#4 - In the spring and fall, eastern pipistrelle bats roost deep inside caves. They feed

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Resolve. The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

[ChicaRosa]

I had a hard time with this question and was stuck between B,C, and E and I ended up choosing E instead of B and I'm curious to know why B is correct instead of E?

I eliminated C because the stimulus said that the temperature outside is the same as inside the caves. Correct me if I'm wrong about that.

I eliminated B because I didn't understand what the answer choice was talking about but now that I look back at it I think it makes sense because it addresses weather change and how the bats react to it. Again correct me if my understanding is correct.

I thought E was correct because I thought it addressed about bats leaving the cave to hunt for food but is it wrong because it's general and it doesn't address weather change?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Hey there Chica, sorry to take so long to get back to you on this one.

The problem we are trying to resolve here is that the temperature inside the caves stay pretty much constant, and yet more bats go out to hunt when it is warmer outside and there is more food flying around. How do they know it's warmer outside when their cave temperature hasn't changed? We need to find the source of their knowledge about the outside temp, and answer B provides it - they sense pressure changes that tell them about the temp because of a correlation with the temp. It's like knowing that it's cold outside not because you can feel it in your nice warm house, but because you see frost on the windows.

C and E don't explain how the bats know to go out hunting when it's warmer. C tells us only that if they go out in the cold they won't last long, but gives no indication about how they know about the temp before they get outside. E tells us nothing at all about variations in temperature and what bats might know, just that most of them went out hunting during the study.

Does that clear it up? Hope I helped!

[jwooon]

Should I have known to assume that there is a causal relationship between the bats leaving the cave and there being an increased flying insects out during warmer nights? I kept (C) as a contender (since it gives an alternate explanation as to why bats might be out when its warmer: they can’t fly long in the cold) but only eliminated the answer choice because I thought “they could still go out, it’s just they would have to fly out more frequently to get more food.” But I flagged the question because I wasn’t all that convinced that (B) was the right answer in case the causal relationship was NOT implied, which meant that (B) was irrelevant to the stimulus. (Not sure if this explanation makes sense!)

[Dana D]

Hey Jwooon,

Be careful here - there isn't an explicit causal relationship, researchers just noticed that increased flying insects in warm weather more bats fly outside the cave, not the other way around. This is a resolve the paradox question, meaning we need to explain why more bats leave the caves on warm nights when the temperature in the cave is pretty stable. Sure there are more insects out on warm nights, but how do the bats know this is a better time to catch prey if their cave temps are constant? Answer choice (B) explains that for us by providing an alternative way the bats can detect that more flying insects are outside - the change in barometric temp inside the cave.

Hope that helps!