Free Test Prep MCAT Exam Questions

In the course of gathering data in an experiment, a researcher develops the following correlation matrix:Table 1 Correlation MatrixWhich of the following pairs of variables are most strongly correlated?Section: Psychology and Sociology 

Gauguin's attitude toward art marked a break from the past and a beginning to modern art. Like all PostImpressionist artists, he passed through an Impressionist phase but became quickly dissatisfied with thelimitations of the style, and went on to discover a new style that had the directness and universality of a symboland that concentrated on impressions, ideas and experiences. The beginning of his modern tradition lay in hisrejection of Impressionism. He considered naturalism an error to be avoided. He was preoccupied withsuggestion rather than description, seeking to portray not the exterior, but the essence of things in their purest,simplest, and most primitive form, which could only be achieved through simplification of the form. He firmlybelieved throughout his life that “art is an abstraction” and that “this abstraction [must be derived] from naturewhile dreaming before it.” One must think of the creation that will result rather than the model, and not try torender the model exactly as one sees it. This was the birth of “Synthetism” or rather Synthetist-Symbolic, asGauguin referred to it, using the term “symbolic” to indicate that the forms and patterns in his pictures weremeant to suggest mental images or ideas and not simply to record visual experience.Symbolism flourished around the period of 1885 to 1910 and can be defined as the rejection of direct, literalrepresentation in favor of evocation and suggestion. Painters tried to give a visual expression to emotionalexperiences, and therefore the movement was a reaction against the naturalistic aims of Impressionism.Satisfying the need for a more spiritual or emotional approach in art, Symbolism is characterized by the desireto seek refuge in a dreamworld of beauty and the belief that color and line in themselves could express ideas.Stylistically, the tendency was towards flattened forms and broad areas of color, and features of the movementwere an intense religious feeling and an interest in subjects of death, disease, and sin.Similarly, “Synthetism” involved the simplification of forms into large-scale patterns and the expressivepurification of colors. Form and color had to be simplified for the sake of expression. This style reacted againstthe “formlessness” of Impressionism and favored painting subjectively and expressing one's ideas rather thanrelying on external objects as subject matters. It was characterized by areas of pure colors, very definedcontours, an emphasis on pattern and decorative qualities, and a relative absence of shadows.Gauguin's new art form merged these two movements and succeeded in freeing color, form, and line, bringingit to express the artists' emotions, sensibilities, and personal experiences of the world around them. His stylecreated a break with the old tradition of descriptive naturalism and favored the synthesis of observation andimagination. Gauguin sustained that forms are not discovered in nature but in one's wild imagination, and it wasin himself that he searched rather than in his surroundings. For this reason, he scorned the Impressionists fortheir lack of imagination and their mere scientific reasoning. Furthermore, Gauguin used color unnaturalisticallyfor its decorative or emotional effect and reintroduced emphatic outlines. “Synthetism” signified for him that theforms of his pictures were constructed from symbolic patterns of color and linear rhythms and were not merescientific reproductions of what is seen by the eye.Dempsey, A., & Dempsey, A. (2010). Styles, Schools and Movements: The Essential Encyclopaedic Guide toModern Art. London: Thames & Hudson.According to the passage, Gauguin rejected Impressionism for a number of reasons. Which of the followingreasons CANNOT be inferred to have been a motive of this rejection?Section: Verbal Reasoning 

Band theory explains the conductivity of certain solids by stating that the atomic orbitals of the individual atomsin the solid merge to produce a series of atomic orbitals comprising the entire solid. The closely-spaced energylevels of the orbitals form bands. The band corresponding to the outermost occupied subshell of the originalatoms is called the valence band. If partially full, as in metals, it serves as a conduction band through whichelectrons can move freely. If the valence band is full, then electrons must be raised to a higher band forconduction to occur. The greater the band gap between the separate valence and conduction bands, the poorerthe material’s conductivity. Figure 1 shows the valence and conduction bands of a semiconductor, which isintermediate in conductivity between conductors and insulators.Figure 1When silicon, a semiconductor with tetrahedral covalent bonds, is heated, a few electrons escape into theconduction band. Doping the silicon with a few phosphorus atoms provides unbonded electrons that escapemore easily, increasing conductivity. Doping with boron produces holes in the bonding structure, which may befilled by movement of nearby electrons within the lattice. When a semiconductor in an electric circuit hasexcess electrons on one side and holes on the other, electron flow occurs more easily from the side withexcess electrons to the side with holes than in the reverse direction.Figure 2How does heat increase the conductivity of a semiconductor?I) By reducing collisions between moving electronsII) By breaking covalent bondsIII) By raising electrons to a higher energy levelSection: Physical Sciences 

