Logical reasoning PrepTest 121 · Section 4 · Question 24

Incorrect. This doesn't explain why those who had tended to still engage in cooperative breeding. Maybe if it stated that these young warblers didn't engage in the practice one they became old enough to breed, then it would provide an explanation—once you start cooperative breeding, you don't shift out of it. But it doesn't establish that, so this answer is incorrect.

Incorrect. While this answer does bring up a similarity, and similarities can resolve paradoxes around similarities, it has to actually provide an explanation. And since there's no indication that climate is related to breeding behavior, this one doesn't.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Paradox

Stimulus Summary:
Some warblers stay with their parents and raise siblings instead of their own kids because there's limited space to make their own nests. However, when moved to a bigger area, they still did this.

Answer Anticipation:
What's the paradox here? Well, it's noted that a specific restriction led to certain behavior—a lack of space led to cooperative breeding. That would lead one to believe that when the restriction is lifted, the behavior would also disappear.

Not so with these Seychelles warblers.

Despite the different environment, the warblers behaved the same as on their other island. Since the paradox revolves around behaving the same but in a different location, it's likely that the correct answer will highlight how the different location is similar to the initial one in a key way that led to the behavior. Here, it was a lack of nesting territory that led to cooperative breeding, so it's likely that the answer will establish the new island is similarly limited in nesting locations.

Answer Explanation:
This answer suggests that, despite the larger amount of space available, there wasn't more space to make their own nests. If most of the new island wasn't suitable for warbler nests, then they'd have the same issue as on the first island, and thus it'd be expected that they'd engage in the same behavior. This answer thus explains the behavior of the moved warblers.

Key Takeaway:
This Paradox question is interesting. Many of them deal in comparisons, but usually they deal in similarities or differences. This one brings up a difference and a similarity, and so we had to think about how those two things interacted to anticipate an answer. Since the paradox revolved around similar behavior in a different setting, we needed an answer that justified that similarity, and thus we could anticipate that the different setting was likely similar to the initial one in some key way.

Incorrect. Whether or not a lack of nesting territory counts as an environment that can't sustain a rise in population, there's no indication that the new island was limited in this way, so this answer doesn't explain why the transplantation didn't result in an end to cooperative breeding.

Incorrect. If anything, this makes the paradox worse. If the island is bigger and there's less competition for nesting sites, then there should be plenty of nesting territory available, and thus there'd be no reason for cooperative breeding.