Reading comp PrepTest 138 · Section 1 · Question 14

Passage

Questions 8-14  .        The characteristic smell or taste of a plant, to  . insects as well as to humans, Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Distinction between primary substances (required for plant growth) and secondary substances (give plants taste/smell)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • List of two different chemicals in plants, according to the author:
      • Primary substances: required for growth and functioning, found in all plants (third sentence)
      • Secondary substances: No known internal function, different in different plant families, give plants taste and smell (fourth through last sentences)
    • Examples of primary substances, according to the author:
      • Proteins, carbs, vitamins, hormones (third sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "depends" (first sentence); "required" (third sentence); "found in all plants" (third sentence); "diverse and multitudinous array of chemicals" (fourth sentence); "no known role" (fourth sentence); "Only a few" (fifth sentence); "give plants their distinctive tastes and smells" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Insects' role in the diversity of secondary substances developed (some attract helpful insets, others defend against harmful insects)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Cause-and-effect relationships, according to the author:
      • Mutations cause the emergence of secondary substances (second sentence)
      • Some secondary substances' ability to attract pollinating insects causes the secondary substances to survive via natural selection (fourth sentence)
      • Some secondary substances' biochemical defenses against harmful insects cause the secondary substances to survive via natural selection (sixth sentence)
      • Some secondary substances cause harm or death to insects (seventh sentence)
      • Some secondary substances cause insects to avoid feeding on the plant (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "appear to have played a major role" (first sentence); "undoubtedly" (second sentence); "must pass the muster of natural selection" (third sentence); "must increase" (third sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Progression of evolution after insects (insects evade defenses and become associated with few plants)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Cause-and-effect relationship, according to the author:
      • Plants' defenses cause insects to either develop ways avoid defenses (second sentence)
      • These defenses cause insects to become associated with very few plants (fourth and last sentences)
    • Examples of ways insects avoid plants' defenses, according to the author:
      • Detoxification and storing toxins so the insects aren't harmed (third sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "there has been an evolutionary competition" (first sentence); "must" (second sentence); "fewer and fewer" (last sentence)

Main Point: While secondary substances in plants start out from random mutations, it's a back-and-forth evolutionary "battle" with insects that has resulted in a variety of secondary substances across species of plants.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentences 4 (P1, S4) - Definition of "secondary substances"

P2, S3 - How secondary substances emerge

P2, S4 - How secondary substances survive

P2, S6 - How secondary substances survive

P3, S5 - Outcome of secondary substances

Meta-Structure?

Phenomenon/Explanation: This passage uses a Phenomenon/Explanation Meta-Structure.* The passage spends Paragraph 1 building up to the statement about diverse secondary substances, which give plants their taste and smell but don't help the plant function. That poses a question that needs explaining — if they don't help a plant function, then why do they exist? The passage answers that question/explains the phenomenon in the rest of the passage. Secondary substances exist because random mutations cause them to develop, and then an evolutionary competition with insects causes the beneficial ones (either because they hurt insects or attract pollinating insects) to proliferate.

When a passage falls into the Phenomenon/Explanation Meta-Structure, the author's explanation serves as the passage's main point. Here, the author provides a multi-faceted explanation, which is how we got to our main point above.

*You could also characterize this passage as a Question/Answer passage (Q: How do secondary structures emerge and survive in plants? A: Through natural selection and by attracting/defending insects).

Cause and Effect: The most prominent minor Meta-Structure is the cause-and-effect relationship, most prominently featured in the second paragraph. Make sure you understand these cause-and-effect relationships because we're bound to get a question or two about them — perhaps even a difficult Strengthen or Weaken question.

Last Thoughts?

This passage includes a lot of science, but we can simplify it to a few basic cause-and-effect relationships to help us understand what's going on. If you don't find memorizing a few basic facts too onerous, keeping these in mind can save you some fact-finding missions as you answer the questions:

  • Mutations cause secondary substances to first appear
  • Some secondary substances survive because they attract pollinating insects
  • Some secondary substances survive because they defend against harmful insects
  • Plants' evolutions and insects' adaptations cause insects to become associated with very few plants

Question prompt

Based on the passage, Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: D

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Science

Strategy Overview

Review the main point, and use notes or highlighted/underlined text in the passage to recall the author’s attitude, and find the answer that best reflects your understanding of the main point/author’s attitude

Answer Anticipation

This question asks us about the author's view but doesn't provide any insight into the topic of the correct answer or where the supporting information might show up in the passage. Well, that's not entirely true.This question stem indicates that the correct answer will deal with the relationship between plants and insects, but that was the topic of the passage as a whole (outside of the first few lines), so we don't have much to go on.This means the correct answer is likely to relate back to the author's main point. As such, we'll need to rely on our big-picture understanding of the passage to answer this question. We should start by reminding ourselves of the main point (either by reviewing what we said after reading the passage or by rereading our answer to the main point question). We can also review any notes about the author's attitude or any text we highlighted because it expresses the author's opinion. After doing that, we can head to the answer choices, tabling those that don't line up with the main point. For those answer choices that conform to the author’s main point, we'll use our notes and the passage to see if it's correct.

