Question Bank / Reading and Writing / Inferences
Inferences SAT question
Reading and Writing · Information and Ideas · Hard · Answer it here, explanation included.
A team of biologists led by Jae-Hoon Jung, Antonio D. Barbosa, and Stephanie Hutin investigated the mechanism that allows Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) plants to accelerate flowering at high temperatures. They replaced the protein ELF3 in the plants with a similar protein found in another species (stiff brome) that, unlike A. thaliana, displays no acceleration in flowering with increased temperature. A comparison of unmodified A. thaliana plants with the altered plants showed no difference in flowering at 22° Celsius, but at 27° Celsius, the unmodified plants exhibited accelerated flowering while the altered ones did not, which suggests that blank
Which choice most logically completes the text?
ExplanationShow
Choice C is the best answer because it most logically completes the text’s discussion of accelerated flowering in A. thaliana plants. The text indicates that A. thaliana plants show accelerated flowering at high temperatures. To investigate the mechanism for this accelerated flowering, biologists replaced the ELF3 protein in one group of A. thaliana plants with a similar protein found in another plant species that doesn’t show accelerated flowering. The team then compared these modified plants to A. thaliana plants that retained their original ELF3 protein. The text states that the two samples of plants showed no difference in flowering at 22° Celsius, but at 27° Celsius the unaltered plants with ELF3 showed accelerated flowering while the plants without ELF3 didn’t. If accelerated flowering at the higher temperature occurred in the A. thaliana plants with ELF3 but not in the plants without the protein, then ELF3 likely enables A. thaliana to respond to increased temperatures.
Choice A is incorrect because the text doesn’t mention whether any plants other than A. thaliana and stiff brome show temperature-sensitive flowering, so there is no support for the idea that this type of flowering is unique to A. thaliana. Choice B is incorrect because the text discusses the effects of ELF3 and not the production of it. There’s nothing in the text to suggest that the amount of ELF3 in A. thaliana varies with temperature. Choice D is incorrect. While the text states that there was no difference in the flowering of modified and unmodified A. thaliana plants at 22° Celsius, there’s no suggestion that A. thaliana only begins to flower at 22° Celsius; the text doesn’t mention a specific temperature threshold required for A. thaliana flowering.
Drill this skill on Aceit
Adaptive practice, a daily plan, and score tracking take a free account so we can save your work.
More Inferences questions
- Marta Coll and colleagues' 2010 Mediterranean Sea biodiversity census reported approximately 17,000 species, nearly double the number reported in Carlo Bianchi and Carla Morri's 20
- In her 2021 article "Throwaway History: Towards a Historiography of Ephemera," scholar Anne Garner discusses John Johnson (1882–1956), a devoted collector of items intended to be d
- Researchers recently found that disruptions to an enjoyable experience, like a short series of advertisements during a television show, often increase viewers' reported enjoyment.
- Many of William Shakespeare's tragedies address broad themes that still appeal to today's audiences. For instance, Romeo and Juliet, which is set in the Italy of Shakespeare's time
- In the early nineteenth century, some Euro-American farmers in the northeastern United States used agricultural techniques developed by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people centurie
- Some businesses believe that when employees are interrupted while doing their work, they experience a decrease in energy and productivity. However, a team led by Harshad Puranik, w