PrepTest 139 - Section 2 - Passage 2 - Question 11

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Passage A.

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Phenomenon · Honeybees can recruit nestmates to food source

How do they do it?

Hypothesis · By "dancing"

Note that the passage explicitly says that Aristotle didn't make this connection. He merely noted that honeybees "dance" for their nestmates but did not hypothesize that the "dance" was the means of communication.

Evidence · Dance deciphered

von Frisch figured out how to read the dance and was able to locate where food was.

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Questions · What's the mechanism?

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Hypothesis · Wing vibrations

This would explain how bees can communicate in darkness but scientists (mistakenly) thought bees lacked hearing so this hypothesis was not taken seriously.

Hypothesis · Smell

Counter Evidence · For smell hypothesis

Bees can send other bees to new locations which shouldn't be possible if ordor was the means of communication.

Evidence · For wing vibration hypothesis

Bee robot could effectively simulate dance through sounds

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Context · All animals communicate

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Main Point · But only some communicate symbolically

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Example · Vervet monkeys

Experiment demonstrated that they have different alarm calls for snakes versus eagles.

Example · Honeybees

Their dance is symbolically represents distance, direction, and quality of food source.

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Example · Bees ignore some communications, suggesting symbolic communication

Experiment revealed that bees ignored dances that communicated information about presence of food in unlikely sources suggesting that communication in bees is symbolic and has a level of interpretation.

Passage Style

11.

It can be inferred from ███ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ █████ ██████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████

Question Type

Author’s perspective

Implied

This Inference question asks for a statement that each author would accept.

Split Approach: After passage A, eliminate each answer choice that author A wouldn’t accept. Then, after passage B, eliminate the remaining answers that author B wouldn’t accept.

Sequential Approach: This question doesn’t direct our attention to any specific part of the passage, so we will approach this question with the process of elimination.

Honeybees will ignore ███ ████████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ███████

Author A would disagree with this claim. In P3, we see that Gould’s research revealed that odor isn’t necessary for bees’ communication. We can eliminate (A). Also, passage B shows that bees may ignore instructions, but the reason for this was not the lack of food odor, so we can’t say that author B would accept this claim.

Wenner and Esch ███████████ ████ ████ █████ ███ ████ ████ █ █████ ████ ██ ████ ████████ ██████████████

In passage A, Wenner and Esch didn’t establish that both sound and odor are vital for most honeybee communication. They both initially hypothesized that sound may be necessary, but this was dismissed at the time. Then, Wenner (but not Esch) proposed that smell may explain bee communication. This hypothesis didn’t come from both Wenner and Esch, and they never established that both smell and hearing are vital for most honeybee communication, so we can’t infer that author A would accept this claim. We can eliminate (B).

Also, passage B doesn’t mention Esch’s findings, nor does passage B indicate that both smell and hearing are vital, so we can’t infer that author B would accept this claim.

Most animal species ███ ███████████ ████████████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ██████

Passage A only discusses honeybees, so we can’t infer what most animal species do. Also, passage A doesn’t discuss symbolic communication. We can eliminate (C). Passage B says that some animals can communicate symbolically, but author B doesn’t claim that most animals can do this, so we can’t say that author B would accept this claim.

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This is supported in P1 of passage A, which tells us that von Frisch discovered that bees can communicate through dances. This is also supported in P5 of passage B, which says that von Frisch was the first to crack the code of bee dances.

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Inexperienced forager honeybees ████ █████ ██ ███████████ ████ █████ ████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ████ ███████████ █████████

Passage A doesn’t compare inexperienced and experienced forager bees, so this is unsupported. We can eliminate (E). Passage B doesn’t make this distinction either, so we can’t say that author B would accept this claim.

PrepTest 139 - Section 2 - Passage 2 - Question 11

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