#6 - Besides laying eggs in her own nest, any female wood

[martinbeslu]

I guess the part that I don't understand is that the passage never says that there was parasitic behavior in the nesting boxes. It just says that people undercut the duck's reproductive efforts by putting up the boxes and that the nesting boxes are so crowded that few, if any, of the eggs hatch. I just don't see what makes C more wrong when we have to make an assumption either way. We are either assuming that it's crowded because the nesting boxes are too small or we are assuming that it's crowded because there are more eggs in the box. The passage doesn't tell us either way. Both scenarios seem just as plausible. Thank you for all of your help!

[AthenaDalton]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for following up!

The stimulus tells us in the second sentence that "under natural nesting conditions, parasitic behavior is rare." We know from the first sentence that the "parasitic behavior" they're referring to is a female wood duck laying an egg in another female's empty nest.

The last sentence goes on to tell us that artificial nesting boxes become crowded with "extra eggs" which prevents all of the eggs from hatching. I think the term "extra eggs" tips us off to the fact that some of the eggs in the box are from the parasitic females. If it were just a case of the boxes being too small, the term "extra eggs" would seem out of place.

As for distinguishing between (C) and (D), we are looking for an answer choice that is supported by the statements in the stimulus. We have several pieces of information about the parasitic female problem, which support (D). However, we have no information at all about the size of artificial nesting boxes as compared to natural nests, so (C) should be looked at with some suspicion.

I hope that helps clarify things for you. Good luck!

[whardy21]

I struggled with this question and chose D over C. My logic for C was, we do not know if the nesting boxes have less space than the natural testing sites. All we know is that they become overcrowded. That is not the same thing as less space. A Giant venue can hold a lot of people, but if the venue becomes overcrowded that doesn't mean it has less space than another giant venue that's not overcrowded. That helped me get this question right.

[George George]

@whardy21 Yes. That's a good way of understanding the problem in (C). I concur!

[ericsilvagomez]

Hi,

For this question, I chose answer choice C because the last sentence mentions crowded boxes. I thought the explanation made sense. However, can you elaborate on how the last sentence says the boxes are too visible? I thought it meant that the boxes had less space.

[Robert Carroll]

ericsilvagomez,

There is a discussion of answer choice (C) earlier in this thread. I can rehash it now, but it would be beneficial for you to check out the entire thread on any question you have issues on, because your concerns may already have been addressed.

There is no indication of the size of a nesting box in the stimulus. Its becoming overcrowded is compatible with its starting at any size - smaller than, equal to, or larger than a natural site. The point is, the boxes become overcrowded. A box that is much larger than a natural site could become overcrowded, so that says nothing about the space for eggs they have.

The second sentence of the stimulus shows that the parasitic behavior is rare because natural sites are well-hidden. The boxes are not well-hidden. Thus, the boxes encourage much more parasitic behavior, leading to overcrowding, because the boxes are too easy to find. This is enough to prove answer choice (D).

Robert Carroll

[BeyondPossum]

This is a strange question because there is no sentence dedicated to stating or even implying that the artificial boxes are poorly hidden. The only reason one would be led to infer that it's failing to hide the artificial boxes (rather than, say, their diminutive size) that leads to the failure of the artificial boxes is by being impressed by the fact that the author spent a few sentences on the importance of hiding nests. But, typically, in LR, it's precisely making such an inference ("the author talked about X, so X must be important") that gets you into trouble. This next question is much more of an RC-style question that tests your ability to pick up subtle subtext.

This question makes perfect sense only if you take the stims phrase "their reproductive efforts" to specifically refer to the birds' efforts to hide their nest (rather than everything involved in reproduction such as, y'know, gathering energy, etc.) But it's a stretch to force this interpretation.

[Dana D]

Hey BeyondPossum,

The stimulus is actually implying that the boxes are not well hidden at all - they are very visible. We're told that a female duck will lay an egg in another female's nest if she sees that duck leaving her nest. Normally, this happens rarely because other nests are well hidden. However, these nesting boxes must be more visible because the boxes are so crowded with extra eggs, presumably because these ducks can easily see other ducks leaving these boxes and as we were told, any time a duck sees another leave they will go in and lay an egg.

Based on this, answer choice (D) is the most strongly supported answer choice - if the boxes were less visible, the parasitic behavior would be more rare, and the nesting boxes would be less crowded.

Hope that helps!