SAT OwlQuestion bank / Rhetorical Synthesis
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
• Honeybee foragers perform a "waggle dance" after returning to the hive.
• The angle of the dance relative to vertical indicates the direction of a food source relative to the sun.
• The duration of the waggle portion of the dance indicates the distance to the food.
• Austrian biologist Karl von Frisch decoded the dance's meaning.
• He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The student wants to explain how the waggle dance communicates both the direction of and the distance to a food source. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
Karl von Frisch, an Austrian biologist, decoded the honeybee's waggle dance and shared a Nobel Prize in 1973.
In the waggle dance, the angle relative to vertical signals the direction of food relative to the sun, while the length of the waggle signals the distance.
Honeybee foragers perform a waggle dance that communicates information about food sources.
After returning to the hive, honeybee foragers perform a dance whose meaning was decoded by Karl von Frisch.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
The goal asks how the dance conveys two things, direction and distance. Choice B explains both: the angle shows direction and the length of the waggle shows distance. Choice C says only that the dance carries information about food, and choices A and D are about von Frisch instead of the dance.
Choice C is true, but it doesn't explain how direction and distance are communicated.
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