” (HS-LS3-1)
Common Core
CCRA.R.1 – Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCRA.R.9 – Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
CCRA.W.7 – Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
CCRA.W.8 – Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
CCRA.W.9 – Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.6
Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1.D
Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1.E
Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from or supports the argument presented.
KaiserScience 