Test Prep PSAT

"The Place of Lesion Studies in Neuroscience" by Samantha Winter (2013) It’s easy to forget that the study of neuroscience originated from non-normalized, non-statistically appraised methods like lesion studies. It’s equally easy, with the advent of sophisticated technology, to render such a method obsolete. A small group of neuroscientists today make a case for the reinstitution of lesion studies – the study of abnormal brains with damaged regions in order to better understand the brain – into the twenty-firstcentury cognitive neuroscience realm. Their suggestion is bold, but their argument is justified. Cognitive neuroscientists advocate for the use of convergent methods. Many of them argue that with the limitations of our existing techniques, convergent evidence is imperative for sound research. If this is the case, why ignore a method that has potential for implying causality in a domain dominated by correlational research? Rather than advocating for a single method, neuroscientists should take their own advice and use convergent techniques. Sound research should combine a variety of techniques to examine both causal relationships and overcome the individual shortcomings of each method through the use of many. Lesion studies are also significantly more beneficial now than they were in earlier times. Neuroimaging methods have enhanced our understanding of what contributes to the brain problems most often encountered, and more refined experiments have been developed to confirm the findings from the more unreliable lesion studies. This transformation allows lesion studies to be included alongside the other systems as a mechanism for understanding the human brain. The author would most likely agree with which of the following statements?

The supervisor was absolutely ______ on the issue of wearing a tie and coat in the office; I mean, she was absolutely ______. 

Farmlands, wetlands, forests, and deserts that composed the American landscape in the early twentieth century have frequently been transformed during the past thirty years into mushrooming metropolitan areas as urbanization spreads across the country. Many metropolitan areas in the United States are growing at extraordinary rates. “Urban growth is a vital issue that requires our careful attention from local to global scales,” said Barbara Ryan, USGS Associate Director of Geography. “It is not until we begin to take a broad census of the land itself – tracking landscapes from a spatial perspective in a time scale of decades – that we can grasp the scale of the changes that have already occurred and predict the impact of changes to come.” On average, between 1984 and 2004, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Memphis, Minneapolis- St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham, Reno-Sparks, Sacramento, SeattleTacoma, and Tampa-St. Petersburg averaged 173 square miles of additional urban land over the two decades, with Houston, Orlando, and Atlanta as the top three regions by area. The growth leaders by percentage change were Las Vegas (193 percent), Orlando (157 percent), and Phoenix (103 percent). The tone of this passage is best described as

The senior official __________ at the insinuation that his country’s international trade policies were directly __________ the region’s economic woes.