SAT #11 Reading (Question 26)

Question

Which finding, if accurate, would undermine Reznick's findings?

Answer 1

Answer Choice B is the correct answer because Reznick’s findings depend on the environment in which he releases the guppies containing little to no predators, so that if “the new site into which Reznick released the guppies is inhabited by fish that are found to be as predatory as the cichlids in the original sites,” this would undermine his finding that the lack of predators in the experimental site influenced the rapid evolution of new traits. Answer Choice A is incorrect because Reznick’s findings don’t depend on a uniform rate of genetic-shift for all guppies worldwide. Answer Choice C is incorrect because, although finding that experimental evolution is harmful to an environment might be concerning, it wouldn’t undermine Reznick’s findings which don’t depend on experimental evolution not being harmful to an environment. Answer Choice D

How to solve this? The Question asks, “Which finding, if accurate, would undermine Reznick’s findings?” To solve this, we should first go back to the part of the Passage that most specifically mentions Reznick’s findings, and determine the basis on which they rest. Based on that we can determine what finding would most likely undermine his findings. Because this question focuses on Reznick’s findings or conclusions, we should focus on the later part of the Passage, that deals with his conclusions regarding the experiments. Moreover, we can use the [Question Order Rule] to predict that the most relevant Text for this question will come after Line 49. Paragraph 5, from Lines 53 to 72, most directly deals with Reznick’s findings, which show that when he takes fish from predatory environments and places them in non-predatory environments, they show a rapid shift in towards traits similar to guppies which exist in naturally non-predatory environments. Anything that would disrupt or disprove part of the logical foundation of his findings (the fish not actually showing any change, fish randomly changing in other environments, a confounding variable, etc.) could be our correct answer.

Answer Choice A says that it would undermine Reznick’s findings if “guppies examined in other parts of the globe exhibit genetic shifts in traits at a different rate from that exhibited by the guppies Reznick examined.” Because his findings don’t depend on the uniformity of the rate of genetic shifts across the globe, we should eliminate this option. Answer Choice B says that it would undermine Reznick’s findings if “the new site into which Reznick released the guppies is inhabited by fish that are found to be as predatory as the cichlids in the original sites.” Because Reznick’s findings do depend on the fact that his new site contains no predators and because he couldn’t then conclude that the change in traits exhibited by the transplanted guppies was caused by a predator free environment, we should keep this option. Answer Choice C says that it would undermine Reznick’s findings if “experimental evolution is shown to be harmful to the environments where studies like Reznick’s are conducted.” Because his findings don’t depend on evolutionary experiments not being harmful to the environments they’re performed in, they can’t undermine his findings, and we should eliminate this option. Answer Choice D says that it would undermine Reznick’s findings if “the descendants of Reznick’s transplanted fish are proven to mature later than the guppies living below the waterfall.” Because the guppies living below the waterfall live in relatively predator-free environments and mature later because of it, this finding would actually reinforce Reznick’s findings because the transplanted guppies exhibit traits like those in naturally predator-free environments, so we should eliminate this option as well. That leaves us with Answer Choice B, which we should choose as our correct option.