Free MCAT Test Exam Braindumps (page: 43)

For the last two decades many earth scientists have supported the notion that the Mediterranean was once a huge, dry desert, lying 3,000 meters below sea level. This "death valley" was thought to have existed at the end of Miocene time, about 6 to 5.5 million years ago...
...From a geological point of view, the Mediterranean is a tectonically mobile land-enclosed depression ­ small (about 3,000,000 square kilometers) in comparison to the major world oceans...Immediately obvious on all charts is the highly variable topography and relief of both the seafloor and adjacent borderland. The coastline is highly irregular and continental shelves, though generally narrow, are well developed off the major river deltas (Nile, Rhone, Po, and Ebro). Moreover, the deep-sea basins and trenches have distinctive relief, with basin plains ranging in depth from less than 1,000 meters to more than 4,000...Observation that rocks dredged offshore are similar to those on land raised a fundamental concept ­ the key to understanding Mediterranean history lies in the adjacent emerged land masses, and vice-versa...
...Early paleographic reconstructions showed that the once-open communication with the Atlantic deteriorated during the upper Miocene. Water-mass exchange continued for a while in the Rif Strait, but then ceased completely prior to the beginning of the Pliocene...
...High relief near what is now the Strait of Gibraltar served as a barrier to the exchange of waters with the Atlantic. Exposed to a hot and dry climate, water evaporated and the then-dry basin elicited comparison with a gigantic Death Valley...Microfossil studies suggested that the depth of the Mediterranean basin at these times had been "deep." Estimates suggested a dry seafloor as far as 2,000 meters below ocean level... As a response to suddenly lowered sea level, rivers feeding the Mediterranean and canyons on the now-dry seafloor began a geologically dramatic phase of erosion. Deep, Grand Canyon-like gorges of the Nile and Rhone rivers, presently buried on land, were apparently cut during a great drawdown of water ­ when the Mediterranean floor lay exposed 1,000 meters or more below its present level...The sudden flooding through a gigantic waterfall at Gibraltar drowned the exposed basin floor. These falls would have been 1,000 times bigger than Niagara Falls...This flooding event is recorded by the Miocene Pliocene boundary, a time when open marine faunal assemblages were suddenly reintroduced from the Atlantic...
...Geological theories usually fall at a glacial pace into a sea of controversy, and this one is no exception. Today ­ charging that proof for the theory is lacking ­ many scientists believe that the Med always contained saltwater, with only the depth of the seafloor and the water being in question... Some of the tenets on which the theory was formulated are, if not defective, very seriously in question. To interpret their findings, a respectable number of geologists studying the surrounding emerged borderland as well as subsea sections indicate that alternative, more comprehensive concepts must be envisioned...
...It is not realistic to envision the Mediterranean seafloor of about 5 million years ago as a desert at 3,000 meters below present ocean level. Several years ago...the Mediterranean [was compared] to a complex picture-puzzle that comprises numerous intricate pieces, many of which are already in place. A general image is emerging, although gaps in some areas of the picture remain fuzzy and indistinct.
All of the following are characteristics of the modern day Mediterranean EXCEPT that it:

For the last two decades many earth scientists have supported the notion that the Mediterranean was once a huge, dry desert, lying 3,000 meters below sea level. This "death valley" was thought to have existed at the end of Miocene time, about 6 to 5.5 million years ago...
...From a geological point of view, the Mediterranean is a tectonically mobile land-enclosed depression ­ small (about 3,000,000 square kilometers) in comparison to the major world oceans...Immediately obvious on all charts is the highly variable topography and relief of both the seafloor and adjacent borderland. The coastline is highly irregular and continental shelves, though generally narrow, are well developed off the major river deltas (Nile, Rhone, Po, and Ebro). Moreover, the deep-sea basins and trenches have distinctive relief, with basin plains ranging in depth from less than 1,000 meters to more than 4,000...Observation that rocks dredged offshore are similar to those on land raised a fundamental concept ­ the key to understanding Mediterranean history lies in the adjacent emerged land masses, and vice-versa...
...Early paleographic reconstructions showed that the once-open communication with the Atlantic deteriorated during the upper Miocene. Water-mass exchange continued for a while in the Rif Strait, but then ceased completely prior to the beginning of the Pliocene...

...High relief near what is now the Strait of Gibraltar served as a barrier to the exchange of waters with the Atlantic. Exposed to a hot and dry climate, water evaporated and the then-dry basin elicited comparison with a gigantic Death Valley...Microfossil studies suggested that the depth of the Mediterranean basin at these times had been "deep." Estimates suggested a dry seafloor as far as 2,000 meters below ocean level... As a response to suddenly lowered sea level, rivers feeding the Mediterranean and canyons on the now-dry seafloor began a geologically dramatic phase of erosion. Deep, Grand Canyon-like gorges of the Nile and Rhone rivers, presently buried on land, were apparently cut during a great drawdown of water ­ when the Mediterranean floor lay exposed 1,000 meters or more below its present level...The sudden flooding through a gigantic waterfall at Gibraltar drowned the exposed basin floor. These falls would have been 1,000 times bigger than Niagara Falls...This flooding event is recorded by the Miocene Pliocene boundary, a time when open marine faunal assemblages were suddenly reintroduced from the Atlantic...
...Geological theories usually fall at a glacial pace into a sea of controversy, and this one is no exception. Today ­ charging that proof for the theory is lacking ­ many scientists believe that the Med always contained saltwater, with only the depth of the seafloor and the water being in question... Some of the tenets on which the theory was formulated are, if not defective, very seriously in question. To interpret their findings, a respectable number of geologists studying the surrounding emerged borderland as well as subsea sections indicate that alternative, more comprehensive concepts must be envisioned...
...It is not realistic to envision the Mediterranean seafloor of about 5 million years ago as a desert at 3,000 meters below present ocean level. Several years ago...the Mediterranean [was compared] to a complex picture-puzzle that comprises numerous intricate pieces, many of which are already in place. A general image is emerging, although gaps in some areas of the picture remain fuzzy and indistinct.
According to the passage, during the Miocene period:

Saul Hoffman's scientific journal paper published in 2015 in Societies explores the relationship between two topics that at the surface are very distant from each other. As he goes on to state, "It is relatively easy, at least for an economist, to see why economists would be attracted to issues like teen pregnancy and teen childbearing, despite their apparent distance from the core topics of economics. First, economics ­ especially microeconomics ­ is fundamentally the study of choices that individuals make, traditionally and most often in formal markets with monetary prices, but now more and more frequently outside that sphere. Viewed from that perspective, choices involving sexual and fertility behavior among teens are an incredibly challenging, but
inviting, target. Is it possible to identify the role of economic incentives, including government policy, on these behaviors? Is it sensible to apply traditional models of rational choice decision-making to teens?
Second, the traditional concern about teen fertility was predicated on the notion that it was an economically catastrophic act. In a famous and oft-quoted 1968 article, Arthur Campbell wrote that 'The girl who has an illegitimate child at the age of 16 suddenly has 90 percent of her life's script written for her,' including reduced opportunities for schooling, the labor market, and marriage. But it doesn't take too much reflection to appreciate that more may be going on in leading to these poor outcomes than just a teen birth. Disentangling the causal effect of teen childbearing on subsequent socio-economic outcomes from its correlational effect is another deliciously inviting and challenging target, this time well-suited for the applied economist or econometrician.
Just to make all this yet more inviting, the two research strands are closely related. Suppose it could be demonstrated that for some teens the socio-economic impact of a teen birth was negligible. For example, maybe future prospects for some teens were equally poor with or without a birth or perhaps government programs provided substantial benefits, so that the net impact on socio-economic well-being was consequently small or even positive. Then, it might well be 'rational' in an economic sense to have a teen birth in the first place, thereby linking the research on the causal impact of a teen birth with the research on the choice determinants of a teen birth. So what came to be known as the teen birth `causes' literature and the teen birth `consequences' literature were clearly interrelated.
And then, to add yet another layer of challenge, the teen fertility rate in the U.S. has fallen at a rate that is totally unprecedented. Teen fertility was once widespread, with most of it occurring within early and sometimes not entirely voluntary marriage. In 1960, the teen fertility rate was approximately 90 births per 1000, which implied that more than 40% of women ever had a teen birth. When I published my first article on teen births 25 years ago, the teen fertility rate was 60 births per 1000, down one-third from 1960, but it had increased six years in a row in what turned out to be a deviation from the downward trend. Since then the rate has declined every single year, except for a short but puzzling uptick between 2005 and 2007. In 2014, the teen fertility rate was 24.2 births per 1000, the lowest teen fertility rate ever recorded in the U.S., though still shockingly high by European standards. Thus, the rate fell by more than 50% during my professional association with the topic and by 70% since 1960. Of course, at the same time teen marital births largely disappeared, falling from 85% of teen births to 12%.
This adds yet another focus for economic research. Why did the rate fall? Did it have anything to do with changes in the costs of teen childbearing or changes in policy? Is it a good thing or not?
In this article I try to make sense out of these various research strands by providing a personal narrative through the economics literature on teen childbearing, with a special emphasis on the three issues discussed above. My goal is to make the literature, including some reasonably technical content, accessible and valuable to a non-economist."
Hoffman, S. (2015). Teen Childbearing and Economics: A Short History of a 25-Year Research Love Affair.
Societies, 5(3), 646-663. doi:10.3390/soc5030646
According to passage information, a scholar interested in microeconomics might study all of the following EXCEPT:

When food is scarce, tool use among non-human primates does not increase. This counterintuitive finding leads researchers to suggest that the driving force behind tool use is ecological opportunity ­ and that the environment shapes development of culture. Whether you're a human being or an orangutan, tools can be a big help in getting what you need to survive. However, a review of current research into the use of tools by non- human primates suggests that ecological opportunity, rather than necessity, is the main driver behind primates such as chimpanzees picking up a stone to crack open nuts.
An opinion piece by Dr Kathelijne Koops of the University of Cambridge and others, published today (12 November 2014) in Biology Letters, challenges the assumption that necessity is the mother of invention. She and her colleagues argue that research into tool use by primates should look at the opportunities for tool use provided by the local environment.
Science Daily and University of Cambridge, Tools and primates: Opportunity, not necessity, is the mother of invention, 2014.
This two-paragraph passage is the introduction to the article cited below the passage. From just this introduction, it can be assumed that the author will most likely use the following technique to support the premise of the article: