Q22

[jimmy902o]

I am not seeing how B can be correct here... i didnt think that the passage said that the theory was overthrown... rather that the assumptions behind the theory were thrown out, that is why i choose D over B. Can someone help clarify?

[ohthatpatrick]

I see your hesitation, since "overthrowing a theory" is definitely strong language, and we don't have a great textual match for that within the 1st or 2nd paragraph.

But if we consider what the 3rd and 4th paragraphs say, we're better able to support that, ultimately, wave theory was overthrown.

Lines 42-44 discuss how Planck's alternative theory perfectly fit the earlier experimental result while "directly opposing wave theory".

So Planck's ideas definitely count as an alternative to, not just an adaptation of, wave theory.

Finally, the last sentence of the passage provides some more support for the idea that "wave theory was overthrown".

"What was considered a catastrophe [the fact that experimental data did NOT fit wave theory's predictions] generated a new vision [Planck's alternative theory] .. that led to theories still in place today."

I grant you, that language doesn't logically exclude the possibility that some remnants of wave theory might also still be a part of some other theories ... but in the context of this passage, it's fair to say that wave theory lost and Plank's theory won.

There are a couple issues with (D):
1. It's impossible to call the experimental results in the 2nd paragraph "ambiguous" (i.e., confusing, hard to interpret, unclear).

Yes, they caused confusion, since they showed that wave theory was not correct, but there was nothing ambiguous about them.

Lines 26-31 are trying to stress how shocked scientists were to see, by the results of this experiment, that wave theory must simply be wrong.

2. The experiment in paragraph 2 isn't describing how wave theory was "retested" in light of ambiguous results ... it's describing how wave theory was "tested" and found to have incorrect results.

Maybe after the "ultraviolet catastrophe", some scientists decided to "re-test" wave theory to see if they could somehow salvage it. But we don't hear anything about re-testing in the 2nd paragraph.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have lingering qualms.

[jimmy902o]

thanks a lot this clears it up. i didnt make the connection that planck's work was to overthrow the theory, but now it makes sense

[VincentAlessendri]

Why isn't A) a better choice?

Aren't we talking about how Einstein and Plank's theory dismantled the assumption in wave-theory?

[Emmeline Ndongue]

Why isn't A) a better choice?

Aren't we talking about how Einstein and Plank's theory dismantled the assumption in wave-theory?

true. but that obviously is in the 3rd & 4th paragraph not in the 1st & 2nd as mentioned in the question stem.