PrepTest 153, Section 3, Question 4
The coat patterns of large cat species correspond(50 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(10 more words not shown)
- AUnlike all other(17 more words not shown)
- BOf all the(15 more words not shown)
- CBecause they have(13 more words not shown)
- DUnlike lions, cheetahs(4 more words not shown)
- EUnlike all other(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The coat-and-habitat pattern makes sense as camouflage. Spots could blend into the patches of light and shade in a forest. A plain coat could blend into the more uniform background of an open plain. If a cat needs to approach prey without being noticed, those differences seem useful.
Then we meet the cheetah: spots, but no forest. Why doesn't this cat fit? My first guess would be that it descended from a forest-dwelling cat and kept the coat after moving into a different habitat. That is only a possible story, not a fact the passage supplies. It gives us something to investigate.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to explain the anomaly. So keep the puzzle precise: why can this spotted cat live and hunt in the open when the other cats' coats correspond to their surroundings? Another unusual fact about cheetahs won't automatically help. It needs to connect to why the coat doesn't fit the habitat pattern.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This gives us a different explanation from the ancestry idea: cheetahs don't rely on stealth when hunting. They rely on speed. A cat trying to sneak close to its prey has a reason to blend into the background; a cat relying on a chase does not depend on remaining unnoticed in that same way.
That makes the cheetah's failure to fit the camouflage pattern less surprising. We haven't explained the origin of every spot, and we haven't shown that a fast cat catches everything it chases. We have identified why matching its surroundings may matter less to this cat's hunting strategy.
- B
Having a meal stolen after catching it does not explain the coat. We would need a further connection showing why that theft makes a spotted coat compatible with hunting in an open habitat. This supplies an unfortunate event for cheetahs, not a reason they depart from the camouflage pattern.
- C
This could help us understand a limitation on where cheetahs can climb. It doesn't explain why a cat living outside the trees has the kind of coat associated with cats living among them. Explaining why it cannot climb is not yet explaining the mismatch between its coat and habitat.
- D
Hunting alone distinguishes cheetahs from lions, but we haven't been told why a solitary hunter would not need to blend in. A lone hunter could still rely on sneaking up on prey. A gives the missing connection to stealth; D merely gives another difference.
- E
Whether cheetahs can roar doesn't explain why they have spots in the savannah. To use this, we'd have to invent an additional story connecting vocal ability to the coat pattern. Nothing in the answer supplies that connection.
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