In ancient Greece, Aristotle documented the ability of foraging honeyb

Question

Passage A

In ancient Greece, Aristotle documented the
ability of foraging honeybees to recruit nestmates to a
good food source. He did not speculate on how the
communication occurred, but he and naturalists since
  (5)   then have observed that a bee that finds a new food
source returns to the nest and “dances” for its
nestmates. In the 1940s, von Frisch and colleagues
discovered a pattern in the dance. They observed a
foraging honeybee’s dance, deciphered it, and thereby
  (10)   deduced the location of the food source the bee had
discovered. Yet questions still remained regarding the
precise mechanism used to transmit that information.

In the 1960s, Wenner and Esch each discovered
independently that dancing honeybees emit low-
  (15)   frequency sounds, which we now know to come from
wing vibrations. Both researchers reasoned that this
might explain the bees’ ability to communicate
effectively even in completely dark nests. But at that
time many scientists mistakenly believed that
  (20)   honeybees lack hearing, so the issue remained
unresolved. Wenner subsequently proposed that smell
rather than hearing was the key to honeybee
communication. He hypothesized that honeybees
derive information not from sound, but from odors the
  (25)   forager conveys from the food source.

Yet Gould has shown that foragers can dispatch
bees to sites they had not actually visited, something
that would not be possible if odor were in fact
necessary to bees’ communication. Finally, using a
  (30)   honeybee robot to simulate the forager’s dance,
Kirchner and Michelsen showed that sounds emitted
during the forager’s dance do indeed play an essential
role in conveying information about the food’s
location.

Passage B

(35)   All animals communicate in some sense. Bees
dance, ants leave trails, some fish emit high-voltage
signals. But some species—bees, birds, and primates,
for example—communicate symbolically. In an
experiment with vervet monkeys in the wild,
  (40)   Seyfarth, Cheney, and Marler found that prerecorded
vervet alarm calls from a loudspeaker elicited the
same response as did naturally produced vervet calls
alerting the group to the presence of a predator of a
particular type. Vervets looked upward upon hearing
  (45)   an eagle alarm call, and they scanned the ground
below in response to a snake alarm call. These
responses suggest that each alarm call represents, for
vervets, a specific type of predator.

Karl von Frisch was first to crack the code of the
  (50)   honeybee’s dance, which he described as “language.”
The dance symbolically represents the distance,
direction, and quality of newly discovered food.
Adrian Wenner and others believed that bees rely on
olfactory cues, as well as the dance, to find a food
  (55)   source, but this has turned out not to be so.

While it is true that bees have a simple nervous
system, they do not automatically follow just any
information. Biologist James Gould trained foraging
bees to find food in a boat placed in the middle of a
  (60)   lake and then allowed them to return to the hive to
indicate this new location. He found that hive
members ignored the foragers’ instructions,
presumably because no pollinating flowers grow in
such a place.    1 
 1. The passages have which one of the following aims in common?

(A) arguing that certain nonhuman animals possess human-like intelligence
(B) illustrating the sophistication with which certain primates communicate
(C) describing certain scientific studies concerned with animal communication
(D) airing a scientific controversy over the function of the honeybee’s dance
(E) analyzing the conditions a symbolic system must meet in order to be considered a language

2 
 2. Which one of the following statements most accurately characterizes a difference between the two passages?

(A) Passage A is concerned solely with honeybee communication, whereas passage B is concerned with other forms of animal communication as well.
(B) Passage A discusses evidence adduced by scientists in support of certain claims, whereas passage B merely presents some of those claims without discussing the support that has been adduced for them.
(C) Passage B is entirely about recent theories of honeybee communication, whereas passage A outlines the historic development of theories of honeybee communication.
(D) Passage B is concerned with explaining the distinction between symbolic and nonsymbolic communication, whereas passage A, though making use of the distinction, does not explain it. 
(E) Passage B is concerned with gaining insight into human communication by considering certain types of nonhuman communication, whereas passage A is concerned with these types of nonhuman communication in their own right.

