PrepTest 126, Section 4, Question 18
While it is true that bees' vision is(37 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(8 more words not shown)
- AMany insects that(16 more words not shown)
- BSome flowers rely(5 more words not shown)
- CThe number of(14 more words not shown)
- DMany nonflowering plants(3 more words not shown)
- EPresent-day bees rely(6 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Which adapted to which?
Bees can identify flowers by color. That fit doesn't, by itself, tell us its history. Did bee vision develop to handle flower colors, or did flower colors develop to suit vision bees already had? The author favors the second story, but we need a reason to choose it.
I can imagine flowers competing to attract bees. If colors that bees notice help a flower attract them, that could favor those colors. Another useful kind of evidence would concern timing: evidence that the relevant visual ability already existed before the floral adaptations we're trying to explain. Those are possibilities to investigate, not facts we've been given.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to strengthen the author's account. Keep the direction straight: we're supporting flowers adapting to bee vision. Merely showing that flowers and bees depend on one another won't establish how the relationship developed.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This is indirect support. Vision much like a bee's also occurs in insects that don't depend on perceiving an object's color. That gives us reason to doubt that this type of vision needs to be explained as an adaptation for identifying colorful flowers. Similar vision exists where that color-dependent task isn't needed.
That makes it more plausible that the visual capacity could already have been available for flowers to adapt to, rather than having developed specifically in response to flower color. A doesn't supply the timeline we imagined or prove the author's account. It helps by making the competing explanation less compelling.
Notice the wording: these insects don't depend on perceiving color. That doesn't say they're unable to see color. We shouldn't turn the answer into a claim that flowers can attract bees while remaining invisible to all those other insects.
- B
Other insects can also matter to flowers without settling this question about bees. A flower could rely on several pollinators and still have colors adapted to bee vision. The existence of other relationships doesn't establish which direction this particular adaptation took.
- C
Counting species doesn't tell us which feature developed in response to the other. Many flower species could share colors suited to the same kind of bee vision, or several bee species could identify similar flowers. The larger number supplies no history of either trait.
- D
The question concerns flower colors and bee vision. Knowing that nonflowering plants rely on bees doesn't explain how either of those features developed. It supplies another relationship without connecting it to the disputed adaptation.
- E
Present-day dependence on flowers for food establishes a current relationship, not its origin. Bees could depend on flowers now under either history: vision adapting to flowers or flowers adapting to existing vision. E doesn't give us a reason to favor the author's direction.
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