Which one of the following statements is most strongly supported by Gould's research, as reported in the two passages?

Ravi on July 22, 2019

@SamBaucom,

Happy to help.

(A) says, "When a forager honeybee does not communicate olfactory
information to its nestmates, they will often disregard the forager’s
directions and go to sites of their own choosing."

In passage A, Gould showed that even when bees do not communicate
smell information, they can still send bees to food sites. Thus, (A)
is incorrect.

(B) says, "Forager honeybees instinctively know where pollinating
flowers usually grow and will not dispatch their nestmates to any
other places."

Although according to passage B it seems true that bees do know where
pollinating flowers generally grow, the bees in Gould's experiment
still attempted to send their nestmates to the middle of the lake even
though flowers don't normally grow there. As a result, we can get rid
of (B).

(C) says, "Only experienced forager honeybees are able to locate the
best food sources."

Gould never discusses experienced bees vs. inexperienced bees, so we
can get rid of (C).

(D) says, "A forager’s dances can draw other honeybees to sites that
the forager has not visited and can fail to draw other honeybees to
sites that the forager has visited."

Both passages bring up Gould, but they do so differently. In passage
A, Gould's research showed that because bees can direct their
nestmates to sites they haven't yet visited, smell could not be the
answer. In passage B, Gould trained some bees to find a food source he
placed in the middle of a lake, but those bees weren't able to
persuade their nestmates to travel to the food source. Thus, in
Gould's research, he showed that it is possible for bees to send their
nestmates to places they themselves have never been before (the
research from passage A), but it's also possible for them to fail to
convince their nestmates to go to a place they have been to before
(research from passage B). Thus, (D) is the correct answer choice.

(E) says, "Forager honeybees can communicate with their nestmates
about a newly discovered food source by leaving a trail from the food
source to the honeybee nest."

Because Gould demonstrated that bees can send their nestmates to
places they've never been before, there's no way it's the case that
the nestmates always follow a trail that the first bee left. Since the
first bee never went there in the first place, there wouldn't be any
trail, so we can get rid of (E).

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!

AneeshU on November 17, 2021

@Ravi

I didn't understand this part of your explanation:

"Although according to passage B it seems true that bees do know where
pollinating flowers generally grow, the bees in Gould's experiment
still attempted to send their nestmates to the middle of the lake even
though flowers don't normally grow there. As a result, we can get rid
of (B)."

According to line 61, "He found that hive members ignored the foragers' instructions, presumably because no pollinating flowers grow in such a place."

Ravi on February 8, 2022

@AneeshU, the key distinction here is the first group of bees are the trained foraging bees, and they're the ones who tried to send their fellow hive members to the middle of the lake. So while the hive members ignored the foragers' instructions, the foragers were tricked into thinking that pollinating flowers grow in a place where they do not.