In 2016, Gabriela González and team announced that a chirping sound captured by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory antennas was direc...
GMAT Craft and Structure : (Structure) Questions
In 2016, Gabriela González and team announced that a chirping sound captured by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory antennas was direct evidence of gravitational waves, which skeptics had argued would be too faint for detection. Detailed statistical analysis helped preclude claims of the event's ______, confirming the signal at a confidence level of over 99%.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
inconspicuousness
discretion
ambiguity
probability
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Create Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| "In 2016, Gabriela González and team announced that a chirping sound captured by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory antennas was direct evidence of gravitational waves," |
|
| "which skeptics had argued would be too faint for detection." |
|
| "Detailed statistical analysis helped preclude claims of the event's ______," |
|
| "confirming the signal at a confidence level of over 99%." |
|
Provide Passage Architecture & Core Elements
Main Point: Scientists used rigorous statistical analysis to confirm their detection of gravitational waves and rule out any uncertainty about the discovery.
Argument Flow: The passage moves from the announcement of a major discovery to the skepticism that preceded it, then explains how careful analysis addressed those doubts by eliminating claims of uncertainty and achieving very high confidence in the results.
Step 2: Interpret the Question Precisely
This is a fill-in-the-blank question asking us to choose the best logical connector. The answer must create the right relationship between what comes before and after the blank.
Step 3: Prethink the Answer
- The scientists had a discovery that skeptics thought might be too weak to detect reliably
- They used detailed statistical analysis to rule out claims about some negative quality of their discovery, and this gave them 99%+ confidence
- What would scientists want to rule out? They'd want to eliminate any suggestion that their detection was unclear, uncertain, or questionable in some way
- The missing word should describe something that would undermine confidence in the discovery - something that rigorous statistical analysis could definitively rule out
- So the right answer should be a word meaning "uncertainty" or "lack of clarity" - something that statistical analysis at 99% confidence would eliminate
inconspicuousness
inconspicuousness
✗ Incorrect
- This means "being unnoticeable or not prominent"
- Doesn't make sense - they're not trying to rule out claims that the event was hard to notice; they already detected it
- Statistical analysis doesn't address visibility issues
discretion
discretion
✗ Incorrect
- This means "being careful, judicious, or showing good judgment"
- Makes no logical sense - scientists wouldn't use statistical analysis to rule out claims that their event showed good judgment
- Completely unrelated to confidence levels or detection reliability
ambiguity
ambiguity
✓ Correct
- This means "being unclear, uncertain, or open to multiple interpretations"
- Perfect fit - statistical analysis would indeed preclude claims that the detection was ambiguous or uncertain
- Achieving \(99\%+\) confidence directly eliminates ambiguity about whether the signal was real
probability
probability
✗ Incorrect
- This means "likelihood" or "chance of occurring"
- Doesn't work logically - you can't "preclude claims of probability"; probability is a mathematical concept they'd be measuring, not eliminating