Question: Gophers

Comment on Gophers

What is a "Design feature" in the contex of reading comprehension?
greenlight-admin's picture

An example: when designing a car, a common design feature is the inclusion a steering wheel.

VIdura1995's picture

For summarizing the entire passage in 10 words or less, what would be the summary?
I noted it down as an explanation type: "Different Gopher alarm responses explained and new hypothesis confirmed through experiment"
greenlight-admin's picture

Your summary is great.

Our summary is: Gophers warn of danger with chirrup noise.

Both summaries are valid.

Cheers,
Brent

You stated in the video above that "do not always" is "soft language" - how do we know what is or is not "soft language?"
greenlight-admin's picture

Great question.

You're referring to 4:40 in the above video.

Another name for "soft language" is "vague language" or "open-ended language"

Many students will incorrectly read "DO NOT ALWAYS cause animals . . . " as "NEVER cause animals . . ."
This interpretation is false. In fact, the actually interpretation allows for many different scenarios.

Example: If we say "Joe DOES NOT ALWAYS have coffee with his breakfast," then this just tells us that there was at least one occasion in which Joe did not have coffee with his breakfast.

So, even if Joe has had coffee with 999 of his past 1000 breakfasts, we can still say that Joe DOES NOT ALWAYS have coffee with his breakfast.

Another word that suggests soft language is the word SOME.
SOME means AT LEAST ONE

So, if I say "SOME people have watched TV while riding a horse" all that means is "AT LEAST ONE person has watched TV while riding a horse"

Does that help?

Cheers,
Brent

Do you have any tips on how to tackle the structure questions? I have noticed that I always struggle on these questions and end up wasting a lot of time. I usually eliminate 3 answer choices and I am usually left with 2 answer choices and am forced to guess...
greenlight-admin's picture

In my opinion, the key to answering structure questions is to describe the method of reasoning to yourself BEFORE examining the answer choices. Then it's a matter of finding the answer choice that matches yours (rather than determine which answer choice is correct).

It also helps to use very generic language while describing the method of reasoning to yourself.

Cheers,
Brent

Hey Brent, I have a question about why you chose answer B and not C. The text mentions that the silent scream is used as another option for a gopher to communicate. It is mentioned as a general fact.

later, in the end, it adds another fact that the silent screaming can be used as a laser to communicate with closer gopher without catching the attention of other animals around.

In other words, aminal with high sound abilities still can hear it, but it has a special way to use it as a laser, directly to close Gophers.

Which leaves the answer C as the only correct answer.

Where am I wrong, thanks.
greenlight-admin's picture

Sorry, ShadyGRE. I'm having a hard time figuring out which of the 6 question you're referring to.

Sorry for the confusion, I asked about the first question.
greenlight-admin's picture

The question asks: According to the RESULTS of the experiment described in the passage, a silent scream in gophers is...

Answer choice C reads: The researcher misinterpreting a deep breath for a desire to trip.

While conducting his research, Hare INITIALLY couldn't figure out what was going on. The gophers were heaving but no sounds (that Hare could detect).

This is found in this part of the passage: "Hare noticed that the gophers were often heaving their chests in preparation to chirrup up but emitting no more than what seemed to be a whisper of air."

However, Hare soon learned that the gophers were actually warning their fellow gophers but at a frequency undetectable by humans. So the whole chest-heaving thing was a CLUE that helped Hare figure out what was actually happening with the gophers.

Finally, the last sentence reads: "Doing so (i.e., silent screaming) prevents the sentry gopher from directing the attention of the predator to himself"

This lines up perfectly with answer choice B: A feature that enables gophers to avoid detection by a predator.

Thanks for the good answer :)

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