PrepTest 150, Section 2, Question 10
Various studies have concluded that song overlapping, the(60 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(5 more words not shown)
- Abirds do not(9 more words not shown)
- Breceiver-response tests can(6 more words not shown)
- Csong overlapping is(6 more words not shown)
- Dsong overlapping has(3 more words not shown)
- Ethe conclusion of(4 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The first bird's reaction doesn't necessarily tell us what the second bird meant.
Bird one is singing, then bird two starts while that song is still going. That can sound like an interruption to us. But the studies don't establish bird two's intention by examining it directly. They infer the intention from bird one's response. How the receiver interprets an act and what the sender intends aren't automatically the same.
Then we get the bigger problem with this evidence: any response can be counted as a reaction to aggression, even no response. If reacting and not reacting both support the same interpretation, what observation would distinguish aggression from something else? The test as described gives us no useful contrast for deciding that question.
What we’re looking for
For the conclusion, I'd say these studies haven't convincingly established their claim. That is narrower than saying the birds aren't aggressive. Poor support for an explanation doesn't, by itself, establish the opposite explanation.
Working the answers
- A
The passage doesn't establish that birds behave unpredictably. Their responses could be quite predictable while researchers still interpret them in a way that fails to distinguish intentions. The criticism concerns what the tests show about aggression, not whether anyone can predict a bird's response.
- B
No insight into bird behavior is far too broad. These tests might reveal something useful about responses or support another kind of conclusion. The problem here is using this particular evidence, as the sole basis, to establish that song overlapping signals aggression. We don't need to dismiss everything such a test could ever teach us.
- C
We haven't shown that song overlapping probably isn't aggressive. It could be aggressive, but these studies fail to establish it convincingly. C turns a criticism of the evidence into a negative judgment about the phenomenon itself, which the passage doesn't support.
- D
Even if overlapping weren't a signal of aggression, it might communicate something else. More fundamentally, we haven't established that it lacks an aggressive function either. Saying there is no communicative function goes well beyond questioning the studies' specific inference.
- ECorrect
The studies rely entirely on a test whose possible outcomes can all be read as compatible with aggression. That fails to give us a convincing reason to choose the aggressive-intent explanation. E criticizes the strength of the studies' conclusion without pretending to settle what the birds actually intend.
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