Reading Comprehension

PT105 · S3 · P1 · Q6 Invertebrate Schooling

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Until recently, many biologists believed that invertebrate "schools" were actually transient assemblages, brought together by wind, currents, waves, or common food sources.

Topic

Schooling behavior in invertebrates and its advantages and drawbacks

Framework

Old / New

Main Point

Recent research has shown that many invertebrates, contrary to earlier belief, do form structured schools like fish do, and schooling brings a variety of benefits and some costs. (The Most Valuable Sentence appears at the end of the first paragraph: )

P1: Shifting Beliefs About Invertebrate Schooling

Until recently, scientists thought invertebrate groupings were just temporary and caused by environmental factors, but new research shows many actually form true schools, much like fish do.

P2: How Invertebrate Schools Work

Invertebrates that school do so in an organized way, maintaining consistent positioning; their grouping is pretty stable unless disturbed by predators.

P3: Passive Benefits of Schooling

Schooling, despite being risky and making the animals more visible, actually helps members avoid predators by making them harder to track individually, increasing group vigilance, and improving individual survival odds.

6.

It can be inferred from the passage that if cannibalism were occurring in a large school of crustaceans, an individual crustacean encountering the school would

  1. try to stay at the

    Unrelated to Goal

    We're looking for something like, "... it would realize this school is too big and join another school". Nowhere in the passage does it say that "by staying on the edge you can obtain food". It only said at one point that when food is scarce, some of the critters that find food will swim to the back to eat it privately, so their schoolmates don't glare at them like, "Did you bring enough to share with the whole class?"

    13% picked this

  2. be more likely to be

    Contradicted

    We were told that when cannibalism occurs, it's the adults who feed on the young (the not-fully grown). You'd be more likely to be eaten if you were not fully grown.

    2% picked this

  3. Correct

    be unlikely to join that

    Why this is right

    We're looking for something like, "... it would realize this school is too big and join another school". This is our best match.

    Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    73% picked this

  4. try to follow at the

    Unrelated to Goal

    We're looking for something like, "... it would realize this school is too big and join another school". Nowhere in the passage does it say that "by staying near the back you can escape predators", nor does this answer about predators have anything to do with cannibalism within the school.

    5% picked this

  5. try to confuse school members

    Unrelated to Goal

    We're looking for something like, "... it would realize this school is too big and join another school", and this answer sounds nothing like that. We might think to ourselves, "One of the defensive maneuvers that schools perform is executing complex swimming maneuvers. So maybe if an individual crustacean rolled up to a crustacean school where some members were eating other members, they would click into doing this defensive maneuver to avoid being cannibalized." But this is a much more exotic, unsupported guess. We are told in the final sentence of the passage what happens once cannibalism arises: some of the animals will join another school.

    7% picked this

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