A sentence function question about research tests whether you can tell what an underlined result does for the text. Read around that sentence and label each sentence’s job: what researchers suggest, what they find, and what follows. Then predict how it helps the text by asking which idea it supports and how the later results relate to it. Check every part of a choice, because a real detail can still be tied to the wrong claim.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the sentence beginning But alongside the laboratory result. Ask how the result connects to that idea.
- Hint 2
Compare when the males flash with who is present in the trials. What can the researchers tell from each detail?
- Hint 3
Look at the two parts of the final sentence. Which part does the laboratory result help explain?
Step-by-step
Trace the finding’s role
Step 1Find the competing ideas
The opening sentence calls synchronized flashing cooperative, a way to attract females through a group display. What changes at But synchronization could also arise competitively? The text shifts to the idea that males try to flash before their neighbors. To name the laboratory sentence’s function, let's see which idea the result supports.
- Step 2
Read the timing response
What do the trials show? Males consistently advanced the timing of their next flash, so they flashed earlier after seeing nearby flashes. That fits the suggestion that a male might try to get ahead of its neighbors. The phrase even though no females were present means this response occurred without females there to attract. The trial result supports a possible competitive cause without females present.
- Step 3
Connect the laboratory and field results
What does the field result add? The finding that females approach synchronized groups more often than unsynchronized groups shows a possible benefit of the display. The conclusion separates what may generate the pattern from what may maintain it. So the laboratory sentence supports how the pattern could begin, while the field finding suggests why it might last.
- Step 4
Check both parts of the choice
Now check the choice beginning It supplies evidence part by part. The phrases competitive timing response and without female involvement describe what the laboratory finding supports. Its last part fits competition may generate the pattern even if female preference helps maintain it, so it names the difference between how synchronization could start and why it might last. Choice A.