A table question about a study tests whether you can connect numbers to a conclusion the study supports. Read the sentence with the blank, then find what researchers changed and measured. Use the title and headings to compare groups that differ in one treatment, then compare those gaps across the other treatment. Finally, check how much the study can show: a pattern can support an explanation without proving it when another explanation remains possible.
Hints
- Hint 1
The study changes donor light and whether fungal filaments stay connected. Compare intact and severed connections within each donor light treatment.
- Hint 2
After calculating those differences, return to the other way intact filaments could help recipients. What does the table measure, and can that measurement tell the two proposed ways apart?
Step-by-step
Compare the connection's benefit, then limit the conclusion
Step 1Pair groups that differ in one thing
The donors grew in full light or heavy shade, while recipients had the same light and watering conditions. Which groups can we compare to draw a conclusion from the table? Let's compare intact and severed connections within each donor light treatment, so only the connection changes within each pair.
- Step 2
Calculate the connection's benefit
To see how much filaments improve a young recipient plant's growth, read the title and column headings: the table gives mean recipient biomass after 12 weeks, in grams, with connections intact or severed. How much does the connection add in each row? Full light gives 3.6 minus 2.4, or 1.2 grams; heavy shade gives 2.3 minus 2.1, or 0.2 grams. The connection adds much more in full light.
- Step 3
Separate support from proof
Does that larger benefit show that resources moved from donor to recipient? Heavy shade reduced donor photosynthesis, so the pattern fits donors supplying more resources when they have more light. But intact filaments might also help by altering soil conditions, and the table measures growth rather than resource movement. The result supports transfer without proving it.
- Step 4
Check the choices' claims
Intensified the effect gets the drop sizes backward, and largely compensated compares groups that changed in two ways. The 0.3-gram gap among disconnected recipients means the table doesn't support only in only when the fungal connection was intact. The choice reporting a larger connection advantage in full light says the pattern is not sufficient to prove transfer, leaving room for benefits without transferring resources from donors. Choice D.