Answer choices

  1. A
    The diversity of secondary Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Is this consistent with the main point or what you reviewed of the author's opinions?

    Nope. Neither the main point nor any highlighted tonal words suggest that the author would agree with this. Plus, this answer choice uses bold, difficult-to-support language ("proportional") that would be unlikely to appear in the correct answer to an Author Agree question. For these reasons, we can eliminate — or at least table — (A) without reviewing the passage, and then we can check the remaining answer choices.

    If we had to review the passage to eliminate (A), we'd see that the author says that secondary substances first appear due to random mutation (P2, S2), which isn't related to the number of insects around. While insects do play a role in determining which ones are evolutionary advantageous (P2, S3-S6), they're not the only factor, and thus we definitely can't support this answer about a proportional relationship.

  2. B
    Although few species of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Is this consistent with the main point or what you reviewed of the author's opinions?

    No. Neither the main point nor any highlighted tonal words suggest that the author would agree with this. None of these deal with insects having a neutral effect on plants. For this reason, we can eliminate — or at least table — (B) without reviewing the passage, and then we can check the remaining answer choices.

    If we had to review the passage to eliminate (B), we wouldn't find any evidence that "few species of plants have benefited from evolutionary interactions with insects." Some plants rely on insects for pollination (P2, S4), and even the plants that have an antagonistic relationship with plant-eating insects might have been made stronger by these interactions! Plus, the passage never discusses any plants that are neither harmed nor helped by insects.

  3. C
    Throughout the process of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Is this consistent with the main point or what you reviewed of the author's opinions?

    Negative. Neither the main point nor any highlighted tonal words suggest that the author would agree with this. These don't discuss the number of plant species in each family or the number of families overall. For this reason, we can eliminate — or at least table — (C) without reviewing the passage, and then we can check the remaining answer choices.

    If we had to review the passage to eliminate (C), we'd see that species and families are discussed at the end of Paragraph 1 and at the end of Paragraph 3. In Paragraph 1, there's nothing about the number of families or species of plants changing — just the number of secondary substances in each species/family (P1, S5). And in Paragraph 3, it's about what plants are suitable as food sources for insects, not how many of them

    exist (P3, S4).

  4. D
    No particular secondary substance Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem

    (D) Is this consistent with the main point or what you reviewed of the author's opinions?

    Yes! This is extremely similar to our anticipated main point: "While secondary substances in plants start out from random mutations, it's a back-and-forth evolutionary 'battle' with insects that has resulted in a variety of secondary substances across species of plants." For this reason, we should take a closer look at (D).

    In the second paragraph, the author notes that the "base" cause of secondary substances is random mutations in the plants (P2, S2), which supports the first half of this answer — random mutations aren't the result of insects. However, the author then notes that the mutations will survive only if they confer an evolutionary advantage, and some do by attracting pollinating insects or providing defenses against insects (P2, S3-S4). Therefore, insects do play a role in determining which secondary substances survive the evolutionary process, making this answer correct. We can select it and wrap up with this passage.

  5. E
    While many species of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Is this consistent with the main point or what you reviewed of the author's opinions?

    Nope. Neither the main point nor any highlighted tonal words suggest that the author would agree with this. Plus, this answer choice uses bold, difficult-to-support language ("none") that would be unlikely to appear in the correct answer to an Author Agree question. For these reasons, we can eliminate — or at least table — (E) without reviewing the passage, and then return to any answer choices we haven't yet eliminated.

    If we had to review the passage to eliminate (E), we'd see that the passage goes through a list of ways that insects can adapt to a plant's chemical defenses. That list doesn't include outright immunity. However, it does have a pretty open entry on that list — "avoid its effects in some other manner" (P3, S3). That certainly could mean the development of outright immunity, so this answer is unsupported.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 16%
  2. B 10%
  3. C 6%
  4. D Credited 48%
  5. E 20%

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