Question 127·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Craft and Structure
Some animal-communication researchers have argued that calls made by Japanese tits work in a syntax-like way: listeners respond not only to the individual calls in a sequence but also to their order. A simpler account is that the birds react only to overall arousal, since more urgent situations may produce more intense calls. In a playback experiment, Keiko Suzuki's team independently varied call order and acoustic intensity. If the arousal account by itself were sufficient, swapping the order of two calls while preserving their intensity should leave the listeners' response unchanged. Instead, the birds approached the speaker only when the calls occurred in the naturally observed order, even when the reversed sequence was equally intense. The result does not establish that the calls have all the properties of human syntax, but it does undermine an explanation based solely on arousal.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
For a function question involving competing explanations, identify whether the underlined material states evidence, a prediction, an assumption, or a conclusion. Then use the surrounding sentences to determine which account it belongs to and whether the author treats the resulting evidence as conclusive or merely as weakening an alternative.
Hints
Separate prediction from result
Determine whether the underlined conditional sentence reports what happened or states what should happen under one proposed explanation.
Track the source of the prediction
Identify which of the two competing accounts is named in the sentence's opening condition.
Consider the final qualification
Use the passage's last sentence to decide how strongly the experimental outcome supports either account.
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the competing accounts
One account proposes that the order of the calls affects how listeners interpret them. The simpler account proposes that the birds respond only to arousal conveyed through acoustic intensity.
Interpret the conditional statement
The underlined sentence states what should happen if the arousal-only account is sufficient: reversing the calls while keeping their intensity unchanged should also leave the response unchanged. Thus, the sentence formulates a prediction rather than reporting a result.
Connect the prediction to the result and caveat
The birds respond differently when the order is reversed, so the predicted unchanged response does not occur. This outcome weakens the arousal-only explanation, but the final sentence cautions that doing so is not equivalent to proving that the calls possess all the properties of syntax.