A study of guppy fish shows that a male guppy will alter its courting

"When a model of a female guppy was substituted for the female guppy". I don't understand how does this mean a dummy fish is placed?

Sentencing is not clear. Can some expert clear that? Even below sentence is very awkwardly written. Expert your input please.

Males with more orange on one side than the other were free to vary which side they showed to a female

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Hi AbhishekDhanraJ72, It means that a fake fish model [Imagine it to be made of plastic if you will to make it clear] of guppy was placed instead of the real female guppy fish, so male fish wouldn't alter the courting patterns as there won't be a response from a fake model of guppy fish.

Hope this clears your doubts!

A study of guppy fish shows that a male guppy will alter its courting patterns in response to feedback from a female guppy. Males with more orange on one side than the other were free to vary which side they showed to a female. Females were drawn to those males with more orange showing, and males tended to show the females their more orange side when courting.

Which one of the following, if true, provides the most support for the argument?

(A) When a model of a female guppy was substituted for the female guppy, male guppies still courted, but were not more likely to show their side with more orange. - CORRECT. Here, males stopped to respond as they stopped getting feedback from females which were just models. No feedback from females no response from males.
(B) In many other species females show a preference for symmetry of coloring rather than quantity of coloring. - WRONG. Two things goes against this option.
(C) No studies have been done on whether male guppies with more orange coloring father more offspring than those with less orange coloring. - WRONG. Goes offtrack. There is no relation between what is discussed here and what passage is concerned about.
(D) Female guppies have little if any orange coloring on their sides. - WRONG. Irrelevant.
(E) The male and female guppies were kept in separate tanks so they could see each other but not otherwise directly interact. - WRONG. Were males still able to respond to feedback while seeing females? We aren't sure as we need to make further assumptions either to support or weaken.

Answer A.

Hi Abhisekh!

- It means that a model (not a real fish) is placed.

- So, an unreal fish will not show any preferences.

- Hence, the male fish won't alter its courting behaviour.

I hope it clears your doubts. Thanks

Keyword in this argument is FEEDBACK / response to female guppy

only A fits in , rest all options are irrelevant.

Option A didn't make too much sense to me in the first reading (my doubt was why the male fish still courted the model fish , but didn't show his courting behaviour)

B, C actually weakens the conclusion. So removed

D unrelated

E. Tells that there isn't any interaction between male and females

I guessed A , as I could get the picture on why male didn't show its behaviour of showing more orange

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