#3 - Concept Reference, Parallel

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

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

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[soupynoodles14]

I picked B because this passage clearly entails an okapi "never eat[ing] one plant to the exclusion of others" and "leaving much of [a given plant] uneaten", which I thought was most comparable to a professor sticking to their plan and not following up on irrelevant student questions. Indeed, the okapi have a plan because there is a limited subset of plants to which they identify. A newspaper reader skipping from story to story would not have a list of twenty headlines that are somehow more desirable as opposed to the rest at any given time, because a newspaper itself will be different depending on the news from day-to-day.

Why is B wrong? I seem to struggle with parallel reasoning questions of this sort.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi soupynoodles14!

You're right to concentrate on that particular language around lines 37 to 43, which discusses okapi eating habits.

What I took from the description in the passage is that okapis like to sample bits and pieces of various options. Even "where preferred foliage is abundant," the passage explains, they still choose "to move on and sample other leaves." One similarly sees sampling bits and pieces of various options in answer choice (D). The newspaper reader skips from story to story (like the okapis moves from plant to plant), just reading headlines and eye-catching paragraphs (eye-catching paragraphs seem like preferred plants).

I can kind of see how you might think that okapis have a plan, inasmuch as there are some plants they prefer to others. I think that's a little bit of a stretch, but even more so given the language in (B) of "strictly following" a plan/outline and "never digressing." There's nothing in the passage stating that okapis strictly stuck to only their preferred foliage, for example. Even though there's a limited set of plants they eat, there's nothing stating that they plan in advance which plants to eat, nor anything stating that they are particularly regimented in how they choose from these plants.