An inference question about a study tests what the results let you conclude, not what sounds likely. Start by naming each group and what it showed, then track how those results changed over time. Ask which possible causes the researchers tested: a cause shared by both groups can't explain their difference. Predict the smallest conclusion that fits all the results and stays within what was measured. Wrong answers often add a cause or rule the study never tested.
Hints
- Hint 1
Separate the experimental colonies from the colonies without demonstrators. Compare what each group preferred.
- Hint 2
Look for the timing of the later workers’ behavior. Which earlier bees had died, and which bee had these workers never encountered?
- Hint 3
Revisit the measurements of sugar and force, then the workers that tried the opposite direction. Use those details to judge what the continuing preference can and can't show.
Step-by-step
Track the preference and test other causes
Step 1Find what shaped the first preference
With the assignment varying among colonies, most workers adopted their demonstrator’s direction. What happened without a demonstrator? Control colonies without demonstrators showed no consistent preference. The conclusion needs to explain a preference for the direction each colony was shown, not for one direction across all colonies.
- Step 2
Track what lasted
How long did that preference last? Weeks after the demonstrator and its earliest imitators had died, later workers still followed their colony’s direction. These were workers that had never encountered the demonstrator, so they couldn't have copied that original bee directly. The preference outlasted the bees that started it, but the study doesn't say how every later worker learned it.
- Step 3
Test whether the alternative still worked
Was the usual direction more rewarding or easier to use? Both movements gave the same amount of sugar and required the same force throughout the experiment. Some workers also tried the opposite direction, but this variant seldom spread. So a workable alternative rarely caught on. That shows which technique workers favored, not whether early learning permanently reduced their ability to push the other way.
- Step 4
Choose the supported conclusion
A technique kept in use as a colony’s workers change is a colony-level tradition. The choice saying can persist fits that pattern without adding a rule about how every worker must learn. Its phrase even when another equally effective technique remains available shows that workers could still use the other technique with the same results, so the conclusion is about preference rather than a physical limit. Choice A.