3 
 3. Which one of the following statements is most strongly supported by Gould’s research, as reported in the two passages?

(A) 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.
(B) Forager honeybees instinctively know where pollinating flowers usually grow and will not dispatch their nestmates to any other places.
(C) Only experienced forager honeybees are able to locate the best food sources.
(D) 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.
(E) 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.

4 
 4. It can be inferred from the passages that the author of passage A and the author of passage B would accept which one of the following statements?

(A) Honeybees will ignore the instructions conveyed in the forager’s dance if they are unable to detect odors from the food source.
(B) Wenner and Esch established that both sound and odor play a vital role in most honeybee communication.
(C) Most animal species can communicate symbolically in some form or other.
(D) The work of von Frisch was instrumental in answering fundamental questions about how honeybees communicate.
(E) Inexperienced forager honeybees that dance to communicate with other bees in their nest learn the intricacies of the dance from more experienced foragers.

5 
 5. Which one of the following most accurately describes a relationship between the two passages?

(A) Passage A discusses and rejects a position that is put forth in passage B.
(B) Passage A gives several examples of a phenomenon for which passage B gives only one example.
(C) Passage A is concerned in its entirety with a phenomenon that passage B discusses in support of a more general thesis.
(D) Passage A proposes a scientific explanation for a phenomenon that passage B argues cannot be plausibly explained.
(E) Passage A provides a historical account of the origins of a phenomenon that is the primary concern of passage B.

singhaz · Answer

In ancient Greece, Aristotle documented the
ability of foraging honeybees to recruit nestmates to a
good food source. He did not speculate on how the
communication occurred, but he and naturalists since
(5) then have observed that a bee that finds a new food
source returns to the nest and “dances” for its
nestmates. In the 1940s, von Frisch and colleagues
discovered a pattern in the dance. They observed a
foraging honeybee’s dance, deciphered it, and thereby
(10) deduced the location of the food source the bee had
discovered. Yet questions still remained regarding the
precise mechanism used to transmit that information.

Summary: Naturalist observed bees dances in pattern which nestmates decode for foodsource location but how this process happen?

In the 1960s, Wenner and Esch each discovered
independently that dancing honeybees emit low-
(15) frequency sounds, which we now know to come from
wing vibrations. Both researchers reasoned that this
might explain the bees’ ability to communicate
effectively even in completely dark nests. But at that
time many scientists mistakenly believed that
(20) honeybees lack hearing, so the issue remained
unresolved. Wenner subsequently proposed that smell
rather than hearing was the key to honeybee
communication. He hypothesized that honeybees
derive information not from sound, but from odors the
(25) forager conveys from the food source.

Summary: Wenner & Esch, independently found bees wings produce sound but many scientists believed that bees lack hearing & hence issue remain unresolved. Wenner further suggest forager bees conveys communication through odor of food source.

Yet Gould has shown that foragers can dispatch
bees to sites they had not actually visited, something
that would not be possible if odor were in fact
necessary to bees’ communication. Finally, using a 
(30) honeybee robot to simulate the forager’s dance,
Kirchner and Michelsen showed that sounds emitted
during the forager’s dance do indeed play an essential
role in conveying information about the food’s
location.

Summary: Gould shows foragers can direct bees to sites they themselves not visited. Kirchner and Michelsen with bee robot shows sounds during bees dance play important role in bees communication.

Overall this passage was about bees and how they communicate information with each other.

Passage B

(35) All animals communicate in some sense. Bees
dance, ants leave trails, some fish emit high-voltage
signals. But some species—bees, birds, and primates,
for example—communicate symbolically. In an
experiment with vervet monkeys in the wild,
(40) Seyfarth, Cheney, and Marler found that prerecorded
vervet alarm calls from a loudspeaker elicited the
same response as did naturally produced vervet calls
alerting the group to the presence of a predator of a
particular type. Vervets looked upward upon hearing
(45) an eagle alarm call, and they scanned the ground
below in response to a snake alarm call. These
responses suggest that each alarm call represents, for
vervets, a specific type of predator.

