Information and Ideas

Chief Editor

Mar 23, 2024

Take all 3 MCQs in interactive quiz mode with timer and progress tracking

Scent is tightly interwoven with our daily lives, often evoking significant memories and important social events. This connection is of growing interest to archaeologists who hope to use it to better understand ancient rituals, trade, social hierarchies, and medicine. Although the speed at which odor molecules dissipate makes identifying ancient scents challenging, advancements in biomolecular technologies show promise in unlocking ancient aromas from preserved artifacts. Archaeological studies making use of these advancements may provide new insights into past societies. According to the text, what is one reason some archaeologists are interested in recovering scents from ancient artifacts?

Difficulty: Easy

They are investigating whether people's sense of smell has declined in recent centuries.

They believe the scents could illuminate important aspects of ancient life.

They think that ancient scents would be enjoyable to people today.

They hope to develop new medicines using ancient scent molecules.

Scholars have noted that F. Scott Fitzgerald's writings were likely influenced in part by his marriage to Zelda Fitzgerald, but many don't recognize Zelda as a writer in her own right. Indeed, Zelda authored several works herself, such as the novel Save Me the Waltz and numerous short stories. Thus, those who primarily view Zelda as an inspiration for F. Scott's writings _______Which choice most logically completes the text?

Difficulty: Medium

overlook the many other factors that motivated F. Scott to write.

risk misrepresenting the full range of Zelda's contributions to literature.

may draw inaccurate conclusions about how F. Scott and Zelda viewed each other's works.

tend to read the works of F. Scott and Zelda in an overly autobiographical light.

Neural networks are computer models intended to reflect the organization of human brains and are often used in studies of brain function. According to an analysis of 11,000 such networks, Ryan Schaefer and colleagues advise caution when drawing conclusions about brains from observations of neural networks. They found that when attempting to mimic grid cells (brain cells used in navigation), while 90% of the networks could accomplish navigation-related tasks, only about 10% of those exhibited any behaviors similar to those of grid cells. But even this approximation of grid-cell activity has less to do with similarity between the neural networks and biological brains than it does with the rules programmed into the networks. Which finding, if true, would most directly support the claim in the underlined sentence?

Difficulty: Hard

The rules that allow for networks to exhibit behaviors like those of grid cells have no equivalent in the function of biological brains.

The networks that do not exhibit behaviors like those of grid cells were nonetheless programmed with rules that had proven useful in earlier neural-network studies.

Neural networks can often accomplish tasks that biological brains do, but they are typically programmed with rules to model multiple types of brain cells simultaneously.

Once a neural network is programmed, it is trained on certain tasks to see if it can independently arrive at processes that are similar to those performed by biological brains.