Comprehension: Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.…
2025
Comprehension:
Read the given passage and answer the questions that follow.
One potential cause of human extinction is global warming, but even without human-induced climate change, the sun's increasing radiation will eventually bring about our demise. A 2014 article in Science presents two models for this countdown, one more pessimistic than the other. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University, led by Ravi Kopparapu, predicted that with a 6% increase in solar radiation, in 150 million years, only underwater life and some resilient microbes will remain. According to this model, our species could be extinct within this timeframe.
Alternatively, if Earth's temperatures rise more gradually, we might have 600 to 700 million years left, based on the "Kopparapu model."
Wolf and Toon argue that we have 1.5 billion years left. Eventually, habitable territory would shrink to a strip around the poles. The ultimate end will come much later, in about four billion years, when the sun goes out. As the sun becomes a "red giant," it could strip away Earth's atmosphere, leaving a magma-covered surface with metal oxide icebergs floating on it.
These projections underscore the finite nature of our existence on this planet, emphasizing the importance of understanding and preparing for these eventualities.
Which of the following predictions is NOT made in the passage?
- A.
Survival of underwater life
- B.
Discovery of new life forms
- C.
Earth's atmosphere being stripped away
- D.
Human extinction within 150 million years
Attempted by 1 students.
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Correct answer: B
In a "which prediction is NOT made" question on a passage, treat every option as a claim and test it against the passage's explicit sentences: an option that restates something the passage actually asserts is a prediction the passage makes, while an option describing an idea the passage never raises is the one that is NOT made, regardless of how plausible it sounds on its own.
"Survival of underwater life" — the passage states that after a 6% rise in solar radiation, in 150 million years, "only underwater life and some resilient microbes will remain," a direct textual claim about aquatic survival.
"Earth's atmosphere being stripped away" — the passage states that as the sun becomes a "red giant," it "could strip away Earth's atmosphere," leaving a magma-covered surface, a direct textual claim about atmospheric loss.
"Human extinction within 150 million years" — the same passage states that "our species could be extinct within this timeframe" of 150 million years, a direct textual claim about a human extinction timeline.
"Discovery of new life forms" — no sentence anywhere in the passage discusses finding, discovering, or identifying any new or previously unknown organism; the passage discusses only the survival, decline, or extinction of life that already exists.
Re-reading the passage's four main claims — solar-radiation-driven extinction, the Kopparapu timeframe, the longer Wolf-and-Toon estimate, and the red-giant atmosphere-stripping endgame — confirms that none of them mentions discovering new species, independently ruling out the other three options and isolating the one with no textual anchor.
"Discovery of new life forms" is the prediction that is NOT made in the passage.