Title: MCAT Original Practice-2 - 80 MCQ Cards / Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills
Tags: critical mcat practice2
On every note of this deck, unless a note says otherwise:
Correct: A

Question: Passage: A novelist claims that maps are persuasive because they hide the decisions that made them. A border drawn as a line can make a contested region appear settled.
The author's main point is that representations can appear objective while carrying assumptions.
Explanation: Correct: A. The passage highlights how a visual convention can make a judgment look natural.
Difficulty: Easy
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: Maps can disguise interpretation as fact
Political borders are never useful
Novels are more accurate than maps
Disputed regions cannot be studied

Question: Passage: A researcher studying old cookbooks argues that recipes preserve social history not only through ingredients, but through what they assume the reader already knows.
Which evidence would best support the claim?
Explanation: Correct: A. Omitted instructions reveal background knowledge shared by a community.
Difficulty: Medium
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: Many recipes omit basic steps familiar to cooks of the period
Most recipes list precise oven temperatures
Cookbooks are printed on durable paper
Several recipes use imported spices

Question: Passage: An architect says a public bench is successful when it is used in ways the designer did not predict: as a lunch table, a stage, or a place to repair a bicycle.
The architect values design that is:
Explanation: Correct: A. Unpredicted uses are presented as signs of success.
Difficulty: Hard
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: adaptable to users' purposes
protected from public use
visually hidden
limited to one official function

Question: Passage: A critic argues that calling a poem 'timeless' can be a way of avoiding the historical conflicts that made the poem urgent to its first readers.
The critic is warning against:
Explanation: Correct: A. The concern is that timelessness may flatten historical specificity.
Difficulty: Easy
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: removing art from its original context
reading poems more than once
studying difficult language
comparing multiple poems

Question: Passage: A scientist writes that a model is like a lantern, not a mirror: it does not reproduce the whole world, but it can illuminate a path through it.
The analogy suggests models are useful because they:
Explanation: Correct: A. A lantern illuminates selectively; it helps without being a full copy.
Difficulty: Medium
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: selectively clarify aspects of reality
copy reality without distortion
replace observation entirely
are valuable only when complete

Question: Passage: A columnist notes that nostalgia often praises the simplicity of earlier technology while forgetting the labor that made that simplicity possible for users.
Which assumption underlies this argument?
Explanation: Correct: A. The passage contrasts visible simplicity with invisible labor.
Difficulty: Hard
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: Convenience for one group can depend on hidden work by another
Older technologies were always more efficient
Nostalgia is caused by poor memory alone
New technologies eliminate labor

Question: Passage: An anthropologist says rituals matter because they make commitments visible before they make them rationally defensible.
The anthropologist implies that rituals primarily:
Explanation: Correct: A. The key is visibility and social commitment rather than proof.
Difficulty: Easy
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: give social form to shared obligations
prove beliefs scientifically
prevent communities from changing
remove emotion from public life

Question: Passage: A composer rejects the idea that repetition in music is mere redundancy, arguing that each return of a phrase is heard through memory of what came before.
The composer views repetition as:
Explanation: Correct: A. The repeated phrase is transformed by the listener's accumulated memory.
Difficulty: Medium
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: changed by context and expectation
a failure of invention
identical each time it occurs
valuable only in simple songs

Question: Passage: A policy analyst argues that measuring park quality only by acreage ignores whether residents can safely reach and comfortably use the space.
Which metric would best address the analyst's concern?
Explanation: Correct: A. Access and usability are the key omitted dimensions.
Difficulty: Hard
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: Average walking time on safe routes to usable park entrances
Total city park acreage
Number of trees in the largest park
Annual landscaping budget

Question: Passage: A memoirist says family stories are less like archives than like campfires: they gather people, cast light unevenly, and leave some things beyond the glow.
The metaphor emphasizes that family stories:
Explanation: Correct: A. Campfire light is communal but limited and uneven.
Difficulty: Easy
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: create connection while remaining partial
record events with perfect accuracy
are designed for legal proof
eliminate disagreement

Question: Passage: A philosopher argues that patience is not passive waiting but disciplined attention to processes that cannot be forced.
Which example best fits this definition?
Explanation: Correct: A. The gardener shows active attention to timing and conditions.
Difficulty: Medium
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: A gardener observing soil and season before planting
A shopper standing in the fastest line
A driver honking at traffic
A student ignoring feedback until grades arrive

Question: Passage: A technology critic says that a platform's default settings are 'silent policies' because they guide behavior without announcing themselves as rules.
The critic means defaults:
Explanation: Correct: A. Defaults structure action even when users do not experience them as explicit rules.
Difficulty: Hard
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: shape choices while appearing neutral
are impossible to change
are chosen randomly
have no ethical significance

Question: Passage: A historian of medicine says older case notes reveal not only diseases but also what physicians of the time considered worth noticing.
The historian is most interested in:
Explanation: Correct: A. What gets recorded reveals the observer's framework.
Difficulty: Easy
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: the categories that guided observation
the handwriting style of doctors
the exact cost of treatment
the number of pages in each file

Question: Passage: An artist says constraints are not cages but instruments: a sonnet's limits can generate discoveries unavailable in total freedom.
The artist would likely agree that constraints can:
Explanation: Correct: A. The passage frames limits as productive conditions.
Difficulty: Medium
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: enable creativity by focusing choices
guarantee artistic quality
eliminate the need for revision
make all works identical

Question: Passage: A sociologist argues that a neighborhood's reputation may arrive before its residents do, shaping how outsiders interpret ordinary behavior.
Which finding would most support this claim?
Explanation: Correct: A. The finding shows prior reputation influencing interpretation.
Difficulty: Hard
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: The same behavior is judged more negatively when attributed to a stigmatized neighborhood
Residents of all neighborhoods have equal incomes
Street names are difficult to pronounce
Most outsiders never visit any neighborhood

Question: Passage: A literary critic writes that irony depends on trust: the reader must believe there is a stable meaning behind the apparent contradiction.
The critic implies irony fails when:
Explanation: Correct: A. Irony requires recognizing a gap between apparent and intended meaning.
Difficulty: Easy
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: readers cannot infer the intended contrast
sentences are short
authors use first-person narration
the topic is historical

Question: Passage: An economist cautions that calling unpaid caregiving 'informal' may make it seem less structured, skilled, or economically important than paid work.
The concern is mainly about:
Explanation: Correct: A. The term may devalue caregiving by framing it as unofficial or less skilled.
Difficulty: Medium
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: how language can affect social valuation
whether caregiving should occur at home
the accuracy of payroll taxes
the decline of household size

Question: Passage: A biographer says letters reveal character best when they show a person trying to manage how they will be seen.
According to the biographer, self-presentation is:
Explanation: Correct: A. Managed presentation can itself reveal priorities and anxieties.
Difficulty: Hard
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: evidence to interpret, not a reason to dismiss the source
proof that letters are useless
absent from private writing
unrelated to character

Question: Passage: A critic of productivity culture argues that rest is often defended only by saying it improves work, which leaves work as the measure of all value.
The critic objects to:
Explanation: Correct: A. The problem is that rest is valued only instrumentally.
Difficulty: Easy
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: justifying nonwork entirely by its usefulness to work
taking breaks during difficult tasks
measuring work output
sleeping before exams

Question: Passage: A linguist says a dictionary is a snapshot, not a fence: it records usage at a moment but cannot permanently contain how speakers will use words.
The linguist's view of language is best described as:
Explanation: Correct: A. A snapshot records a moment; it does not control future development.
Difficulty: Medium
Other fields (not shown on cards):
Choices: dynamic and shaped by use
fixed by experts forever
unrelated to communities
declining whenever words change