Although the Hormone Adrenaline is Known to Regulate Memory Storage, It does not Pass from the Blood into Brain Cells.

Reading Passage Question

Although the hormone adrenaline is known to regulate memory storage, it does not pass from the blood into brain cells. We are faced with an apparent paradox: how can a hormone that does not act directly on the brain have such a large effect on brain function?

Recently, we tested the possibility that one of the hormone’s actions outside the brain might be responsible. Since one consequence of adrenaline release in an animal is an increase in blood glucose levels, we examined the effects of glucose on memory in rats. We found that glucose injected immediately after training enhances memory tested the next day. Additional evidence was provided by negative findings: drugs called adrenergic antagonists, which block peripheral adrenaline receptors, disrupted adrenaline’s ability to regulate memory but did not affect memory enhancements produced by glucose that was not stimulated by adrenaline. These results are as they should be if adrenaline affects memory modulation by increasing blood glucose levels.

“Although the hormone adrenaline is known to regulate memory storage, it does not pass from the blood into brain cells.” - this is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 4 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

1. The primary purpose of the passage is to

(A) reconcile two opposing theories
(B) compare two different explanations for a phenomenon
(C) describe experimental research that appears to support an unpopular theory
(D) present evidence that may help to resolve an apparent contradiction
(E) describe a hypothesis that has cause a controversy

2. It can be inferred from the passage that the author would most likely describe the “additional evidence” (Highlighted) provided by experiments with adrenergic antagonists as

(A) revolutionary
(B) disappointing
(C) incomplete
(D) unexpected
(E) corroborative

3. The passage provides information about which of the following topics?

(A) The mechanism by which glucose affects memory storage
(B) The evidence that prompted scientist to test the effects of adrenaline on memory regulation
(C) The reason that the effects of glucose on memory were tested
(D) The ways that memory storage modifies the structure of the brain
(E) The kinds of training used to test memory enhancement in rats

4. The author refers to the results of the experiment using adrenergic antagonists as “negative findings” (line 13) most likely because the adrenergic antagonists

(A) failed to disrupt adrenaline’s effect on memory
(B) did not affect glucose’s ability to enhance memory
(C) did not block adrenaline’s ability to increase blood glucose levels
(D) only partially affected adrenaline’s ability to enhance memory
(E) disrupted both adrenaline and glucose’s effect on memory

Suggested GMAT Reading Comprehension Samples

• The General Density Dependence Model can be Applied to Explain the Founding of Specialist Firms
• Many People Believe that Wages are Lower in Developing Countries than in Developed Countries
• More Selective than Most Chemical Pesticides in that they Ordinarily Destroy only Unwanted Species
• Citing the Fact that the Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was Higher in 1997
• Historians have Identified Two Dominant Currents in the Russian Women's Movement of the Late Tsarist Period.
• Some Historians Contend that Conditions in the United States During the Second World War
• Comparable Worth, as a Standard Applied to Eliminate Inequities in Pay
• The United States Government has a Long-Standing Policy of Using Federal Funds to Keep Small Business Viable.
• A Recent Study has Provided Clues to Predator-Prey Dynamics in the Late Pleistocene Era.
• Even More Than Mountainside Slides of Mud or Snow, Naturally Occurring Forest Fires Promote the Survival of Aspen Trees.
• The Black Death, a Severe Epidemic that Ravaged Fourteenth Century Europe
• The System of Patent-Granting, Which Confers Temporary Monopolies for the Exploitation of New Technologies
• Ethnohistoric Documents from Sixteenth-Century Mexico Suggesting that Weaving and Cooking were the Most Common Productive Activities for Aztec Women
• Solar Ponds are Bodies of Water in Which Circulation is Incomplete and There is a Very High Salt Concentration that Increases with Depth
• Traditional Social Science Models of Class Groups in the United States are Based on Economic Status
• Conventional Wisdom has it that Large Deficits in the United States Budget Cause Interest Rates to Rise.
• A One-Child Policy was Implemented in China in 1979
• The Pioneers of the Teaching of Science Imagined that its Introduction into Education would Remove the Conventionality, Artificiality, and Backward-Lookingness
• A Fundamental Principle of Pharmacology is that all Drugs have Multiple Actions. Actions that are Desirable in the Treatment of Disease are Considered therapeutic
• In the 1980's, Astronomer Bohdan Paczynski Proposed a Way of Determining Whether the Enormous Dark Halo Constituting the Outermost Part of the Milky Way Galaxy