Q13

[jgmartin82]

13. (A)

Question Type: Inference (19-21)

They keep asking us about the secondary substances. By now, the combination of first read through and the reinforcement of answering the prior questions should have us ready to go here. Into the answers:

(A) looks promising. The modifier recent is the only piece I’m uncertain about. Look at lines 19-21. It says that new secondary substances continue to appear as a result of genetic mutation. Definitely a keeper.

(B) is contradicted in lines 15-16.

(C) is unsupported. The chemical composition of plants changes through evolution, not through chemical reactions with insect substances.

(D) is incorrect because of degree. Lines 11-13 say that there a few of the substances in any given species of plant. We cannot conclude from this that some of them have only one substance.

(E) is contradicted. Lines 8-11.

(A) is our answer. Once again, notice the miniscule jump from new substances continue to appear from genetic mutations to some substances are the result of recent mutations. Right answers love small inferences.

[ttunden]

i eliminated A because this is an inference question and I do not see anywhere in the passage where the author talks about "natural mutations" only genetic mutations.

If it said genetic mutations or natural selections I would have picked A. But if it talks about natural mutations which I never saw in the message I am going to eliminate it because its out of scope

Can you address the aforementioned concern please. I got this question wrong during the test and blind review.

Thanks

[jgmartin82]

In inference questions, the answer choice won't be verbatim from the passage, so we can be a little bit forgiving of small changes.

For instance, if the answer choice says something about 'happy' and the passage only mentioned 'cheerful,' I'm not going to eliminate it and call it out of scope.

In this passage, they discuss genetic mutations. These are occurring over the course of millions of years, so they aren't in a lab or artificial in any way. They can reasonably be called natural. Natural genetic mutations are just a type of natural mutation. Ultimately, if we're skeptical, we ask 'are genetic mutations in nature 'natural mutations?'

Are they 100% equivalent? No, but it's just a baby jump, and a baby jump isn't cause for elimination.

[michellemyxu]

I have a question about C: In line 46 it says some insects can detoxify a harmful secondary substance in the plants they eat. Is this "detoxify" thing not the same as the "chemical reaction" mentioned in C?

Thank you.

[ohthatpatrick]

Does the passage that insects produce substances in order to detoxify the secondary substances of plants?

It says that "insects may evolve a way to detoxify" but I don't think we can get as specific as (C).

The bigger problem with (C), is that is goes on to claim that these substances insects (supposedly) produce end up altering the plants' chemical composition.

There's nothing in here about insects affecting the chemical composition of plants.

Hope this helps.