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Birds startled by potential predators generally try to take cover in nearby vegetation. ███ ████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ███████ ██████ ██ ████████ ███████ ███ ██████ █████ ████ █████████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ██████ ███████

Structure: Surprising Phenomenon

We're told that birds normally take cover in nearby vegetation when they are startled. What we want to explain for this question — the surprising phenomenon — is why birds in suburban gardens are often killed when they are startled and fly away from vegetation and into windowpanes.

Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████████████

Question Type

Resolve reconcile or explain

We want to explain why birds startled in suburban gardens fly away from vegetation and into windowpanes. A possible explanation could be that the birds see the vegetation reflected in the windowpanes and think they are flying towards it, or that the birds are trying to take cover inside the house and don't realize the windowpanes are there.

Predator attacks are ██ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ███████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ ███ ██ ███████ ██████████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ███████████

Incorrect. Regardless of how dense the vegetation is around these bird feeders, we want to know why the birds startled at these feeders often fly away from vegetation, not towards it. (A) doesn't provide an explanation for this behavior.

The bird feeders ██ ████ ████████ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ █ ████████████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████

Incorrect. We don't know if the phenomenon of birds flying away from vegetation and into windowpanes occurs in the gardens described by (B). If it does, then it becomes even more surprising that the birds would fly such a long distance toward the windows.

Large birds are ██ ██████ ██ █████ █████ ██ ███ ████ ████████████

Incorrect. As far as we know, we're already talking about birds in general, regardless of size. Knowing that large and small birds are equally likely to fly into windows doesn't explain why they are flying into the windows to begin with.

Most of the █████ ████████ █████ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ ██████ ██ ████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ██████ ██████ ████ ██ ██████████

Incorrect. If you picked this answer choice, maybe you thought that if birds aren't startled by actual predators, they might not take cover in vegetation. But we know birds take refuge in vegetation if they are startled by "potential predators," not necessarily by actual predators.

It seems plausible that the birds respond to these loud noises as indicating potential predators, in which case we would expect them to engage in their normal behavior of taking cover in vegetation. Whatever the case, it's still not clear why the birds would fly toward windows, specifically, instead of towards vegetation.

The windowpanes of ████ ██████ ███████ ███████ ███████████ ███████████

Correct. This is one of the explanations we pre-phrased. The birds think they are flying toward vegetation when they are actually flying into the windowpane.

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PrepTest 106 - Section 3 - Question 3

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PrepTest 106 - Section 3 - Question 3

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