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Information and IdeasMediumInference about a tree's rings

Information and Ideas practice question

The oak's rings are wide for its first sixty years and then, for the next forty, so narrow that they can barely be told apart. Since ring width reflects how well a tree grew in a year, a botanist could infer that ____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

  1. A. the tree's growing conditions worsened sharply after its sixtieth year.Correct
  2. B. the tree is exactly sixty years old.
  3. C. the tree grew faster as it aged.
  4. D. the tree was planted in a wet year.

Answer: A. the tree's growing conditions worsened sharply after its sixtieth year.

Wide rings, then narrow: good years, then poor.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. the tree is exactly sixty years old.
It has a hundred rings.
C. the tree grew faster as it aged.
The later rings are narrower.
D. the tree was planted in a wet year.
Nothing about the first year in particular.

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