PrepTest 138, Section 1, Question 11
The characteristic smell or taste of a plant,(453 more words not shown)
The passage provides the most(8 more words not shown)
- ASome chemicals that(28 more words not shown)
- BMost plants that(28 more words not shown)
- CMost insects that(24 more words not shown)
- DMany secondary substances(28 more words not shown)
- ESome toxic substances(17 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Put the first two paragraphs together. Secondary substances have no known role in the internal processes of growth or metabolism, yet they can attract pollinators and discourage insects from eating a plant. Those effects can make a major difference to survival and reproduction.
What we’re looking for
So a chemical can be important to a plant's life without performing one of the internal functions listed for primary substances. That is a connection we can support from the text, without adding a claim about what most plants or insects do.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
These are the secondary substances just described. Their defensive and pollination-related roles explain how chemicals outside the known growth and metabolic processes can still be vital to plants.
- B
We know insects sometimes overcome defenses. We don't learn that most defended plants are then eaten by a wide variety of insects. The existence of adaptation does not establish either that proportion of plants or that breadth of consumers.
- C
The author explicitly describes identifying suitable plants through taste or smell. C instead claims that most of the specified insects can identify them by other means. That additional method and its frequency are unsupported.
- D
No account of independent evolution in unrelated plants, followed by survival in only a few species, is given. Similar chemicals in related plants do not establish that different history.
- E
The toxins discussed are themselves secondary substances. The text does not introduce a separate category of nonsecondary toxins that evolved alongside them. E changes the relationship between the chemicals.
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