PrepTest 127, Section 4, Question 14
Mechanisms for recognizing kin are found throughout the(466 more words not shown)
The information in the passage(14 more words not shown)
- Awas not known(6 more words not shown)
- Bcan be explained(16 more words not shown)
- Cis what led(9 more words not shown)
- Dcalls into question(8 more words not shown)
- Eis difficult to(14 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Why bring up honeybees? Most don't produce offspring themselves, yet they nurture relatives. Counting only their own offspring leaves that behavior puzzling; counting the shared genes represented through relatives helps explain it.
What we’re looking for
So we're looking for the need to broaden the traditional explanation, not evidence that natural selection has been abandoned.
Working the answers
- A
Learning how to explain a behavior is different from discovering that it happens. The theory's 1960s origin doesn't mean people were unaware of honeybee behavior before then.
- B
The proposed benefit is preserving shared genes, not receiving care in return. The relatives needn't repay the help for this explanation to work.
- C
No claim about most biologists rejecting traditional theory is made. We get an additional explanatory idea, not that history of widespread rejection.
- D
Inclusive fitness still appeals to natural selection. The honeybees motivate a broader account of what it favors; they aren't presented as disproving the process itself.
- ECorrect
The traditional focus on an individual's own offspring needs supplementation to explain individuals that nurture relatives without producing offspring. Inclusive fitness supplies the additional route to genetic representation.
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