Free SAT Practice Question

Question 1 of 1
ID: SAT-RW-II-028
Section: SAT Reading & Writing (RW) – Information and Ideas
Topic: Inferences
Difficulty level: Hard

Practice Mode: Single selected Question » Back to Overview

Ecologists once assumed that how quickly a coral reef recovers after a bleaching event depends mainly on how many adult corals survive nearby, since those survivors release the larvae that resettle the damaged patches. A recent survey complicated that picture. On reefs where plant-eating fish were abundant, bleached patches were recolonized quickly even when few adult corals remained, because the fish kept fast-growing seaweed from smothering the bare rock on which coral larvae must land and attach. On otherwise similar reefs where such fish were scarce, recovery stalled even though healthy adult corals were plentiful nearby. Taken together, these findings suggest that a reef's capacity to recover from bleaching depends ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

Amore on how fast seaweed happens to grow on a given reef than on anything the reef's plant-eating fish actually do.

Bprimarily on the number of healthy adult corals surviving nearby that are able to release larvae into the damaged patches.

Con the reef managers' ability to prevent bleaching events from occurring on vulnerable reefs in the first place.

Dnot only on the supply of coral larvae but also on whether plant-eating fish keep the bare rock clear enough for larvae to settle.

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