A question about how two texts relate tests how their claims and evidence connect. Read the question, then put each text’s explanation and its reason into a few words. For experiments, ask what changed and what stayed the same, because that tells you what the results can show. Then name how the texts connect, including how far each conclusion goes. A choice can get one text right while overstating the other.
Hints
- Hint 1
In Text 1, find the observation and the explanation drawn from it. Then look for what Roy’s team tests in Text 2.
- Hint 2
In Roy’s experiment, look for what changes between the pots and what stays the same.
- Hint 3
What happens to the wheat’s iron benefit in the treated pots? Compare that result with Text 1’s explanation, and track what Roy’s team says is still possible.
Step-by-step
Compare the explanation with the follow-up test
Step 1Find Text 1’s claim and reason
Wheat gained iron in Text 1 even with the crops’ roots separated by mesh. What explanation does Ortega’s team give? To compare the texts’ claims, start with its conclusion: these acids crossed the mesh and made iron available to the wheat. Text 1 credits the chickpea acids, which can free iron from soil.
- Step 2
Find what the second test changes
What else could pass through the mesh? Text 2 adds thin filaments produced by mycorrhizal fungi, so separating roots didn’t keep fungi out. Roy’s team then tried suppressing the fungi in some pots without altering the chickpeas’ acid secretion. The test changes fungal activity while keeping acid secretion the same.
- Step 3
Read what the lost benefit shows
The wheat’s iron benefit disappeared in those pots even though acid secretion continued. What does that result show? The acids weren’t enough on their own, so fungi were needed for the wheat’s extra iron, and Text 2 limits Ortega’s explanation. Roy still allows that the acids may still loosen iron, which leaves them a possible role in freeing it. But the test doesn’t prove acids were needed too, because Roy’s team never stopped their secretion.
- Step 4
Check each account against both texts
The line with rejects that argument denies a role Roy leaves open; roots may have passed through the mesh swaps fungal filaments for roots. Both acid secretion and fungal activity are necessary says acids were needed even though the test didn’t check that. The choice about another pathway permitted by the mesh shows why Ortega’s acid explanation is incomplete: fungal networks are necessary for the wheat’s increased uptake. Choice A.