PrepTest 155

Many wrong answer choices on Paradox questions say something to the effect of, "this weird thing happens all the time." And these answer choices are incorrect because they don't offer insight into why the weird thing happens. This answer choice certainly fits that description. Saying that startled animals appear to act irrationally to humans only proves is that humans don't know everything. It doesn't help resolve the paradox. It just affirms that the paradox exists.

The stimulus specified we're talking about "healthy gazelles," so unhealthy gazelle facts are useless for resolving this particular paradox. Moreover, saying that some gazelles "stot" when they become frightened by humans or machines doesn't explain why gazelles engage in this distracting, energy-consuming behavior in the first place.

Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Paradox

Stimulus Summary:
Healthy gazelles frightened by hunters in a truck just run away. But healthy gazelles frightened by lions or other predators run away while "stotting," meaning jumping into the air while running. Why are they wasting their energy jumping around, attracting lions' attention, rather than using it to run faster?

Strategy Overview:

1. Argument or facts? Always a set of facts
2. Identify what is strange, discrepant, surprising, or paradoxical in the passage
3. Anticipate additional facts that could be added that could make the passage make more sense
4. Use anticipation to find the answer choice that, if added to the set of facts in the passage, would make the discrepancy/paradox make more sense

Answer Anticipation:
To resolve this paradox, we need to make gazelles' behavior make sense. So we should look for some reason why "stotting" is an effective strategy to escape a lion, even though it isn't very stealth or energy efficient, or the way they'd escape human hunters in a truck. Maybe it confuses the lions so they can't zero in on one gazelle to chase? Maybe predators are frightened of stotting gazelles for some reason? Does leaping in the air help them keep an eye on how close the predator is to them? Anything that makes stotting beneficial when escaping a natural, non-human, non-truck predator will work.

Answer Explanation:
Here we go! An actual reason gazelles might stot: it discourages predators from pursuing them by signaling that they're strong enough to evade capture (and, therefore, not such an easy meal). And since humans in trucks do not "typically prey on gazelles," it makes sense that gazelles have learned to behave differently towards natural predators than humans in trucks. This answer choice nicely resolves the paradox and is correct.

Key Takeaway:
"Paradox" questions are all about finding the answer choice that explains why something strange seeming isn't as strange as it may first appear. Many answer choices will say that the strange-seeming thing is widespread (like (A)), or try to undermine one part of the strange-seeming thing (like (C)), or arguably make the strange-seeming thing even stranger (like (D) and (E)). Those are all wrong because none explain why the strange-seeming thing occurs in the first place.

This doesn't resolve the paradox. If anything, it makes the paradox all the more inexplicable. If gazelles detect predators before predators notice gazelles, why would gazelles draw attention to themselves by jumping up and down as soon as they detect the approach of a predator?

As a change from irrelevant gazelle facts, here's an irrelevant lion fact! We have no reason to believe the stotting behavior is related to the size of a group of predators spied by a wary gazelle. Remember, we're looking for some reason why stotting helps gazelles escape predators. There is no reason to think that stotting is an effective means to escape a well-coordinated pride of lions. If anything, conceding that lions cannot run as fast as gazelles makes gazelles’ decision to stot seem all the stranger. Why slow yourself down by jumping around when you could just run away to safety?