Although we know more about so-called Neanderthal men than about any other early population, their exactrelation to present-day human beings remains unclear. Long considered sub-human, Neanderthals are nowknown to have been fully human. They walked erect, used fire, and made a variety of tools. They lived partly inthe open and partly in caves. The Neanderthals are even thought to have been the first humans to bury theirdead, a practice which has been interpreted as demonstrating the capacity for religious and abstract thought.The first monograph on Neanderthal anatomy, published by Marcelling Boule in 1913, presented a somewhatmisleading picture. Boule took the Neanderthals’ lowvaulted cranium and prominent brow ridges, their heavymusculature, and the apparent overdevelopment of certain joints as evidence of a prehuman physicalappearance. In postulating for the Neanderthal such “primitive” characteristics as a stooping, bent-kneedposture, a rolling gait, and a forward-hanging head, Boule was a victim of the rudimentary state of anatomicalscience. Modern anthropologists recognize the Neanderthal bone structure as that of a creature whose bodilyorientation and capacities were very similar to those of present-day human beings. The differences in the sizeand shape of the limbs, shoulder blades, and other body parts are simply adaptations which were necessary tohandle the Neanderthal’s far more massive musculature. Current taxonomy considers the Neanderthals to havebeen fully human and thus designates them not as a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis, but as asubspecies of Homo sapiens: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.The rise of the Neanderthals occurred over some 100,000 years – a sufficient period to account for evolution ofthe specifically Neanderthal characteristics through free interbreeding over a broad geographical range. Fossilevidence suggests that the Neanderthals inhabited a vast area from Europe through the Middle East and intoCentral Asia from approximately 100,000 years ago until 35,000 years ago. Then, within a brief period of five toten thousand years, they disappeared. Modern human, not found in Europe prior to about 33,000 years ago,thenceforth became the sole inhabitants of the region. Anthropologists do not believe that the Neanderthalsevolved into modern human beings. Despite the similarities between Neanderthal and modern human anatomy,the differences are great enough that, among a population as broad-ranging as the Neanderthals, such anevolution could not have taken place in a period of only ten thousand years. Furthermore, no fossils of typesintermediate between Neanderthals and moderns have been found.A major alternative hypothesis, advanced by E. Trinkaus and W.W. Howells, is that of localized evolution.Within a geographically concentrated population, free interbreeding could have produced far more pronouncedgenetic effects within a shorter time. Thus modern human could have evolved relatively quickly, either fromNeanderthals or from some other ancestral type, in isolation from the main Neanderthal population. Thesehumans may have migrated throughout the Neanderthal areas, where they displaced or absorbed the originalinhabitants. One hypothesis suggests that these “modern” humans immigrated to Europe from the Middle East.No satisfactory explanation of why modern human beings replaced the Neanderthals has yet been found. Somehave speculated that the modern humans wiped out the Neanderthals in warfare; however, there exists noarcheological evidence of a hostile encounter. It has also been suggested that the Neanderthals failed to adaptto the onset of the last Ice Age; yet their thick bodies should have been heat-conserving and thus well-adaptedto extreme cold. Finally, it is possible that the improved tools and hunting implements of the late Neanderthalperiod made the powerful Neanderthal physique less of an advantage than it had been previously. At the sametime, the Neanderthals’ need for a heavy diet to sustain this physique put them at a disadvantage compared tothe less massive moderns. If this was the case, then it was improvements in human culture – including someintroduced by the Neanderthals themselves – that made the Neanderthal obsolete.All of the following are hypotheses about the disappearance of the Neanderthals EXCEPT:Section: Verbal Reasoning 

When electric current passes through an aqueous solution, which of the following ionic migrations is correct?Section: Physical Sciences