Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Easy

PT11 S2 Q2 Explanation

Sea turtles nest only

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Stimulus

Sea turtles nest only at their own birthplaces. After hatching on the beach, the turtles enter the water to begin their far-ranging migration, only returning to their birthplaces to nest some 15 to 30 years later. It has been hypothesized that newborn sea turtles learn the smell smell that stimulates the turtles to return to nest.

What this question is testing

Evaluate

Hypothesis

Sea turtles travel huge distances after hatching, then come back to their birthplace 15-30 years later. The hypothesis: as newborns, they learn the smell of their birth environment, and that smell tells them when and where to return.

Evaluate

For the smell idea to actually work, the turtles need to be able to smell their birthplace at the moment they're deciding to return. If, right before returning, they're hundreds of miles away in the open ocean — way too far for any smell to reach them — then the smell can't be doing the work. Some other navigation system would have to bring them close enough first.

So the most useful question to evaluate the hypothesis is: are the turtles within smell-range right before nesting, or are they outside it? The answer either makes the hypothesis plausible or breaks it.

Goal

Find: are turtles inside or outside the area where they could perceive the smell, immediately before returning?

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
2.

Which one of the following would be most important to know in evaluating the hypothesis

Answer choices

  1. Unrelated to Goal1% picked this

    how long the expected life span of sea

    The hypothesis is about what triggers the return migration, not how long turtles live. Lifespan information doesn't help us evaluate whether smell is the trigger. Knowing turtles live 50 vs. 80 years tells us nothing about whether smell guides their navigation.

  2. Unrelated to Goal4% picked this

    what the maximum migratory range of mature sea

    How far turtles can range tells us about their migration capacity, not about what triggers their return. Knowing they could go 1,000 vs. 5,000 miles doesn't help us evaluate whether smell is the homing mechanism.

  3. Unrelated to Goal3% picked this

    whether many beaches on which sea turtles were hatched have since been

    Whether some hatching beaches have been destroyed is a conservation concern but doesn't help us evaluate the smell hypothesis. Even if many beaches were lost, the question of whether smell is the return trigger for turtles whose beaches still exist remains untested.

  4. Correct92% picked this

    whether immediately before returning to nest, sea turtles are outside the area where the smell of their

    Why this is right

    This is the question whose answer most directly tests the hypothesis. The smell-trigger idea requires that the smell be physically perceptible to the turtle at the moment it's deciding to return. If turtles, right before returning, are outside the range where the birthplace smell could reach them, then smell can't be what triggers the return — something else must navigate them close enough first. If they're inside that range, the hypothesis remains plausible. Either answer changes how we should evaluate the smell hypothesis.

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

  5. Unrelated to Goal0% picked this

    whether both sexes of sea turtles are actively involved in the

    Whether both sexes are involved in the nesting process doesn't bear on the navigation mechanism. The hypothesis is about how turtles find their way back; gender involvement in nest-building or guarding is a separate question.

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