Summary: All animals communicate in some way. Seyfarth, Cheney, and Marler found vervet monkeys have specific alarm calls for different predators.

Karl von Frisch was first to crack the code of the
(50) honeybee’s dance, which he described as “language.”
The dance symbolically represents the distance,
direction, and quality of newly discovered food.
Adrian Wenner and others believed that bees rely on
olfactory cues, as well as the dance, to find a food
(55) source, but this has turned out not to be so.

Summary: Karl von Frisch first decode bees dance which represents direction of food. Bees doesnt depend on olfactory cues.

While it is true that bees have a simple nervous
system, they do not automatically follow just any
information. Biologist James Gould trained foraging
bees to find food in a boat placed in the middle of a
(60) lake and then allowed them to return to the hive to
indicate this new location. He found that hive
members ignored the foragers’ instructions,
presumably because no pollinating flowers grow in
such a place.

Summary: Bees do no follow any information as per Gould.

Overall: It discussed about animals and bees, further study of how bees communicate.

1. The passages have which one of the following aims in common?

Both passages discusses about bees

(A) arguing that certain nonhuman animals possess human-like intelligence
No, this was not discussed.
(B) illustrating the sophistication with which certain primates communicate
It didnt discussed about primates, it discuss mostly about bees.

(C) describing certain scientific studies concerned with animal communication
Both passages discusses about animals communication, first with bees and second with monkey and bees both.

(D) airing a scientific controversy over the function of the honeybee’s dance
There was no controversy, It was experiment and observation.

(E) analyzing the conditions a symbolic system must meet in order to be considered a language
Both passages was not about language.

2. Which one of the following statements most accurately characterizes a difference between the two passages?

(A) Passage A is concerned solely with honeybee communication, whereas passage B is concerned with other forms of animal communication as well.
Correct, passage a discusses bees only whereas passage b discussed bees and monkeys as well.

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

(A) 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.
Bees does not rely on olfactory information for communication, Gould does not mention anything about this.

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

(C) Only experienced forager honeybees are able to locate the best food sources.
Wrong, not mentioned

(D) 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.
Yes, in parragraph 3 and last parragraph, this is clearly mentioned.

(E) 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.
Wrong

4. It can be inferred from the passages that the author of passage A and the author of passage B would accept which one of the following statements?

(A) Honeybees will ignore the instructions conveyed in the forager’s dance if they are unable to detect odors from the food source.
Wrong

(B) Wenner and Esch established that both sound and odor play a vital role in most honeybee communication.
Wrong

(C) Most animal species can communicate symbolically in some form or other.
Wrong, this is already mentioned so we cannot infer.

(D) The work of von Frisch was instrumental in answering fundamental questions about how honeybees communicate.
yes, von Frisch was the first to crack the code.

(E) Inexperienced forager honeybees that dance to communicate with other bees in their nest learn the intricacies of the dance from more experienced foragers.
Wrong

5. Which one of the following most accurately describes a relationship between the two passages?
both passages discuss about communication.

(A) Passage A discusses and rejects a position that is put forth in passage B.
No
(B) Passage A gives several examples of a phenomenon for which passage B gives only one example.
Wrong

(C) Passage A is concerned in its entirety with a phenomenon that passage B discusses in support of a more general thesis.
Passage A is conecrned with bees communication while passage B generalises the thesis by giving example of monkey and mentioning other animals.

(D) Passage A proposes a scientific explanation for a phenomenon that passage B argues cannot be plausibly explained.
Wrong

(E) Passage A provides a historical account of the origins of a phenomenon that is the primary concern of passage B
Wrong

VerbalBot · Answer

Automated notice from GMAT Club VerbalBot: 

A member just gave Kudos to this thread, showing it’s still useful. I’ve bumped it to the top so more people can benefit. Feel free to add your own questions or solutions.

 This post was generated automatically.

In ancient Greece, Aristotle documented the ability of foraging honeyb

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Reading Comprehension (RC) Questions

In ancient Greece, Aristotle documented the ability of foraging honeyb

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards