The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Read the first three paragraphs of the article.

Select the sentence that BEST supports the conclusion that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly becoming larger.

• Twice the size of Texas, the floating mass is up to 16 times larger than previously thought.

• According to scientists who performed an aerial survey, it is carrying about 79,000 metric tons of plastic.

• The study reveals that this plastic blight in the Pacific Ocean is still growing at what the researchers called an "exponential" pace.

• The concentration of floating plastic in the patch ranges from tens to hundreds of kilograms per square kilometer.

Which piece of evidence BEST explains why trash has accumulated in the ocean?

• Humans manufacturing and quickly discarding plastic products has caused the garbage patches to grow

• Recent studies show that biofouled plastic can attract fish and seabirds and end up in the food chain.

• Since they're fairly cheap and easy to replace, those nets can then float through the ocean.

• None of this, of course, counts all the plastics that may have sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

Tags

NGSS.MS-ESS3-4

NGSS.MS-PS1-3

Which answer choice accurately characterizes Laurent Lebreton's reaction to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

• He is committed to getting rid of all of the plastic floating in the patch.

• He is trying to conduct more aerial surveys of the patch to see how it spreads.

• He is curious about how the patch might extend into deeper water layers and the seafloor.

• He is concerned about the large impact the patch can have on the environment.

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NGSS.MS-PS1-3

Read the paragraph below: The researchers think the patch may have grown in recent years in part because of the 2011 Tohoku tsunami, which reportedly washed 4.5 million metric tons of debris into the sea instantly. About 1.4 million of that could have been moved across the ocean surface.

WHY did the author include this paragraph?

• to highlight the damage caused by a recent tsunami

• to explain how trash is easily moved across the ocean

• to illustrate the need for the trash in the patch to be cleaned up and disposed of

• to present a theory about what caused the patch to gain even more mass